169-504: Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film . He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp , and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until
338-445: A 16 fps projection of the same reel would take 16 minutes and 40 seconds, or 304 millimetres (12.0 in) per second. In the 1950s, many telecine conversions of silent films at grossly incorrect frame rates for broadcast television may have alienated viewers. Film speed is often a vexed issue among scholars and film buffs in the presentation of silents today, especially when it comes to DVD releases of restored films , such as
507-415: A brief attempt at a solo act was a failure. Meanwhile, Sydney Chaplin had joined Fred Karno 's prestigious comedy company in 1906 and, by 1908, he was one of their key performers. In February, he managed to secure a two-week trial for his younger brother. Karno was initially wary, and considered Chaplin a "pale, puny, sullen-looking youngster" who "looked much too shy to do any good in the theatre". However,
676-517: A depressing fear of being old-fashioned". In this state of uncertainty, early in 1931, the comedian decided to take a holiday and ended up travelling for 16 months. He spent months travelling Western Europe, including extended stays in France and Switzerland, and spontaneously decided to visit Japan. The day after he arrived in Japan, Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated by ultra-nationalists in
845-546: A disquieting feeling of sinking back into a depressing commonplaceness" and was, therefore, delighted when a new tour began in October. Six months into the second American tour, Chaplin was invited to join the New York Motion Picture Company. A representative who had seen his performances thought he could replace Fred Mace , a star of their Keystone Studios who intended to leave. Chaplin thought
1014-521: A gibberish song did, however, give the Tramp a voice for the only time on film. After recording the music, Chaplin released Modern Times in February 1936. It was his first feature in 15 years to adopt political references and social realism, a factor that attracted considerable press coverage despite Chaplin's attempts to downplay the issue. The film earned less at the box-office than his previous features and received mixed reviews, as some viewers disliked
1183-413: A key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Inter-titles (or titles as they were generally called at the time) "often were graphic elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decorations that commented on the action". Showings of silent films almost always featured live music starting with the first public projection of movies by
1352-487: A large fan base. In November 1914, he had a supporting role in the first feature length comedy film, Tillie's Punctured Romance , directed by Sennett and starring Marie Dressler , which was a commercial success and increased his popularity. When Chaplin's contract came up for renewal at the end of the year, he asked for $ 1,000 a week, an amount Sennett refused as he thought it was too large. The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company of Chicago sent Chaplin an offer of $ 1,250
1521-483: A large fanbase and demanded more money as he moved to Mutual and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the world's best-paid and best-known figures. In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists , which gave him complete control over his films. His first feature-length film was The Kid (1921), followed by A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), and The Circus (1928). He initially refused to move to sound films in
1690-469: A low budget salute to sentimental silent comedies, particularly Charlie Chaplin 's The Kid . The German film Tuvalu (1999) is mostly silent; the small amount of dialog is an odd mix of European languages, increasing the film's universality. Guy Maddin won awards for his homage to Soviet-era silent films with his short The Heart of the World after which he made a feature-length silent, Brand Upon
1859-645: A much longer time for color to be adopted by the industry and an effective process to be developed. Blue represented night scenes, yellow or amber meant day. Red represented fire and green represented a mysterious atmosphere. Similarly, toning of film (such as the common silent film generalization of sepia -toning) with special solutions replaced the silver particles in the film stock with salts or dyes of various colors. A combination of tinting and toning could be used as an effect that could be striking. Some films were hand-tinted, such as Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894), from Edison Studios . In it, Annabelle Whitford ,
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#17327725758332028-494: A neurotic state of wanting perfection". One advantage Chaplin found in sound technology was the opportunity to record a musical score for the film, which he composed himself. Chaplin finished editing City Lights in December 1930, by which time silent films were an anachronism. A preview before an unsuspecting public audience was not a success, but a showing for the press produced positive reviews. One journalist wrote: "Nobody in
2197-469: A new distribution company, United Artists , in January 1919. The arrangement was revolutionary in the film industry, as it enabled the four partners – all creative artists – to personally fund their pictures and have complete control. Chaplin was eager to start with the new company and offered to buy out his contract with First National. They refused and insisted that he complete
2366-549: A passenger flight, at the-now Emory Roger's Roger's Field which included Chaplin Airfield and DeMille Field No. 2 . The cost was $ 10 for a 10 minute flight with Frank Hawks (later gaining fame as an air racer ), giving her a ride that would forever change Earhart's life. He returned to acting, and later films include The Perfect Flapper (1924) with Colleen Moore , and Charley's Aunt (1925). He made five features for Warner Bros. Pictures , including The Man on
2535-525: A photograph of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush , and later the story of the Donner Party of 1846–1847, he made what Geoffrey Macnab calls "an epic comedy out of grim subject matter". In The Gold Rush , the Tramp is a lonely prospector fighting adversity and looking for love. With Georgia Hale as his leading lady, Chaplin began filming the picture in February 1924. Its elaborate production, costing almost $ 1 million, included location shooting in
2704-602: A poll held by Pictures and the Picturegoer of the greatest British film actors, receiving 142,920 votes from readers. When the Essanay contract ended in December 1915, Chaplin, fully aware of his popularity, requested a $ 150,000 signing bonus from his next studio. He received several offers, including Universal , Fox and Vitagraph , the best of which came from the Mutual Film Corporation at $ 10,000
2873-503: A race to design, implement, and market several rival sound-on-disc and sound-on-film sound formats, such as Photokinema (1921), Phonofilm (1923), Vitaphone (1926), Fox Movietone (1927) and RCA Photophone (1928). Warner Bros. was the first studio to accept sound as an element in film production and utilize the Vitaphone, a sound-on-disc technology, to do so. The studio then released The Jazz Singer in 1927, which marked
3042-503: A romantic drama about ill-fated lovers. Chaplin intended it to be a star-making vehicle for Edna Purviance, and did not appear in the picture himself other than in a brief, uncredited cameo. He wished the film to have a realistic feel and directed his cast to give restrained performances. In real life, he explained, "men and women try to hide their emotions rather than seek to express them". A Woman of Paris premiered in September 1923 and
3211-477: A series of elaborate two-reelers: The Floorwalker , The Fireman , The Vagabond , One A.M. and The Count . For The Pawnshop , he recruited the actor Henry Bergman , who was to work with Chaplin for 30 years. Behind the Screen and The Rink completed Chaplin's releases for 1916. The Mutual contract stipulated that he release a two-reel film every four weeks, which he had managed to achieve. With
3380-404: A setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of inter- title cards . The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era, which existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist , theater organist —or even, in larger cities, an orchestra —would play music to accompany
3549-498: A special effect in many of his films. His 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation used a number of colors, including amber, blue, lavender, and a striking red tint for scenes such as the "burning of Atlanta" and the ride of the Ku Klux Klan at the climax of the picture. Griffith later invented a color system in which colored lights flashed on areas of the screen to achieve a color. With the development of sound-on-film technology and
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#17327725758333718-628: A stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the Fred Karno company, which took him to the United States. He was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios . He soon introduced and adopted the Tramp as his screen persona. He directed his own films and continued to hone his craft as he moved to Essanay Studios , where the Tramp persona was developed emotionally in The Tramp (1915). He then attracted
3887-785: A theatrical agency in London's West End . The manager sensed potential in Chaplin, who was promptly given his first role as a newsboy in Harry Arthur Saintsbury 's Jim, a Romance of Cockayne . It opened in July 1903, but the show was unsuccessful and closed after two weeks. Chaplin's comic performance, however, was singled out for praise in many of the reviews. Saintsbury secured a role for Chaplin in Charles Frohman 's production of Sherlock Holmes , where he played Billy
4056-490: A third son, George Wheeler Dryden , fathered by the music hall entertainer Leo Dryden . The child was taken by Dryden at six months old, and did not re-enter Chaplin's life for thirty years. "I was hardly aware of a crisis because we lived in a continual crisis; and, being a boy, I dismissed our troubles with gracious forgetfulness." Chaplin, on his childhood Chaplin's childhood was fraught with poverty and hardship, making his eventual trajectory "the most dramatic of all
4225-408: A wall or screen. After the advent of photography in the 19th century, still photographs were sometimes used. Narration of the showman was important in spectacular entertainment screenings and vital in the lecturing circuit. The principle of stroboscopic animation was well-known since the introduction of the phenakistiscope in 1833, a popular optical toy , but the development of cinematography
4394-470: A week, with a signing bonus of $ 10,000. He joined the studio in late December 1914, where he began forming a stock company of regular players, actors he worked with again and again, including Ben Turpin , Leo White , Bud Jamison , Paddy McGuire , Fred Goodwins and Billy Armstrong . He soon recruited a leading lady, Edna Purviance , whom Chaplin met in a café and hired on account of her beauty. She went on to appear in 35 films with Chaplin over eight years;
4563-684: A week. A contract was negotiated with Mutual that amounted to $ 670,000 a year, which Robinson says made Chaplin – at 26 years old – one of the highest-paid people in the world. The high salary shocked the public and was widely reported in the press. John R. Freuler, the studio president, explained: "We can afford to pay Mr. Chaplin this large sum annually because the public wants Chaplin and will pay for him." Mutual gave Chaplin his own Los Angeles studio to work in, which opened in March 1916. He added two key members to his stock company, Albert Austin and Eric Campbell , and produced
4732-403: A year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both accolade and controversy. Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. His father was absent and his mother struggled financially—he was sent to a workhouse twice before age nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum . Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as
4901-494: A young dancer from Broadway, is dressed in white veils that appear to change colors as she dances. This technique was designed to capture the effect of the live performances of Loie Fuller , beginning in 1891, in which stage lights with colored gels turned her white flowing dresses and sleeves into artistic movement. Hand coloring was often used in the early "trick" and fantasy films of Europe, especially those by Georges Méliès . Méliès began hand-tinting his work as early as 1897 and
5070-490: Is believed by many to have the first spoken word of dialogue in film, "coffee", although other historians disagree. Syd Chaplin returned to England, where he made his first film for British International Pictures (BIP), A Little Bit of Fluff (1928). This proved to be his final film. In 1929, as he was to begin work on a second film for the studio, Mumming Birds , he was accused of sexual assault by actress Molly Wright. BIP settled out of court, which appeared to concede
5239-451: Is silent during its middle third, complete with intertitles; Stanley Tucci 's The Impostors has an opening silent sequence in the style of early silent comedies. Brazilian filmmaker Renato Falcão's Margarette's Feast (2003) is silent. Writer/director Michael Pleckaitis puts his own twist on the genre with Silent (2007). While not silent, the Mr. Bean television series and movies have used
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5408-492: The benshi , a live narrator who provided commentary and character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film, as well as providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies. The popularity of the benshi was one reason why silent films persisted well into the 1930s in Japan. Conversely, as benshi -narrated films often lacked intertitles, modern-day audiences may sometimes find it difficult to follow
5577-438: The "talkies", "sound films", or "talking pictures" . The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is older than film (it was suggested almost immediately after Edison introduced the phonograph in 1877), and some early experiments had the projectionist manually adjusting the frame rate to fit the sound, but because of the technical challenges involved, the introduction of synchronized dialogue became practical only in
5746-666: The Marble Mountains and the Henri Parmentier Museum . In Hanoi (the capital city of French Indochina) they visited the popular tourist destination Hạ Long Bay , and the couple then left from Hải Phòng to Hong Kong on board of a ship the Canton . The couple had refused to comment on the nature of their relationship, and it was not known whether they were married or not. Sometime later, Chaplin revealed that they married in Canton during this trip. By 1938,
5915-544: The May 15 Incident . The group's original plan had been to provoke a war with the United States by assassinating Chaplin at a welcome reception organised by the prime minister, but the plan had been foiled due to delayed public announcement of the event's date. In his autobiography, Chaplin recalled that on his return to Los Angeles, "I was confused and without plan, restless and conscious of an extreme loneliness". He briefly considered retiring and moving to China. Chaplin's loneliness
6084-587: The Third Liberty Bond campaign, touring the United States for one month to raise money for the Allies of the First World War. He also produced a short propaganda film at his own expense, donated to the government for fund-raising, called The Bond . Chaplin's next release was war-based, placing the Tramp in the trenches for Shoulder Arms . Associates warned him against making a comedy about
6253-630: The Truckee mountains in Nevada with 600 extras, extravagant sets, and special effects . The last scene was shot in May 1925 after 15 months of filming. Chaplin felt The Gold Rush was the best film he had made. It opened in August 1925 and became one of the highest-grossing films of the silent era, with a U.S. box-office of $ 5 million. The comedy contains some of Chaplin's most famous sequences, such as
6422-421: The audience could better understand what an actor was feeling and portraying on screen. Much silent film acting is apt to strike modern-day audiences as simplistic or campy . The melodramatic acting style was in some cases a habit actors transferred from their former stage experience. Vaudeville was an especially popular origin for many American silent film actors. The pervading presence of stage actors in film
6591-556: The nitrate filmstock used in that era was extremely unstable and flammable. Additionally, many films were deliberately destroyed, because they had negligible remaining immediate financial value in that era. It has often been claimed that around 75 percent of silent films produced in the US have been lost, though these estimates are inaccurate due to a lack of numerical data. Film projection mostly evolved from magic lantern shows, in which images from handpainted glass slides were projected onto
6760-526: The 1899 Cendrillion (Cinderella) and 1900 Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) provide early examples of hand-tinted films in which the color was a critical part of the scenography or mise-en-scène ; such precise tinting used the workshop of Elisabeth Thuillier in Paris, with teams of female artists adding layers of color to each frame by hand rather than using a more common (and less expensive) process of stenciling. A newly restored version of Méliès' A Trip to
6929-475: The 1930s, instead producing City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) without dialogue. His first sound film was The Great Dictator (1940), which satirised Adolf Hitler . The 1940s were marked with controversy for Chaplin, and his popularity declined rapidly. He was accused of communist sympathies , and some members of the press and public were scandalised by his involvement in a paternity suit and marriages to much younger women. An FBI investigation
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7098-409: The 24-year-old looked too young. He was not used in a picture until late January, during which time Chaplin attempted to learn the processes of filmmaking. The one-reeler Making a Living marked his film acting debut and was released on 2 February 1914. Chaplin strongly disliked the picture, but one review picked him out as "a comedian of the first water". For his second appearance in front of
7267-463: The Box (1925), Oh, What a Nurse! (1926), The Missing Link (1927), and The Fortune Hunter (1927). Warner Brothers' The Better 'Ole (1926) is perhaps Syd's best-known film today because of his characterisation of Old Bill , adapted from a World War I character created by cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather . Also, this was the second Warner Bros. film to have a Vitaphone soundtrack. This film
7436-519: The Brain! (2006), incorporating live Foley artists , narration and orchestra at select showings. Shadow of the Vampire (2000) is a highly fictionalized depiction of the filming of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau 's classic silent vampire movie Nosferatu (1922). Werner Herzog honored the same film in his own version, Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979). Some films draw a direct contrast between
7605-595: The Chaplins in Hollywood . Sydney Chaplin was also a half-uncle of actor Sydney Chaplin (1926–2009), who was named after him. Sydney John Hill was born in London to the unmarried 19-year-old Hannah Hill, who was a music hall entertainer. She claimed the boy's father was Sydney Hawkes, but his father's identity was never verified. Hannah was of Romanichal heritage. A year later, his mother married Charles Chaplin Sr. , and
7774-646: The Devil (1927). Israel has worked mainly in silent comedy, scoring the films of Harold Lloyd , Buster Keaton , Charley Chase , and others. Timothy Brock has restored many of Charlie Chaplin 's scores, in addition to composing new scores. Contemporary music ensembles are helping to introduce classic silent films to a wider audience through a broad range of musical styles and approaches. Some performers create new compositions using traditional musical instruments, while others add electronic sounds, modern harmonies, rhythms, improvisation, and sound design elements to enhance
7943-541: The Keystone comedies "a crude mélange of rough and rumble", but liked the idea of working in films and rationalised: "Besides, it would mean a new life." He met with the company and signed a $ 150-per-week contract in September 1913. Chaplin arrived in Los Angeles in early December, and began working for the Keystone studio on 5 January 1914. Chaplin's boss was Mack Sennett , who initially expressed concern that
8112-480: The Keystone stock company in supporting roles before starring as a new character, Reggie Gussle. Gussle was a brash, mustachioed, happy-go-lucky fellow who enjoyed flirting with women and sneaking drinks, but was usually under the watchful eye of his large, ominous wife ( Phyllis Allen ). Syd Chaplin was less frantic than the other Keystone comedians, who usually ran around the scene with exaggerated gestures. Syd's antics were slower but quite energetic. His expressive face
8281-635: The Lumière brothers on December 28, 1895, in Paris. This was furthered in 1896 by the first motion-picture exhibition in the United States at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City. At this event, Edison set the precedent that all exhibitions should be accompanied by an orchestra. From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing atmosphere, and giving the audience vital emotional cues. Musicians sometimes played on film sets during shooting for similar reasons. However, depending on
8450-540: The Moon , originally released in 1902, shows an exuberant use of color designed to add texture and interest to the image. Comments by an American distributor in a 1908 film-supply catalog further underscore France's continuing dominance in the field of hand-coloring films during the early silent era. The distributor offers for sale at varying prices "High-Class" motion pictures by Pathé , Urban-Eclipse , Gaumont , Kalem , Itala Film , Ambrosio Film , and Selig . Several of
8619-534: The Navy two years earlier – returned. Hannah was released from the asylum eight months later, but in March 1905, her illness returned, this time permanently. "There was nothing we could do but accept poor mother's fate", Chaplin later wrote, and she remained in care until her death in 1928. Between his time in the poor schools and his mother succumbing to mental illness, Chaplin began to perform on stage. He later recalled making his first amateur appearance at
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#17327725758338788-503: The Prevention of Cruelty to Children . Chaplin's father died two years later, at 38 years old, from cirrhosis of the liver. Hannah entered a period of remission but, in May 1903, became ill again. Chaplin, then 14, had the task of taking his mother to the infirmary, from where she was sent back to Cane Hill. He lived alone for several days, searching for food and occasionally sleeping rough, until Sydney – who had joined
8957-515: The Sahara desert and a British cricket pitch. War scenes were shot on the plains of Grasmere, Staten Island . The Perils of Pauline and its even more popular sequel The Exploits of Elaine were filmed largely on the island. So was the 1906 blockbuster Life of a Cowboy , by Edwin S. Porter Company , and filming moved to the West Coast around 1912. The following are American films from
9126-512: The Tramp eating his shoe and the "Dance of the Rolls". Macnab has called it "the quintessential Chaplin film". Chaplin stated at its release: "This is the picture that I want to be remembered by". While making The Gold Rush , Chaplin married for the second time. Mirroring the circumstances of his first union, Lita Grey was a teenage actress, originally set to star in the film, whose surprise announcement of pregnancy forced Chaplin into marriage. She
9295-475: The Tramp into the accidental star of a circus. Filming was suspended for ten months while he dealt with the divorce scandal, and it was generally a trouble-ridden production. Finally completed in October 1927, The Circus was released in January 1928 to a positive reception. At the 1st Academy Awards , Chaplin was given a special trophy "For versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus ". Despite its success, he permanently associated
9464-455: The Tramp into the caretaker of a young boy. For this new venture, Chaplin also wished to do more than comedy and, according to Louvish, "make his mark on a changed world". Filming on The Kid began in August 1919, with four-year-old Jackie Coogan his co-star. The Kid was in production for nine months until May 1920 and, at 68 minutes, it was Chaplin's longest picture to date. Dealing with issues of poverty and parent–child separation, The Kid
9633-422: The Tramp's world". During 1915, Chaplin became a cultural phenomenon. Shops were stocked with Chaplin merchandise, he was featured in cartoons and comic strips , and several songs were written about him. In July, a journalist for Motion Picture wrote that "Chaplinitis" had spread across America. As his fame grew worldwide, he became the film industry's first international star. In September 1915, Chaplin topped
9802-522: The Tramp. The same year, a study by the Boston Society for Psychical Research concluded that Chaplin was "an American obsession". The actress Minnie Maddern Fiske wrote that "a constantly increasing body of cultured, artistic people are beginning to regard the young English buffoon, Charles Chaplin, as an extraordinary artist, as well as a comic genius". In January 1918, Chaplin was visited by leading British singer and comedian Harry Lauder , and
9971-402: The United States. In view of the enormous amount of labor involved which calls for individual hand painting of every one of sixteen pictures to the foot or 16,000 separate pictures for each 1,000 feet of film very few American colorists will undertake the work at any price. As film coloring has progressed much more rapidly in France than in any other country, all of our coloring is done for us by
10140-498: The act was popular with audiences, but he was not satisfied with dancing and wished to form a comedy act. In the years Chaplin was touring with the Eight Lancashire Lads, his mother ensured that he still attended school but, by the age of 13, he had abandoned education. He supported himself with a range of jobs, while nursing his ambition to become an actor. At 14, shortly after his mother's relapse, he registered with
10309-547: The action—particularly for comedies and action films. Slow projection of a cellulose nitrate base film carried a risk of fire, as each frame was exposed for a longer time to the intense heat of the projection lamp; but there were other reasons to project a film at a greater pace. Often projectionists received general instructions from the distributors on the musical director's cue sheet as to how fast particular reels or scenes should be projected. In rare instances, usually for larger productions, cue sheets produced specifically for
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#173277257583310478-687: The actual song being performed. Films in this category include Griffith's Lady of the Pavements with Lupe Vélez , Edwin Carewe 's Evangeline with Dolores del Río , and Rupert Julian 's The Phantom of the Opera with Mary Philbin and Virginia Pearson . The Silent Film Sound and Music Archive digitizes music and cue sheets written for silent films and makes them available for use by performers, scholars, and enthusiasts. Silent-film actors emphasized body language and facial expression so that
10647-412: The adoption of sound-on-film technology. Traditional film colorization, all of which involved the use of dyes in some form, interfered with the high resolution required for built-in recorded sound, and were therefore abandoned. The innovative three-strip technicolor process introduced in the mid-1930s was costly and fraught with limitations, and color would not have the same prevalence in film as it did in
10816-631: The age of five years, when he took over from Hannah one night in Aldershot . This was an isolated occurrence, but by the time he was nine Chaplin had, with his mother's encouragement, grown interested in performing. He later wrote: "[she] imbued me with the feeling that I had some sort of talent". Through his father's connections, Chaplin became a member of the Eight Lancashire Lads clog-dancing troupe, with whom he toured English music halls throughout 1899 and 1900. Chaplin worked hard, and
10985-562: The beginning of film and 1928. The following list includes only films produced in the sound era with the specific artistic intention of being silent. Several filmmakers have paid homage to the comedies of the silent era, including Charlie Chaplin , with Modern Times (1936), Orson Welles with Too Much Johnson (1938), Jacques Tati with Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), Pierre Etaix with The Suitor (1962), and Mel Brooks with Silent Movie (1976). Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien 's acclaimed drama Three Times (2005)
11154-458: The best coloring establishment in Paris and we have found that we obtain better quality, cheaper prices and quicker deliveries, even in coloring American made films, than if the work were done elsewhere. By the beginning of the 1910s, with the onset of feature-length films, tinting was used as another mood setter, just as commonplace as music. The director D. W. Griffith displayed a constant interest and concern about color, and used tinting as
11323-476: The biggest-budgeted films to arrive at the exhibiting theater with original, specially composed scores. However, the first designated full-blown scores had in fact been composed in 1908, by Camille Saint-Saëns for The Assassination of the Duke of Guise , and by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov for Stenka Razin . When organists or pianists used sheet music, they still might add improvisational flourishes to heighten
11492-411: The camera, Chaplin selected the costume with which he became identified. He described the process in his autobiography: I wanted everything to be a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large ... I added a small moustache, which, I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression. I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and
11661-461: The case of the 2002 restoration of Metropolis . With the lack of natural color processing available, films of the silent era were frequently dipped in dyestuffs and dyed various shades and hues to signal a mood or represent a time of day. Hand tinting dates back to 1895 in the United States with Edison's release of selected hand-tinted prints of Butterfly Dance . Additionally, experiments in color film started as early as in 1909, although it took
11830-565: The character as his screen persona and attempted to make suggestions for the films he appeared in. These ideas were dismissed by his directors. During the filming of his 11th picture, Mabel at the Wheel , he clashed with director Mabel Normand and was almost released from his contract. Sennett kept him on, however, when he received orders from exhibitors for more Chaplin films. Sennett also allowed Chaplin to direct his next film himself after Chaplin promised to pay $ 1,500 ($ 46,000 in 2023 dollars) if
11999-446: The company two years later. Charlie never achieved the sort of fame Syd did as a principal comedian for that company, but surpassed him later as an actor, director and producer. After Charlie achieved worldwide fame in 1915, the brothers were contacted by their half-brother Wheeler Dryden , whose father had just told him of the connection. His father had removed Wheeler from their mother as an infant and brought him up separately. Wheeler
12168-550: The couple had drifted apart, as both focused heavily on their work, although Goddard was again his leading lady in his next feature film, The Great Dictator . She eventually divorced Chaplin in Mexico in 1942, citing incompatibility and separation for more than a year. Silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue ). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as
12337-413: The critic James Agee hails the closing scene as "the greatest piece of acting and the highest moment in movies". City Lights became Chaplin's personal favourite of his films and remained so throughout his life. City Lights had been a success, but Chaplin was unsure if he could make another picture without dialogue. He remained convinced that sound would not work in his films, but was also "obsessed by
12506-498: The crucial differences between stage and screen acting. Directors such as Albert Capellani and Maurice Tourneur began to insist on naturalism in their films. By the mid-1920s many American silent films had adopted a more naturalistic acting style, though not all actors and directors accepted naturalistic, low-key acting straight away; as late as 1927, films featuring expressionistic acting styles, such as Metropolis , were still being released. Greta Garbo , whose first American film
12675-577: The development and production of a picture. His films are characterised by slapstick combined with pathos , typified in the Tramp's struggles against adversity. Many contain social and political themes, as well as autobiographical elements. He received an Honorary Academy Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century" in 1972, as part of a renewed appreciation for his work. He continues to be held in high regard, with The Gold Rush , City Lights , Modern Times, and The Great Dictator often ranked on lists of
12844-459: The development of motion picture cameras, projectors and transparent celluloid film. Although Thomas Edison was keen to develop a film system that would be synchronised with his phonograph , he eventually introduced the kinetoscope as a silent motion picture viewer in 1893 and later "kinetophone" versions remained unsuccessful. The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the "silent era" ( 1894 in film – 1929 in film ). The height of
13013-401: The drama on screen. Even when special effects were not indicated in the score, if an organist was playing a theater organ capable of an unusual sound effect such as "galloping horses", it would be used during scenes of dramatic horseback chases. At the height of the silent era, movies were the single largest source of employment for instrumental musicians, at least in the United States. However,
13182-555: The famous " Mighty Wurlitzer " could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of percussion effects such as bass drums and cymbals, and sound effects ranging from "train and boat whistles [to] car horns and bird whistles; ... some could even simulate pistol shots, ringing phones, the sound of surf, horses' hooves, smashing pottery, [and] thunder and rain". Musical scores for early silent films were either improvised or compiled of classical or theatrical repertory music. Once full features became commonplace, however, music
13351-491: The film was unsuccessful. Caught in the Rain , issued 4 May 1914, was Chaplin's directorial debut and was highly successful. Thereafter, he directed almost every short film in which he appeared for Keystone, at the rate of approximately one per week, a period which he later remembered as the most exciting time of his career. Chaplin's films introduced a slower form of comedy than the typical Keystone farce, and he developed
13520-430: The film with the stress of its production; Chaplin omitted The Circus from his autobiography, and struggled to work on it when he recorded the score in his later years. I was determined to continue making silent films ... I was a pantomimist and in that medium I was unique and, without false modesty, a master. By the time The Circus was released, Hollywood had witnessed the introduction of sound films . Chaplin
13689-399: The film's production. When filming began at the end of 1928, Chaplin had been working on the story for almost a year. City Lights followed the Tramp's love for a blind flower girl (played by Virginia Cherrill ) and his efforts to raise money for her sight-saving operation. It was a challenging production that lasted 21 months, with Chaplin later confessing that he "had worked himself into
13858-407: The films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music , or improvisation . Sometimes a person would even narrate the inter-title cards for the audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the film did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. "Silent film" is typically used as a historical term to describe an era of cinema prior to
14027-427: The final six films owed. Before the creation of United Artists, Chaplin married for the first time. The 16-year-old actress Mildred Harris had revealed that she was pregnant with his child, and in September 1918, he married her quietly in Los Angeles to avoid controversy. Soon after, the pregnancy was found to be false. Chaplin was unhappy with the union and, feeling that marriage stunted his creativity, struggled over
14196-481: The first film serial , The Million Dollar Mystery , released in 1914. The first westerns were filmed at Fred Scott 's Movie Ranch in South Beach, Staten Island. Actors costumed as cowboys and Native Americans galloped across Scott's movie ranch set, which had a frontier main street, a wide selection of stagecoaches and a 56-foot stockade. The island provided a serviceable stand-in for locations as varied as
14365-643: The first airplane showroom for their Curtiss airplanes. It offered observation flights for $ 10 and round-trip flights to San Diego for $ 150. On 4 July 1919, the Syd Chaplin Aircraft Corporation began flights to Santa Catalina Island . Sydney Chaplin Aerodrome (Chaplin Airfield) was south of Wilshire and west of Crescent (now bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, Fairfax Avenue, and San Vincente Boulevard). Emery H. Rogers conducted
14534-411: The first commercially successful sound film , but silent films were still the majority of features released in both 1927 and 1928, along with so-called goat-glanded films: silents with a subsection of sound film inserted. Thus the modern sound film era may be regarded as coming to dominance beginning in 1929. For a listing of notable silent era films, see List of years in film for the years between
14703-410: The first movie star to be featured on a Time cover . It was an unhappy marriage, and Chaplin spent long hours at the studio to avoid seeing his wife. In November 1926, Grey took the children and left the family home. A bitter divorce followed, in which Grey's application – accusing Chaplin of infidelity, abuse and of harbouring "perverted sexual desires" – was leaked to
14872-410: The first roundtrip Los Angeles to San Francisco flight in one 24-hour period. Charlie Chaplin took his first airplane flight in one of Syd's planes, as did many other notable figures of the period. Syd Chaplin got out of the aviation business after governments began to pass legislation regulating pilot licensing and the taxation of planes and flights. On December 29, 1920, Amelia Earhart was booked for
15041-492: The first time in almost a decade. He wrote a book about his journey, titled My Wonderful Visit . He then worked to fulfil his First National contract, releasing Pay Day in February 1922. The Pilgrim , his final short film, was delayed by distribution disagreements with the studio and released a year later. Having fulfilled his First National contract, Chaplin was free to make his first picture as an independent producer. In November 1922, he began filming A Woman of Paris ,
15210-648: The formation of the Motion Picture Patents Company in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers. The "Edison Trust", as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison , Biograph , Essanay Studios , Kalem Company , George Kleine Productions , Lubin Studios , Georges Méliès , Pathé , Selig Studios , and Vitagraph Studios , and dominated distribution through the General Film Company . This company dominated
15379-588: The greatest films . Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. was born on 16 April 1889 to Hannah Chaplin (née Hill) and Charles Chaplin Sr. His paternal grandmother came from the Smith family, who belonged to Romani people . There is no official record of his birth, although Chaplin believed he was born at East Street , Walworth , in South London . His parents had married four years previously, at which time Charles Sr. became
15548-465: The image to flicker , and images with low rates of flicker are very unpleasant to watch. Early studies by Thomas Edison for his Kinetoscope machine determined that any rate below 46 images per second "will strain the eye". and this holds true for projected images under normal cinema conditions also. The solution adopted for the Kinetoscope was to run the film at over 40 frames/sec, but this
15717-660: The industry as both a vertical and horizontal monopoly and is a contributing factor in studios' migration to the West Coast. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915, and were dissolved. The Thanhouser film studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York , in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser . The company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917, including
15886-860: The industry's acceptance of it, tinting was abandoned altogether, because the dyes used in the tinting process interfered with the soundtracks present on film strips. The early studios were located in the New York City area . Edison Studios were first in West Orange, New Jersey (1892), they were moved to the Bronx, New York (1907). Fox (1909) and Biograph (1906) started in Manhattan , with studios in St George, Staten Island . Other films were shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey . In December 1908, Edison led
16055-532: The introduction of sound with its 24 frame/sec standard speed 2-bladed shutters have become the norm for 35 mm cinema projectors, though three-bladed shutters have remained standard on 16 mm and 8 mm projectors, which are frequently used to project amateur footage shot at 16 or 18 frames/sec. A 35 mm film frame rate of 24 fps translates to a film speed of 456 millimetres (18.0 in) per second. One 1,000-foot (300 m) reel requires 11 minutes and 7 seconds to be projected at 24 fps, while
16224-478: The introduction of talkies, coupled with the roughly simultaneous onset of the Great Depression , was devastating to many musicians. A number of countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silent films. The early cinema of Brazil , for example, featured fitas cantatas (singing films), filmed operettas with singers performing behind the screen. In Japan , films had not only live music but also
16393-421: The invention of synchronized sound, but it also applies to such sound-era films as City Lights , Modern Times and Silent Movie which are accompanied by a music-only soundtrack in place of dialogue. The term silent film is a retronym —a term created to retroactively distinguish something from later developments. Early sound films, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were variously referred to as
16562-568: The late 1920s with the perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the advent of the Vitaphone system. Within a decade, the widespread production of silent films for popular entertainment had ceased, and the industry had moved fully into the sound era , in which movies were accompanied by synchronized sound recordings of spoken dialogue, music and sound effects . Most early motion pictures are considered lost owing to their physical decay, as
16731-707: The latter became his legal guardian. Sydney's surname was changed to Chaplin. Hannah and Charles had a son together called Charlie . While Syd and half-brother Charlie were in the Cuckoo Schools in Hanwell following their mother's mental collapse, Syd was placed in the programme designed to train young boys to become seamen. He served on the Exmouth training ship docked at Grays, Essex . He followed this training period with several years working on ships, receiving high marks from all of his employers but his ambition
16900-427: The legal guardian of Hannah's first son, Sydney John Hill . At the time of his birth, Chaplin's parents were both music hall entertainers. Hannah, the daughter of a shoemaker, had a brief and unsuccessful career under the stage name Lily Harley, while Charles Sr., a butcher's son, was a popular singer. Although they never divorced, Chaplin's parents were estranged by around 1891. The following year, Hannah gave birth to
17069-426: The longer, more prestigious films in the catalog are offered in both standard black-and-white "plain stock" as well as in "hand-painted" color. A plain-stock copy, for example, of the 1907 release Ben Hur is offered for $ 120 ($ 4,069 USD today), while a colored version of the same 1000-foot, 15-minute film costs $ 270 ($ 9,156) including the extra $ 150 coloring charge, which amounted to 15 cents more per foot. Although
17238-463: The makeup made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on stage he was fully born. The film was Mabel's Strange Predicament , but " the Tramp " character, as it became known, debuted to audiences in Kid Auto Races at Venice – shot later than Mabel's Strange Predicament but released two days earlier on 7 February 1914. Chaplin adopted
17407-401: The mid-1910s, as the differences between stage and screen became apparent. Due to the work of directors such as D. W. Griffith , cinematography became less stage-like, and the development of the close up allowed for understated and realistic acting. Lillian Gish has been called film's "first true actress" for her work in the period, as she pioneered new film performing techniques, recognizing
17576-520: The new "talkies" around the mid-1930s. The visual quality of silent movies—especially those produced in the 1920s—was often high, but there remains a widely held misconception that these films were primitive, or are barely watchable by modern standards. This misconception comes from the general public's unfamiliarity with the medium, as well as from carelessness on the part of the industry. Most silent films are poorly preserved, leading to their deterioration, and well-preserved films are often played back at
17745-483: The new year, however, Chaplin began to demand more time. He made only four more films for Mutual over the first ten months of 1917: Easy Street , The Cure , The Immigrant and The Adventurer . With their careful construction, these films are considered by Chaplin scholars to be among his finest work. Later in life, Chaplin referred to his Mutual years as the happiest period of his career. However, Chaplin also felt that those films became increasingly formulaic over
17914-484: The pageboy in three nationwide tours. His performance was so well received that he was called to London to play the role alongside William Gillette , the original Holmes. "It was like tidings from heaven", Chaplin recalled. At 16 years old, Chaplin starred in the play's West End production at the Duke of York's Theatre from October to December 1905. He completed one final tour of Sherlock Holmes in early 1906, before leaving
18083-608: The pair also formed a romantic relationship that lasted until 1917. Chaplin asserted a high level of control over his pictures and started to put more time and care into each film. There was a month-long interval between the release of his second production, A Night Out , and his third, The Champion . The final seven of Chaplin's 14 Essanay films were all produced at this slower pace. Chaplin also began to alter his screen persona, which had attracted some criticism at Keystone for its "mean, crude, and brutish" nature. The character became more gentle and romantic; The Tramp (April 1915)
18252-583: The period of the contract, and he was increasingly dissatisfied with the working conditions encouraging that. Chaplin was attacked in the British media for not fighting in the First World War . He defended himself, claiming that he would fight for Britain if called and had registered for the American draft, but he was not summoned by either country. Despite this criticism, Chaplin was a favourite with
18421-505: The play after more than two-and-a-half years. Chaplin soon found work with a new company and went on tour with his brother, who was also pursuing an acting career, in a comedy sketch called Repairs . In May 1906, Chaplin joined the juvenile act Casey's Circus, where he developed popular burlesque pieces and was soon the star of the show. By the time the act finished touring in July 1907, the 18-year-old had become an accomplished comedic performer. He struggled to find more work, however, and
18590-450: The plots without specialised subtitling or additional commentary. Few film scores survived intact from the silent period, and musicologists are still confronted by questions when they attempt to precisely reconstruct those that remain. Scores used in current reissues or screenings of silent films may be complete reconstructions of compositions, newly composed for the occasion, assembled from already existing music libraries, or improvised on
18759-888: The politicising. Today, Modern Times is seen by the British Film Institute as one of Chaplin's "great features", while David Robinson says it shows the filmmaker at "his unrivalled peak as a creator of visual comedy". Following the release of Modern Times , Chaplin left with Goddard for a trip to the Far East. Chaplin, Goddard and a Japanese servant named Yonnemori arrived in Saigon in April 1936, and visited multiple locations in French Indochina . They then visited Phnom Penh to view Angkor Wat , and Da Lat , followed by Huế , arriving in Đà Nẵng where he visited
18928-411: The press. Chaplin was reported to be in a state of nervous breakdown, as the story became headline news and groups formed across America calling for his films to be banned. Eager to end the case without further scandal, Chaplin's lawyers agreed to a cash settlement of $ 600,000 – the largest awarded by American courts at that time. His fan base was strong enough to survive the incident, and it
19097-442: The production of his film Sunnyside . Harris was by then legitimately pregnant, and on 7 July 1919, gave birth to a son. Norman Spencer Chaplin was born malformed and died three days later. The marriage ended in April 1920, with Chaplin explaining in his autobiography that they were "irreconcilably mismated". Losing the child, plus his own childhood experiences, are thought to have influenced Chaplin's next film, which turned
19266-438: The projectionist provided a detailed guide to presenting the film. Theaters also—to maximize profit—sometimes varied projection speeds depending on the time of day or popularity of a film, or to fit a film into a prescribed time slot. All motion-picture film projectors require a moving shutter to block the light whilst the film is moving, otherwise the image is smeared in the direction of the movement. However this shutter causes
19435-406: The rags to riches stories ever told" according to his authorised biographer David Robinson . Chaplin's early years were spent with his mother and brother Sydney in the London district of Kennington . Hannah had no means of income, other than occasional nursing and dressmaking, and Chaplin Sr. provided no financial support. As the situation deteriorated, Chaplin was sent to Lambeth Workhouse when he
19604-424: The reasons for the cited extra charge were likely obvious to customers, the distributor explains why his catalog's colored films command such significantly higher prices and require more time for delivery. His explanation also provides insight into the general state of film-coloring services in the United States by 1908: The coloring of moving picture films is a line of work which cannot be satisfactorily performed in
19773-491: The release of D. W. Griffith 's epic The Birth of a Nation (1915). In 1999, the Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki produced Juha in black and white, which captures the style of a silent film, using intertitles in place of spoken dialogue. Special release prints with titles in several different languages were produced for international distribution. In India, the film Pushpak (1988), starring Kamal Haasan ,
19942-581: The screen once again. During this period, Syd Chaplin's most important contribution may be in the field of aviation. In May 1919, he, along with pilot Emory Herman Rogers Jr., developed and launched the first privately owned domestic American airline, the Syd Chaplin Airline Company, based in Santa Monica, California . Although the corporation lasted only a year, in that time it established many "firsts." Syd and partners had
20111-516: The section of the company that toured North America's vaudeville circuit, a section which also included Stan Laurel . The young comedian headed the show and impressed reviewers, being described as "one of the best pantomime artists ever seen here". His most successful role was a drunk called the "Inebriate Swell", which drew him significant recognition. The tour lasted 21 months, and the troupe returned to England in June 1912. Chaplin recalled that he "had
20280-440: The silent era (from the early 1910s in film to the late 1920s) was a particularly fruitful period, full of artistic innovation. The film movements of Classical Hollywood as well as French Impressionism , German Expressionism , and Soviet Montage began in this period. Silent filmmakers pioneered the art form to the extent that virtually every style and genre of film-making of the 20th and 21st centuries has its artistic roots in
20449-470: The silent era. The silent era was also a pioneering one from a technical point of view. Three-point lighting, the close-up , long shot , panning , and continuity editing all became prevalent long before silent films were replaced by " talking pictures " or "talkies" in the late 1920s. Some scholars claim that the artistic quality of cinema decreased for several years, during the early 1930s, until film directors , actors, and production staff adapted fully to
20618-473: The silent film era and the era of talkies. Sunset Boulevard shows the disconnect between the two eras in the character of Norma Desmond , played by silent film star Gloria Swanson , and Singin' in the Rain deals with Hollywood artists adjusting to the talkies. Peter Bogdanovich 's 1976 film Nickelodeon deals with the turmoil of silent filmmaking in Hollywood during the early 1910s, leading up to
20787-483: The silent film era that had earned the highest gross income as of 1932. The amounts given are gross rentals (the distributor's share of the box-office) as opposed to exhibition gross. Although attempts to create sync-sound motion pictures go back to the Edison lab in 1896, only from the early 1920s were the basic technologies such as vacuum tube amplifiers and high-quality loudspeakers available. The next few years saw
20956-427: The silents for nearly four decades. As motion pictures gradually increased in running time, a replacement was needed for the in-house interpreter who would explain parts of the film to the audience. Because silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen inter-titles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and sometimes even comment on the action for the audience. The title writer became
21125-543: The silver screen. The animated film Fantasia (1940), which is eight different animation sequences set to music, can be considered a silent film, with only one short scene involving dialogue. The espionage film The Thief (1952) has music and sound effects, but no dialogue, as do Thierry Zéno 's 1974 Vase de Noces and Patrick Bokanowski 's 1982 The Angel . Sydney Chaplin Sydney John Chaplin ( né Hill ; 16 March 1885 – 16 April 1965)
21294-438: The size of the exhibition site, musical accompaniment could drastically change in scale. Small-town and neighborhood movie theatres usually had a pianist . Beginning in the mid-1910s, large city theaters tended to have organists or ensembles of musicians. Massive theatre organs , which were designed to fill a gap between a simple piano soloist and a larger orchestra, had a wide range of special effects. Theatrical organs such as
21463-438: The spot in the manner of the silent-era theater musician. Interest in the scoring of silent films fell somewhat out of fashion during the 1960s and 1970s. There was a belief in many college film programs and repertory cinemas that audiences should experience silent film as a pure visual medium, undistracted by music. This belief may have been encouraged by the poor quality of the music tracks found on many silent film reprints of
21632-467: The standardization of the projection speed of 24 frames per second (fps) for sound films between 1926 and 1930, silent films were shot at variable speeds (or " frame rates ") anywhere from 12 to 40 fps, depending on the year and studio. "Standard silent film speed" is often said to be 16 fps as a result of the Lumière brothers' Cinématographe , but industry practice varied considerably; there
21801-419: The studio. By early June, however, Chaplin "suddenly decided he could scarcely stand to be in the same room" as Collins, but instead of breaking off the engagement directly, he "stopped coming in to work, sending word that he was suffering from a bad case of influenza, which May knew to be a lie." Ultimately work on the film resumed, and following its September 1921 release, Chaplin chose to return to England for
21970-519: The teenager made an impact on his first night at the London Coliseum and he was quickly signed to a contract. Chaplin began by playing a series of minor parts, eventually progressing to starring roles in 1909. In April 1910, he was given the lead in a new sketch, Jimmy the Fearless . It was a big success, and Chaplin received considerable press attention. Karno selected his new star to join
22139-419: The time he needs and all the money for producing [films] the way he wants ... It is quality, not quantity, we are after." In June 1917, Chaplin signed to complete eight films for First National Exhibitors' Circuit in return for $ 1 million. He chose to build his own studio, situated on five acres of land off Sunset Boulevard , with production facilities of the highest order. Charlie Chaplin Studios
22308-489: The time. Since around 1980, there has been a revival of interest in presenting silent films with quality musical scores (either reworkings of period scores or cue sheets, or the composition of appropriate original scores). An early effort of this kind was Kevin Brownlow 's 1980 restoration of Abel Gance 's Napoléon (1927), featuring a score by Carl Davis . A slightly re-edited and sped-up version of Brownlow's restoration
22477-562: The title character's non-talkative nature to create a similar style of humor. A lesser-known example is Jérôme Savary 's La fille du garde-barrière (1975), an homage to silent-era films that uses intertitles and blends comedy, drama, and explicit sex scenes (which led to it being refused a cinema certificate by the British Board of Film Classification ). In 1990, Charles Lane directed and starred in Sidewalk Stories ,
22646-629: The traditional approach include organists such as Dennis James and pianists such as Neil Brand , Günter Buchwald, Philip C. Carli, Ben Model , and William P. Perry . Other contemporary pianists, such as Stephen Horne and Gabriel Thibaudeau, have often taken a more modern approach to scoring. Orchestral conductors such as Carl Davis and Robert Israel have written and compiled scores for numerous silent films; many of these have been featured in showings on Turner Classic Movies or have been released on DVD. Davis has composed new scores for classic silent dramas such as The Big Parade (1925) and Flesh and
22815-414: The troops, and his popularity continued to grow worldwide. Harper's Weekly reported that the name of Charlie Chaplin was "a part of the common language of almost every country", and that the Tramp image was "universally familiar". In 1917, professional Chaplin imitators were so widespread that he took legal action, and it was reported that nine out of ten men who attended costume parties, did so dressed as
22984-674: The truth of Wright's claims. Following the scandal, Chaplin left England again and moved to continental Europe, leaving a string of unpaid tax demands. By 1930 he was declared bankrupt. Chaplin married twice and had no children. He married his first wife, Minnie, in England in 1908. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and died in France in September 1936 following surgery for the illness. After World War II , Chaplin lived most of his final years in Europe. He married again, to Henriette Leoneanu (nicknamed Gypsy, by Chaplin) c. 1941. After
23153-415: The two acted in a short film together. Mutual was patient with Chaplin's decreased rate of output, and the contract ended amicably. With his aforementioned concern about the declining quality of his films because of contract scheduling stipulations, Chaplin's primary concern in finding a new distributor was independence; Sydney Chaplin, then his business manager, told the press: "Charlie [must] be allowed all
23322-475: The viewing experience. Among the contemporary ensembles in this category are Un Drame Musical Instantané , Alloy Orchestra , Club Foot Orchestra , Silent Orchestra , Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Minima and the Caspervek Trio, RPM Orchestra . Donald Sosin and his wife Joanna Seaton specialize in adding vocals to silent films, particularly where there is onscreen singing that benefits from hearing
23491-520: The war but, as he later recalled: "Dangerous or not, the idea excited me." He spent four months filming the picture, which was released in October 1918 with great success. After the release of Shoulder Arms , Chaplin requested more money from First National, which was refused. Frustrated with their lack of concern for quality, and worried about rumours of a possible merger between the company and Famous Players–Lasky , Chaplin joined forces with Douglas Fairbanks , Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith to form
23660-519: The workplace would increase unemployment levels. It was these concerns that stimulated Chaplin to develop his new film. Modern Times was announced by Chaplin as "a satire on certain phases of our industrial life". Featuring the Tramp and Goddard as they endure the Great Depression , it took ten and a half months to film. Chaplin intended to use spoken dialogue but changed his mind during rehearsals. Like its predecessor, Modern Times employed sound effects but almost no speaking. Chaplin's performance of
23829-426: The world but Charlie Chaplin could have done it. He is the only person that has that peculiar something called 'audience appeal' in sufficient quality to defy the popular penchant for movies that talk." Given its general release in January 1931, City Lights proved to be a popular and financial success, eventually grossing over $ 3 million. The British Film Institute called it Chaplin's finest accomplishment, and
23998-409: The wrong speed or suffer from censorship cuts and missing frames and scenes, giving the appearance of poor editing. Many silent films exist only in second- or third-generation copies, often made from already damaged and neglected film stock. Many early screening were plagued by flicker on the screen, when the stroboscopic interruptions between frames lay below the critical flicker frequency . This
24167-507: Was 16 and he was 35, meaning Chaplin could have been charged with statutory rape under California law. He therefore arranged a discreet marriage in Mexico on 25 November 1924. They originally met during her childhood and she had previously appeared in his works The Kid and The Idle Class . Their first son, Charles Spencer Chaplin III , was born on 5 May 1925, followed by Sydney Earl Chaplin on 30 March 1926. On 6 July 1925, Chaplin became
24336-688: Was a black comedy entirely devoid of dialog. The Australian film Doctor Plonk (2007), was a silent comedy directed by Rolf de Heer . Stage plays have drawn upon silent film styles and sources. Actor/writers Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore staged their Off-Broadway slapstick comedy Silent Laughter as a live action tribute to the silent screen era. Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyford created and starred in All Wear Bowlers (2004), which started as an homage to Laurel and Hardy then evolved to incorporate life-sized silent film sequences of Sobelle and Lyford who jump back and forth between live action and
24505-536: Was acclaimed for its innovative, subtle approach. The public, however, seemed to have little interest in a Chaplin film without Chaplin, and it was a box office disappointment . The filmmaker was hurt by this failure – he had long wanted to produce a dramatic film and was proud of the result – and soon withdrew A Woman of Paris from circulation. Chaplin returned to comedy for his next project. Setting his standards high, he told himself "This next film must be an epic! The Greatest!" Inspired by
24674-477: Was also an actor, and the brothers reunited in Hollywood in 1918 after they all immigrated to the United States. They occasionally worked together at Charlie Chaplin's studio through to the 1950s. As Charlie was negotiating his Keystone contract in Hollywood, he suggested that Syd should join the studio. Syd and his wife Minnie Chaplin arrived in California in October 1914. Syd made a few appearances with
24843-580: Was also featured in numerous close-ups, unusual for Keystone stars. His improvisational approach sometimes resulted in scenes running very long -- in one case, so long that the finished scenes were divided into two separate comedies, Gussle's Backward Way and Gussle Tied to Trouble . The Gussle comedies caught on very quickly, and within the year these one-reel, 10-minute comedies were doubled in length. Syd Chaplin made 12 Gussle subjects, and then starred in an extended-length featurette, A Submarine Pirate in 1915. Second to Tillie's Punctured Romance, this
25012-400: Was an English actor. Chaplin was the elder half-brother of actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin and in later life, served as his business manager. Through their mother Hannah , they were older half-brothers to the younger Wheeler Dryden , who grew up separately with his father in England and was not told about his half-brothers until 1915. Dryden later emigrated to the United States, joining
25181-469: Was committed to Cane Hill mental asylum; she had developed psychosis seemingly brought on by an infection of syphilis and malnutrition. For the two months she was there, Chaplin and his brother Sydney were sent to live with their father, whom the young boys scarcely knew. Charles Sr. was by then severely alcoholic, and life there was bad enough to provoke a visit from the National Society for
25350-415: Was compiled from photoplay music by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio itself, which included a cue sheet with the film. These sheets were often lengthy, with detailed notes about effects and moods to watch for. Starting with the mostly original score composed by Joseph Carl Breil for D. W. Griffith 's epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), it became relatively common for
25519-414: Was completed in January 1918, and Chaplin was given freedom over the making of his pictures. A Dog's Life , released April 1918, was the first film under the new contract. In it, Chaplin demonstrated his increasing concern with story construction and his treatment of the Tramp as "a sort of Pierrot ". The film was described by Louis Delluc as "cinema's first total work of art". Chaplin then embarked on
25688-406: Was considered a particular turning point in his development. The use of pathos was developed further with The Bank , in which Chaplin created a sad ending. Robinson notes that this was an innovation in comedy films, and marked the time when serious critics began to appreciate Chaplin's work. At Essanay, writes film scholar Simon Louvish , Chaplin "found the themes and the settings that would define
25857-478: Was controversial, the door had been opened for a new approach to the presentation of classic silent films. Today, a large number of soloists, music ensembles, and orchestras perform traditional and contemporary scores for silent films internationally. The legendary theater organist Gaylord Carter continued to perform and record his original silent film scores until shortly before his death in 2000; some of those scores are available on DVD reissues. Other purveyors of
26026-461: Was cynical about this new medium and the technical shortcomings it presented, believing that "talkies" lacked the artistry of silent films. He was also hesitant to change the formula that had brought him such success, and feared that giving the Tramp a voice would limit his international appeal. He, therefore, rejected the new Hollywood craze and began work on a new silent film. Chaplin was nonetheless anxious about this decision and remained so throughout
26195-451: Was expensive for film. However, by using projectors with dual- and triple-blade shutters the flicker rate is multiplied two or three times higher than the number of film frames — each frame being flashed two or three times on screen. A three-blade shutter projecting a 16 fps film will slightly surpass Edison's figure, giving the audience 48 images per second. During the silent era projectors were commonly fitted with 3-bladed shutters. Since
26364-410: Was hampered by long exposure times for photographic emulsions , until Eadweard Muybridge managed to record a chronophotographic sequence in 1878. After others had animated his pictures in zoetropes , Muybridge started lecturing with his own zoopraxiscope animation projector in 1880. The work of other pioneering chronophotographers, including Étienne-Jules Marey and Ottomar Anschütz , furthered
26533-579: Was handling the majority of Charlie's business affairs, in addition to further contract negotiations. Their sheet music business failed, but they were successful with a merchandising one. Sydney also appeared in a few of Charlie's films during the First National era, such as Pay Day and The Pilgrim . Sydney achieved his own million-dollar contract from Famous Players–Lasky in 1919, but a series of problems resulted in his making only one, failed, film, King, Queen, Joker (1921). He disappeared from
26702-403: Was later distributed in the United States by Francis Ford Coppola , with a live orchestral score composed by his father Carmine Coppola . In 1984, an edited restoration of Metropolis (1927) was released with a new rock music score by producer-composer Giorgio Moroder . Although the contemporary score, which included pop songs by Freddie Mercury , Pat Benatar , and Jon Anderson of Yes ,
26871-514: Was no actual standard. William Kennedy Laury Dickson , an Edison employee, settled on the astonishingly fast 40 frames per second. Additionally, cameramen of the era insisted that their cranking technique was exactly 16 fps, but modern examination of the films shows this to be in error, and that they often cranked faster. Unless carefully shown at their intended speeds silent films can appear unnaturally fast or slow. However, some scenes were intentionally undercranked during shooting to accelerate
27040-461: Was one of the earliest films to combine comedy and drama. It was released in January 1921 with instant success, and, by 1924, had been screened in over 50 countries. Chaplin spent five months on his next film, the two-reeler The Idle Class . Work on the picture was for a time delayed by more turmoil in his personal life. First National had on 12 April announced Chaplin's engagement to the actress May Collins , whom he had hired to be his secretary at
27209-572: Was opened, and Chaplin was forced to leave the U.S. in 1952 and settle in Switzerland. He abandoned the Tramp in his later films, which include Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952), A King in New York (1957), and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967). Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and composed the music for most of his films. He was a perfectionist, and his financial independence enabled him to spend years on
27378-686: Was released in 1926, would become known for her naturalistic acting. According to Anton Kaes, a silent film scholar from the University of California, Berkeley, American silent cinema began to see a shift in acting techniques between 1913 and 1921, influenced by techniques found in German silent film. This is mainly attributed to the influx of emigrants from the Weimar Republic , "including film directors, producers, cameramen, lighting and stage technicians, as well as actors and actresses". Until
27547-615: Was relieved when he met 21-year-old actress Paulette Goddard in July 1932, and the pair began a relationship. He was not ready to commit to a film, however, and focused on writing a serial about his travels (published in Woman's Home Companion ). The trip had been a stimulating experience for Chaplin, including meetings with several prominent thinkers, and he became increasingly interested in world affairs. The state of labour in America troubled him, and he feared that capitalism and machinery in
27716-487: Was seven years old. The council housed him at the Central London District School for paupers , which Chaplin remembered as "a forlorn existence". He was briefly reunited with his mother 18 months later, but Hannah was forced to readmit her family to the workhouse in July 1898. The boys were promptly sent to Norwood Schools, another institution for destitute children. In September 1898, Hannah
27885-575: Was solved with the introduction of a three-bladed shutter (since 1902), causing two more interruptions per frame. Another widely held misconception is that silent films lacked color. In fact, color was far more prevalent in silent films than in the first few decades of sound films. By the early 1920s, 80 percent of movies could be seen in some sort of color, usually in the form of film tinting or toning or even hand coloring, but also with fairly natural two-color processes such as Kinemacolor and Technicolor . Traditional colorization processes ceased with
28054-467: Was soon forgotten, but Chaplin was deeply affected by it. Less than five months after the divorce, Grey's former butler Don Solovich was murdered in Utah, and articles speculated about connections between Chaplin and the murder. Before the divorce suit was filed, Chaplin had begun work on a new film, The Circus . He built a story around the idea of walking a tightrope while besieged by monkeys, and turned
28223-454: Was the cause of this outburst from director Marshall Neilan in 1917: "The sooner the stage people who have come into pictures get out, the better for the pictures." In other cases, directors such as John Griffith Wray required their actors to deliver larger-than-life expressions for emphasis. As early as 1914, American viewers had begun to make known their preference for greater naturalness on screen. Silent films became less vaudevillian in
28392-576: Was the most financially successful comedy Keystone ever made. Writing in The Smart Set magazine in 1916, critic George Jean Nathan stated that Charlie Chaplin was "not nearly so good a comique as his brother." Following this success, Syd decided to leave the screen to negotiate Charlie a better contract. After getting him a $ 500,000 contract with Mutual on February 27, 1916, he got him his first million-dollar ($ 1.25 million) contract on June 17, 1917 with First National Pictures . Soon he
28561-406: Was to get into the entertainment business like his parents and brother, and he left his final voyage with that in mind. In 1905 Charlie and Sydney worked briefly together in one of their first stage appearances, Sherlock Holmes . Syd was briefly cast as a villain in that play. In 1906, however, he landed a contract with Fred Karno , of Karno's London Comedians, and worked hard to bring Charlie into
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