Film (image) analysis

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4. the mature silent cinema remains one of the iconic faces of the twentieth century.

There was one other important group of émigrés. These were the Russians who migrated when the Communists won the post-revolution civil war. The majority settled in Paris and turned out a series of well-made and popular films. The actor Ivan Mozhukhin was a prominent member of this production circle.

STUDY FILM: The Kid

Chaplin–First National. USA 1921. 5,250 feet, running time of 63 minutes at 22fps.

Directed and scripted by Charles Chaplin. Cinematography Roland Totheroh. Production Design Charles B. Hall. Filmed in the Chaplin Studio.

Cast: Charles Chaplin (The Tramp), Jackie Coogan (The Kid), Edna Purviance (Mother).

The Kid was Chaplin’s first proper feature length film. He had, though, appeared in a six reel film by Mack Sennett, Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914), early in his career. Also, his own productions had been increasing in length, the extremely successful Shoulder Arms (1918) being a three reeler. Since 1918 he had been based in his own studio making a series of films distributed by First National. He also enjoyed the support of a regular crew of production personnel and a fairly regular cast of supporting actors.

A meeting with a new talent, the four-year-old son of a vaudeville family, Jackie Coogan, inspired The Kid. There seems to have been an immediate rapport between the two. Chaplin himself was mourning the recent death of his first child, by Mildred Harris. Shortly after the meeting he started work on a new project, then titled The Waif, and the young Jackie was lined up to become Chaplin’s most famous co-star.

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Studying Early and Silent Cinema As Chaplin’s career progressed he became more and more exacting in his search for comic perfection. He would not only rehearse scenes endlessly, but film them repeatedly as well. His then current project, entitled Charlie’s Picnic, was already up to over 6,000 feet of film. Finally released as A Day’s Pleasure, the released cut was only 1,714 feet in length. The entire final negatives for what would be The Kid were 400,000 feet of film. It was Chaplin’s phenomenal earlier success that enabled him to pursue a production process that might well have bankrupted smaller outfits.

Chaplin started work on The Kid at the end of July 1919; production work carried on for about nine months, and post production until about November 1920. The post production was fraught. Chaplin was in fear, both from divorce proceedings from his wife and actions by the distributor First National. The editors, the entire set of rushes and Chaplin secretly set up in a hotel, where they edited the film. (Richard Attenborough’s Chaplin, 1992, has a reconstruction of these events.) The finished film was released in January 1921. During this time Chaplin also finished and released A Day’s Pleasure.

The film’s story is very simple. ‘The woman – whose sin was motherhood’ leaves a charity hospital with her fatherless child. Desperate, she leaves the baby in a rich family’s car. Repenting of her folly she returns to find the car and baby stolen. The baby, dumped in the street, is then found by the Tramp. The Tramp now learns how to care for the abandoned baby. Five years on the Tramp and the Kid survive in a threadbare and slightly disreputable existence.

The mother, now a ‘prominent star’, meets the Kid whilst carrying out charity work, but fails to recognise him. The Kid is taken ill and the visiting doctor notifies the authorities about the child. They arrive to take the Kid away to an orphanage. Desperate the Tramp chases and steals back the youngster. Shortly after the Kid is reunited with his mother.

The film was reissued in 1971 (to coincide with Chaplin’s honorary Academy Award of 1972), for which Chaplin composed an orchestral score. He also cut three scenes that expand the ‘woman’s’ story. In two short scenes we see the mother passing first a wedding, then a nurse and child, aggravating her emotional state. In the third, years later, she again meets the man who fathered her child. There is a suggestion of their coming together again.

The influence of D. W. Griffith is apparent in the story’s sentimental emphasis. And in 1919, Griffith, along with Pickford and Fairbanks, was the partner with Chaplin in the star’s own studio, United Artists. The film uses a number of stock melodramatic conventions: the abandoned and desperate mother ; the child left to the care of a wealthy family; the coincidences that bring the child to the tramp; and the oppressive moral hand of authority. These are also parallels with the hardships of Chaplin’s own upbringing in East London. There are familiar melodramatic motifs. In the deleted scene of a wedding we see a young bride married to an older man; the groom steps on a flower, symbolic of the deflowering that is taking place.

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4. the mature silent cinema Within this frame Chaplin places his iconoclastic comic creation, the Tramp. Coogan clearly learnt and represented a number of the Tramp’s characteristics. When Chaplin finds the abandoned child his instinct is to pass it on to someone else. These efforts are thwarted by the regular reappearance of a policeman. Saddled with the child there is then a sequence that displays Chaplin’s comic mastery, as he ingeniously uses the few sparse objects of his attic room to produce infant necessities. A suspended coffee pot that acts as a substitute baby’s bottle is masterful.

After a five year ellipsis (the child now being Coogan’s actual age), we are shown the Tramp and the Kid surviving in the slums. In a typical Chaplin quirk, they earn an ‘honest living’ as the Tramp repairs widows, but these are windows that have been broken only a short time before by the Kid. And there are comic variations on familiar Chaplin situations, one being a fight with a larger and more brutal opponent. This is paralleled as the Kid takes on a larger, bullying boy.

The entry of authority figures, backed up by the policeman, ushers in the melodramatic high point of the film. Both the Tramp and the Kid are overcome by the trauma, which demonstrates great pathos. But in his resilient manner the Tramp returns to rescue the boy, and they set off together. In this case they go to a penny-lodging house. A reward posted by the mother prompts the owner to turn the Kid into the police.

Alone once more, the Tramp has a dream, a sort of heavenly version of the slum where they live. Here, in counterpoint to ‘real life’, all is heavenly white and charity abounds. Even so, ‘sin creeps in’ as the devil introduces discord. It would seem Chaplin wanted to provide a counterpoint to the grim realities of life, but he lacked confidence in such a positive world. More melodramatic coincidence allows the reuniting of mother and son. And in a variation from the usual closure of Chaplin films, the Tramp also is brought into this new, affluent household.

The style of the film follows that of Chaplin’s one reelers, and is similar to the early style of Griffith. Long shots and mid-shots are predominant, and the camera almost acts as a proscenium for the staging. There are a number of iris effects, usually marking the opening or closing of a sequence. Other transitions are marked by a fade. There are occasional close-ups to present the emotional responses of the characters or to show important detail. In one or two scenes this is achieved by an iris mask rather than a proper close-up. In an early scene there is a dissolve as the man,whom we assume has fathered the child, burns a photograph of the mother, but essentially the camera’s function is to record the physical movement, which is Chaplin’s forte.

Before release, Chaplin had to negotiate with First National for an increase in his salary. The cost of the film vastly exceeded the budget of the proposed two reeler. First National only agreed to increases after favourable previews. Chaplin, in the end, was paid over a million dollars. The film justified the expense. It was one of Chaplin’s most successful films and grossed over two and half million dollars on its initial release.

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Studying Early and Silent Cinema Chaplin went on to make a series of successful silent comic features, including two (City Lights, 1931 and Modern Times, 1936) after the arrival of sound. Jackie Coogan worked for First National and then Metro in the 1920s, but his career came to a temporary halt in 1927.7 A Hollywood wag remarked that ‘senility hit him at thirteen’. The music on most versions is that composed for the film by Chaplin and the print most frequently seen today is the 1971 version. This means that the film runs at 24fps, which is a little too fast. There are a number of comic moments that are not held quite long enough for effect.

STUDY FILM: Our Hospitality

Metro. USA 1923. 7 reels, 6,220 feet, running time of 75 minutes at 22fps.

Directed by Buster Keaton and John Blystone. Scripted by Clyde Bruckman, Joseph Mitchell and Jean Havez.

Cast: Buster Keaton (Willie McKay), Natalie Talmadge (Virginia Canfield), Joe Roberts (Joseph Canfield), Leonard Clapham (James Canfield), Craig Ward (Lee Canfield).

Keaton started his film career with Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle, which led to him working for producer Joseph M. Schenck. Schenck was a business associate of Marcus Loew. He was an independent producer, distributing through Metro, later part of M-G-M. Schenck went on to become head of the Board, first at United Artists then at Fox / Twentieth Century Fox. Unlike Chaplin, Keaton worked within the established production companies and studio system. In 1921 he formed Buster Keaton Productions, which operated until 1928, when it was incorporated into M-G-M.

In his early days Keaton enjoyed a great deal of freedom, and he seems to have been in control even when, officially, the films had a different director. There was a fairly regular

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