Chaplin's Best Films example essay topic

James Agee wrote that "the finest pantomime, the deepest emotion, the richest and most poignant poetry were in Chaplin's work". Andrew S arris called Chaplin "the single most important artist produced by cinema, certainly its most extraordinary performer, and probably still its most universal icon". In a career spanning half a century, the soaring flicker of the Chaplin myth has been immense, enveloping both the cinema and world culture in its glow. The laughter he brought to the lives of others equaled the sufferings he experienced in his own.

Charlie Chaplin was born in London in 1889, and started out very bleakly. His mother was a vaudeville performer, and it was reported that young Charlie could sing before he could talk, and dance as soon as he walked. Unfortunately, she frequently suffered from mental breakdowns, and the father was a drunk. At the age of five, the little boy stood in for his mother when she was too horse to sing, and soon performed in any way he could - clog dancing, miming, and acting in circuses - to keep out of orphanages and work houses. Chaplin's luck turned in his late teens, when his talent for comic miming was spotted, and he worked for various touring troupes. He visited America, and decided to set camp there in 1910.

By 1914, he had debuted in his first feature film, "Making a Living". He started to play the character of a Tramp, which hit a nerve with the audiences everywhere. He grew so popular, that studios had a hard time keeping up with his demanding salary. Charlie Chaplin produced a large string of comedy movies, almost all of them a huge success.

He became a star. However, in the 50's, he was accused of ties with the Communist Party, and ran into trouble with the American Government. He took his revenge with the film "The King in New York", a satirical look at the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Nevertheless, Chaplin and America did make amends in 1972, when he received a special Academy Award for lifetime achievement. Charlie Chaplin died in 1977. Charlie Chaplin developed for himself a unique style of acting, which made him rise to fame, and which many have tried to impersonate.

He specialized in comic mime. Most of his movies were silent comedies which still managed to hold solemn themes such as poverty, hunger, cruelty and loneliness, all of it was reflected off his childhood. In his movies "Kid Auto Races at Venice" and "Mabel's Strange Predicament", Chaplin emerged for the first time in his emblematic costume of baggy pants, decrepit shoes on the wrong feet, carefully trimmed mustache, cane and dirty hat, moving with a gait contrary to his appearance. He became a passionate symbol of the triumph of kindness over cruelty and persecution.

Charlie Chaplin relied heavily on improvisation and worked out scenes on film with minimal prior rehearsal. He shot scenes over and over, experimenting with subtleties of expression and timing. Many of his movies reveal such painstaking labor. They show his unique physical expressiveness, and are full of satire and pathos. Within a few years, Chaplin had revolutionized film comedy, transforming it from rag-tag knockabout farces, into an art form by introducing characterization, mime and slapstick pathos. Thanks to him, comedy also began to be centered on the performer, as opposed to the events which befall him or her.

In "The Bank" and "The Tramp", Chaplin introduced a new comic twist: the unhappy ending. For the first time, he exits the film alone, with a kick of the feet and a twirl of the cane, down a deserted road. From then on, all of Chaplin's best films revealed a master work of mime, satire, sentimentality and slapstick stitched together. In movies like "The Kid" and "The Pilgrim", he started to try out feature-lenght comedies, which worked successfully. In "The Dictator", Charlie Chaplin made Hitler look ridiculous in a way only he could get away with, and with "Modern Times" he points out the alienating affects of industrialization.

Some of the greatest silent film makers claimed that Charlie Chaplin was king, and countless filmmakers cite him as being a major influence: Buster Keaton, Stan Laurel, Woody Allen, Harold Lloyd and Jacques Tat i are just some of them. During his time, the public could not get enough of him. He was the most popular comedian of his day, and many actors tried to impersonate him to a degree that is unbelievable. Chaplin became the first megastar. Even during the twenties, when the gaps between his films reached years, he would still produce a hit when he came back. Such was his popularity.

By 1915, he was a household word. Cartoons, poems and comic strips under the Chaplin name appeared in the newspapers. Chaplin dolls, toy and books were manufactured. The years 1915-25 not only marked the period of his greatest popularity, but the time in which he held his own as an independent filmmaker.

His rising salaries reflected both his popularity and his artistic freedom. After leaving Sennet where he had begun at $150 a week, Chaplin signed with Essa nay Studios at a salary of $1250 per week. By 1918, his fame led to film's first million-dollar contract, with First National. Chaplin's best films were: "One A.M". , "The Pawnshop", "Behind the Screen", "The Rink", "Easy Street", "The Cure", "The Immigrant", "The Adventurer", "The Kid", "The Dictator", "Gold Rush", "Modern Times", etc.

Unfortunately, after being accused of ties with the Communist Party in the 1930's, his productions were restricted, and his popularity fell. The look of his films changed (in "Monsieur Ver doux" for example), and this turned his once adoring public against him. Despite the controversy, Chaplin died in 1977 as a universally loved cultural icon. He could provoke laughter with a simple roll of his eyes and flick of his cane. He could cause tears with a downturn of his shoulders. Because of his hardships with society, Chaplin worked with important themes such as freedom, compassion, and humanity, in all of his films.

He kept on refining his art and soon became one of the most extraordinary performers in cinema history.