Read complete books and articles on: Charlie Chaplin

Chaplin, Charlie - (Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin), 1889–1977, English film actor, director, producer, writer, and composer, b. London. Chaplin began on the music-hall stage and then joined a pantomime troupe. While on tour in the United States, he was recruited by Mack Sennett. Chaplin merged physical grace, disrespect for authority, and sentimentality into a highly individual character he created for the Keystone Company. In appearance, his Little Tramp wore a gentlemen's derby, cane, and neatly kept moustache with baggy trousers and oversized shoes. He affected a unique, bow-legged dance-walk. Chaplin skipped from one studio to another in search of greater control over his work, finally cofounding United Artists in 1919 with D. W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford.

Chaplin's features include The Kid (1920), The Gold Rush (1924), The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952). He enjoyed immense worldwide popularity, though this was tempered by his refusal to use sound until 1940. His political sympathies and various personal scandals contributed to his declining popularity. In 1952, he was barred on political grounds from re-entering the United States and lived thereafter in Switzerland. In 1975 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. His fourth wife was Oona O'Neill, the daughter of Eugene O'Neill. He won an Academy Award in 1972 for his score to Limelight.

See his My Trip Abroad (1922) and autobiography (1964); biographies by C. Chaplin, Jr. (1960) and P. Tyler (1947, repr. 1972); G. D. McDonald et al., The Films of Charlie Chaplin (1965); K. S. Lynn, Charlie Chaplin and His Times (1997); J. Vance, Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema (2003).

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12 of the Best Books and Articles on: Charlie Chaplin

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Charlie Chaplin » Read Now
by Theodore Huff. 356 pgs.

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...Charlie Chaplin THEODORE HUFF Henry Schuman...following page 210 following page 274 charlie chaplin 1 the importance of Chaplin and...became a playwright and biographer, "...
2.

The Art of Charlie Chaplin, in New England Review » Read Now
by Elie Faure. 6 pgs.

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...History of Art . Elie Faure The Art of Charlie Chaplin (i) We still speak of giving sight to the...with the feelings and the ideas of the spectator. Charlie Chaplin is the...
3.

The Rise of the American Film: A Critical History (includes "Charles Chaplin: Individualist") » Read Now
by Lewis Jacobs. 590 pgs.

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...he entirely underestimates and misunderstands the work of Chaplin, for instance--because this is as it must be. There are no...XII. TOWARD STYLE 202 XIII. CHARLES CHAPLIN:...
4.

Broadway Scrapbook (includes a chapter on Charlie Chaplin) » Read Now
by Brooks Atkinson. 314 pgs.

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...Frome 34 8. Charlie Chaplin 38 9. The WPA...February 2, 1936 8 Charlie Chaplin TO BE genuinely critical...general perspective. Toward Charlie Chaplin, however, I am wholly...
5.

The 7 Lively Arts (includes "I Am Here To-Day: Charlie Chaplin") » Read Now
by Gilbert Seldes. 306 pgs.

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...I Am Here To-Day": Charlie Chaplin 35 Say It with...Out presents Ben Turpin and Charlie Chaplin as equal comedians: two men...I was on location once with Charlie Chaplin...
6.

Great Companions: Critical Memoirs of Some Famous Friends (includes "Charlie Chaplin: Memories and Reflections") » Read Now
by Max Eastman. 314 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...171 TWO BERTRAND RUSSELLS 191 CHARLIE CHAPLIN: MEMORIES AND REFLECTIONS 207...Freud Alfred Eisenstaedt Bertrand Russel Charles Chaplin and the author at Chaplins studio in...
7.

Film and the Critical Eye (includes a chapter on Charlie Chaplin's film "The Gold Rush") » Read Now
by Dennis Denitto, William Herman. 548 pgs.

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...72 6 The Gold Rush CHAPLIN 76 Plot, Characterization...others. Occasionally, a director, such as Chaplin or Welles, will assume more than one...only recall the many...
8.

You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet: The American Talking Film: History & Memory, 1927-1949 (includes information on Charlie Chaplin in "The Directors") » Read Now
by Andrew Sarris. 573 pgs.

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Andrew Sarris has long been one of America's most celebrated writers on film, author of the seminal work The American Cinema, and for decades a highly regarded critic, first for The Village Voice and more recently for The New York Observer. Now comes Sarris's definitive statement on film, in a...
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Andrew Sarris has long been one of America's most celebrated writers on film, author of the seminal work The American Cinema, and for decades a highly regarded critic, first for The Village Voice and more recently for The New York Observer. Now comes Sarris's definitive statement on film, in a masterwork that has taken 25 years to complete. Here is a sweeping--and highly personal--history of American film, from the birth of the talkies (beginning with The Jazz Singer and Al Jolson's memorable line "You ain't heard nothin' yet") to the decline of the studio system. By far the largest section of the book celebrates the work of the great American film directors, with giants such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, and Howard Hawks examined film by film. Sarris also offers glowing portraits of major stars, from Garbo and Bogart to Ingrid Bergman, Margaret Sullavan, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable, and Carole Lombard. There is a tour of the studios--Metro, Paramount, RKO, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Universal--revealing how each left its own particular stamp on film. And in perhaps the most interesting and original section, we are treated to an informative look at film genres--the musical, the screwball comedy, the horror picture, the gangster film, and the western. A lifetime of watching and thinking about cinema has gone into this book. It is the history that film buffs have been waiting for.
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9.

American Dark Comedy: Beyond Satire (Chap. 3 "Dismantling Dictators: "Marxist" or Otherwise") » Read Now
by Wes D. Gehring, R. Karl Largent. 194 pgs.

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From Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Gehring presents a compelling theory of the black comedy film genre. Placing the movies he discusses in a historical and literary context, Gehring explores the genre's obession with death and the characters' failure to be...
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From Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Gehring presents a compelling theory of the black comedy film genre. Placing the movies he discusses in a historical and literary context, Gehring explores the genre's obession with death and the characters' failure to be shocked by it. Movies discussed include: Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-22, Clockwork Orange, Harold and Maude, Heathers, and Natural Born Killers.
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10.

Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia (includes "Remembering Pearl Harbor, Forgetting Charlie Chaplin, and the Case of the Disappearing Western Woman: A Picture Story") » Read Now
by Tani E. Barlow. 458 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Remembering Pearl Harbor, Forgetting Charlie Chaplin, and the Case of the Disappearing...Remembering Pearl Harbor, Forgetting Charlie Chaplin, and the Case of the...
11.

Fools and Jesters in Literature, Art, and History: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook » Read Now
by Vicki K. Janik, Emmanuel S. Nelson. 552 pgs.

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Jesters and fools have existed as important and consistent figures in nearly all cultures. Sometimes referred to as clowns, they are typological characters who have conventional roles in the arts, often using nonsense to subvert existing order. But fools are also a part of social and religious...
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Jesters and fools have existed as important and consistent figures in nearly all cultures. Sometimes referred to as clowns, they are typological characters who have conventional roles in the arts, often using nonsense to subvert existing order. But fools are also a part of social and religious history, and they frequently play key roles in the rituals that support and shape a society's system of beliefs. This reference book includes alphabetically arranged entries for approximately 60 fools and jesters from a wide range of cultures. Included are entries for performers from American popular culture, such as Woody Allen, Charlie Chaplin, and the Marx Brothers; literary characters, such as Shakespeare's Falstaff, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Singer's Gimpel; and cultural and mythological figures, such as Birbal, the American circus clown, the Native American Coyote, Taishu Engeki of Japan, Hephaestus, Loki the Norse fool, schlemiels and schlimazels, and the drag queen.
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12.

Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema » Read Now
by Donald W. McCaffrey, Christopher P. Jacobs. 343 pgs.

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The latest offering from the Reference Guides to the World's Cinema series, this critical survey of key films, actors, directors, and screenwriters during the silent era of the American cinema offers a wide-ranging portrait of the motion picture production of silent film. Detailed but concise...
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The latest offering from the Reference Guides to the World's Cinema series, this critical survey of key films, actors, directors, and screenwriters during the silent era of the American cinema offers a wide-ranging portrait of the motion picture production of silent film. Detailed but concise alphabetical entries include over 100 film titles and 150 personnel. An introductory chapter explores the early growth of the new silent medium while the final chapter of this encyclopedic study examines the sophistication of the silent cinema. These two chapters outline film history from its beginnings until the perfection of synchronized sound, and reflect upon the themes and techniques established with the silent cinema that continued into the sound era through modern times.
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