Chaplin's Silent Features / Silent Wednesdays in September & October
The mere mention of his name conjures up one of the most easily recognizable visages of the 20th century: the cane, the bowler hat, the dusty trousers, the button moustache -- and the kind, forgiving face that solidified Charlie Chaplin as the most versatile, lovable comedic performer of his era, and an icon of world cinema whose very silhouette instantly warms hearts and raises smiles. Besides their effortless ability to elicit laughs from even the most hardened cynic, part of the magic of Chaplin’s silents comes from their meticulousness, the deliberate grace that could only come from a master artist who took his time controlling every creative aspect. The Cinefamily and Janus Films are proud to present a full retrospective of this comedic genius' silent feature films, almost all of which are presented from brand-new 35mm prints! As well, be sure to check out our Saturday Matinee series of Chaplin’s talkies from the ‘40s and ‘50s!
9/01 @ 8:00pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features
City Lights (new 35mm print!) shown with The Idle Class (new 35mm print!)
As the sound era dawned, everyone wanted to hear the Tramp speak -- everyone, that is, except Chaplin himself. Feeling that words in the Tramp’s mouth would evaporate the universality of the character, Chaplin pushed ahead with City Lights, easily his most focused, shining effort, and a rare silent film produced after the 1920s had closed. In it, the Tramp befriends a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) who believes he’s a millionaire, and he tries his hand at a variety of odd jobs to pay for her eye operation; meanwhile, a real-life alcoholic millionaire (a fantastically kooky Harry Myers) befriends the Tramp, expect for when he repeatedly tries to get the Tramp arrested after sobering. Seriously funny and deeply moving (especially in its devastating final scene, which will leave no audience member unmoved), City Lights is a marvel for being such a tightly wound, densely plotted work born out of Chaplin’s obsessive on-the-fly scripting while his film was in production -- and it feels light as air to boot. Chaplin’s phenomenal strength as a performer always made his comic timing, his pantomime and his human warmth seem completely effortless -- but this legacy was secretly built upon a rigorous and unorthodox work ethic, and City Lights is the apex of that mammoth effort. Showing before City Lights is The Idle Class, in which the Tramp is mistaken for a high society drunk! City Lights Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1931, 35mm, 87 min. The Idle Class Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1921, 35mm, 32 min.
Watch the trailer for "City Lights"!
Tickets - $10
9/02 @ 8:00pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features SPECIAL THURSDAY CHAPLIN/TATI DOUBLE FEATURE: The Circus (new 35mm print!) shown with Parade The Circus - 8:00pm “It is Chaplin's great elegy to the lost art of music-hall pantomime and, for that matter, the soon-to-be lost art of silent-film comedy.” - Christian Baluvelt, Slant Magazine
After the epic venture of The Gold Rush made him an even bigger star than he previously was, Chaplin focused the subject matter of his Gold Rush follow-up inward, turning the spotlight on the act of comedy-making itself. The Circus finds The Tramp running afoul of the law and hiding out within the confines of a travelling three-ring operation; accidentally barging in during the middle of a performance, the Tramp inadvertently displays astounding comic skills on the stage, and becomes the circus’s new hottest act. The film’s deceptively simple set-up gives Chaplin one of his greatest possibility-laden canvases, one onto which he projects an fantastic run of iconic, beautifully executed comic setpieces: the funhouse hall of mirrors chase, the monkey-laden tightrope walk, and his perilous, hilarious stint stuck in the lion cage. As well, The Circus’s core romance, between Chaplin and co-star Merna Kennedy, is possibly his most realistic and bittersweet, lending a fittingly somber farewell to what Chaplin had, in the end, falsely assumed would be his final silent.
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1928, 35mm, 70 min.
Parade - 9:30pm “[A] sublime and awesome coda to the career of one of this century's greatest artists.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
After both Playtime and Trafic failed to connect with audiences and critics alike,, Jacques Tati graced the screen one final time with Parade, a seemingly simple, yet densely layered videotaped spectacle made for Swedish television, and a work that harkens back to the master filmmaker’s roots in the music halls of 1930s France. Extensively interweaving documentary technique, Tati presents for us an effervescent series of circus acts performed in front of an arena audience: acrobats, jugglers, trained animals, clowns and the like, with the performances bookended by Tati himself performing sublime pantomimes, such as a brilliant “slo-mo” tennis match, with a expert grace that belies his advanced age. While on the surface Parade appears to be merely a filmed record of a stage show, it in fact effortlessly blurs the lines between “real” and “staged”, from the intermingling of Tati’s handpicked actors and extras amongst “real” patrons, to those “real” patrons interacting with the “real” performers as audience and performance become one. To quote Fernando Croce of Cinepassion.org, Parade is “[a] distillation not of Jacques Tati per se, but of communal spectacle and creation -- cinema.”
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1974, 89 min.
Watch an excerpt from "The Circus"!
Tickets - $10
9/03 @ 8:00pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features SPECIAL FRIDAY TATI/CHAPLIN DOUBLE FEATURE: Playtime shown with Modern Times Playtime - 8:00pm
Jacques Tati’s Playtime is an essential experience in theatrical viewing -- and reviewing, and reviewing; it begs to be seen on the big screen. It is not just a brilliant and graceful observational comedy about “modern living”, but one the most massive undertakings in film history (shot over two years, with a total of 365 days of shooting, and edited for another year). Tati invested every penny he had, and then borrowed more, in order to create the ultimate movie set as playpen, constructing on the outskirts of Paris a “Tati-ville” for Mr. Hulot to wander around in: a complete futurist office building and its surrounding urban environment were built exactly to his specifications. The results are spectacular in a way that no other film accomplishes; it blows you away not with titillation, suspense or pathos, but rather with the pure perfection of its audio-visual ballet. And this heavenly dance requires repeat viewings; Tati made it his goal to fill every piece of the frame with activity and action, in an effort to “democratize the gag”. Every actor, every single extra is doing something funny, whimsical or interesting at all times -- so that you, the viewer, can choose how you are entertained, and no choice is wrong.
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1967, 35mm, 155 min.
Modern Times - 10:45pm “The ‘road’ ending has been stock for Chaplin almost from the beginning. But this time it is definitive.” - Walter Kerr, “The Silent Clowns”
In the process of producing his farewell to silent film as a medium, Chaplin crafted in Modern Times a superlative statement about the American everyman’s place amongst the crushing realities of the Great Depression, all couched inside truly memorable slapstick conceits whose images haven’t lost an ounce of their power. From its Metropolis-meets-Devo “mechanized man” opening act (which would later inspire I Love Lucy’s classic “assembly line” routine), to its later “department store fantasia”, political demonstration, prison break and high-class restaurant sequences, this send-up of both capitalism and its socialist counterpart delivers its powerful message amongst a non-stop parade of magnificent antics handpicked and re-created from Chaplin’s early days, and a clever, subtle sound effects backdrop that never intrudes on the “silent”-ness at the film’s core. Serious and silly, contemplative and crazy, Modern Times is an unmissable treasure.
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1936, 35mm, 87 min.
Watch an excerpt from "Playtime"!
Watch an excerpt from "Modern Times"!
Tickets - $10
9/04 @ 7:30pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features SPECIAL SATURDAY TATI/CHAPLIN DOUBLE FEATURE: The Gold Rush (new 35mm print!) shown with Jour-de-fête The Gold Rush - 7:30pm The Gold Rush is simply one of the towering giants of 1920s silent film, and stands alongside Buster Keaton’s The General as the largest-scale epic comedy event of its time, packed full of astounding visual gags, a tender romance full of heartbreak and butterflies in the stomach, truly suspenseful peril, and the perfect balance of slapstick to pathos (a delicate mixture of which Chaplin was the undisputed king.) Partly inspired by the real-life Donner Party(!), the film finds Chaplin as a Klondike gold prospector; while trapped in a tiny frozen cabin with no food during an intense winter, the Tramp performs some of his all-time most famous bits: Walking Against The Wind, the Chicken Suit, and Eating His Shoe. These satisfying, energizing sequences are matched by the film’s second half, with The Tramp falling in love from a distance with Alaskan beauty Georgia Hale, giving us our hero’s most tender act: the Dance of the Dinner Rolls, a indelible moment that so perfect that only a virtuoso like Chaplin could’ve mastered it. Charlie often claimed that The Gold Rush was the one film he wished to be remembered by -- and rightly so, as this enduring classic richly deserves the title. NOTE: our screenings of The Gold Rush come from the 1942 re-release version that features Chaplin’s narration (the only currently available restored 35mm version of the film.)
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1925, 35mm, 69 min.
Jour-de-fête - 9:15pm
Inaugurating one of the great careers in comedic filmmaking, Jour-de-fête is itself a cause for celebration. Jacques Tati filmed this joyful 1948 debut feature in the remote French village of Sainte-Severe-sur-Indre, where he and screenwriter Henri Marquet spent the WWII years avoiding German recruitment. At first, plot takes a back seat to the whimsical elaboration of sight gags and comic scenes of village life; things kick in to high gear when a sensationalized newsreel on American postal methods persuades Tati’s bumbling-yet-beloved mailman Francois to streamline his delivery service. The gradual accumulation of character and detail pays off in the delightfully frantic finale, which follows Tati on a calamitous bicycle chase through the carousels, bars, butcher shops, bell towers and hay bales of this seemingly sleepy hamlet. Tati’s inimitable style is amply in evidence even this early on, as he deftly updates the classic techniques of silent comedy with stunningly confident sound design; every frame is stamped with the incalculable craftsmanship, warm humanistic sentiment and the miraculous control of space and movement which are Tati’s stock in trade.
Dir. Jacques Tati 1949, 35mm, 79 min.
Watch an excerpt from "The Gold Rush"!
Watch an excerpt from "Jour-de-fête"!
Tickets - $10
9/08 @ 8:00pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features The Gold Rush (new 35mm print!) shown with Pay Day (new 35mm print!) The Gold Rush is simply one of the towering giants of 1920s silent film, and stands alongside Buster Keaton’s The General as the largest-scale epic comedy event of its time, packed full of astounding visual gags, a tender romance full of heartbreak and butterflies in the stomach, truly suspenseful peril, and the perfect balance of slapstick to pathos (a delicate mixture of which Chaplin was the undisputed king.) Partly inspired by the real-life Donner Party(!), the film finds Chaplin as a Klondike gold prospector; while trapped in a tiny frozen cabin with no food during an intense winter, the Tramp performs some of his all-time most famous bits: Walking Against The Wind, the Chicken Suit, and Eating His Shoe. These satisfying, energizing sequences are matched by the film’s second half, with The Tramp falling in love from a distance with Alaskan beauty Georgia Hale, giving us our hero’s most tender act: the Dance of the Dinner Rolls, a indelible moment that so perfect that only a virtuoso like Chaplin could’ve mastered it. Charlie often claimed that The Gold Rush was the one film he wished to be remembered by -- and rightly so, as this enduring classic richly deserves the title. Showing before the feature is Chaplin's final short film, Pay Day (1922), which uncharacteristically has the Tramp as a well-to-do construction worker! NOTE: our screenings of The Gold Rush come from the 1942 re-release version that features Chaplin’s narration (the only currently available restored 35mm version of the film.) The Gold Rush Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1925, 35mm, 69 min. Pay Day Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1918, 35mm, 28 min.
Watch an excerpt from "The Gold Rush"!
Tickets - $10
9/15 @ 8:00pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features The Circus (new 35mm print!) shown with Sunnyside (new 35mm print!) “It is Chaplin's great elegy to the lost art of music-hall pantomime and, for that matter, the soon-to-be lost art of silent-film comedy.” - Christian Baluvelt, Slant Magazine
After the epic venture of The Gold Rush made him an even bigger star than he previously was, Chaplin focused the subject matter of his Gold Rush follow-up inward, turning the spotlight on the act of comedy-making itself. The Circus finds The Tramp running afoul of the law and hiding out within the confines of a travelling three-ring operation; accidentally barging in during the middle of a performance, the Tramp inadvertently displays astounding comic skills on the stage, and becomes the circus’s new hottest act. The film’s deceptively simple set-up gives Chaplin one of his greatest possibility-laden canvases, one onto which he projects an fantastic run of iconic, beautifully executed comic setpieces: the funhouse hall of mirrors chase, the monkey-laden tightrope walk, and his perilous, hilarious stint stuck in the lion cage. As well, The Circus’s core romance, between Chaplin and co-star Merna Kennedy, is possibly his most realistic and bittersweet, lending a fittingly somber farewell to what Chaplin had, in the end, falsely assumed would be his final silent. Also showing is Sunnyside, the Tramp's charming love triangle comedy set amongst the rural countryside, co-starring Chaplin ensemble player Edna Purviance! The Circus Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1928, 35mm, 70 min. Sunnyside Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1919, 35mm, 34 min.
Watch an excerpt from "The Circus"!
Tickets - $10
9/22 @ 8:00pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features City Lights shown with The Pilgrim (new 35mm print!)
As the sound era dawned, everyone wanted to hear the Tramp speak -- everyone, that is, except Chaplin himself. Feeling that words in the Tramp’s mouth would evaporate the universality of the character, Chaplin pushed ahead with City Lights, easily his most focused, shining effort, and a rare silent film produced after the 1920s had closed. In it, the Tramp befriends a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) who believes he’s a millionaire, and he tries his hand at a variety of odd jobs to pay for her eye operation; meanwhile, a real-life alcoholic millionaire (a fantastically kooky Harry Myers) befriends the Tramp, expect for when he repeatedly tries to get the Tramp arrested after sobering. Seriously funny and deeply moving (especially in its devastating final scene, which will leave no audience member unmoved), City Lights is a marvel for being such a tightly wound, densely plotted work born out of Chaplin’s obsessive on-the-fly scripting while his film was in production -- and it feels light as air to boot. Chaplin’s phenomenal strength as a performer always made his comic timing, his pantomime and his human warmth seem completely effortless -- but this legacy was secretly built upon a rigorous and unorthodox work ethic, and City Lights is the apex of that mammoth effort. Also showing is The Pilgrim, in which the Tramp is an escaped prisoner mistaken for a local priest! City Lights Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1931, 35mm, 87 min. The Pilgrim Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1923, 35mm, 59 min.
Watch the trailer for "City Lights"!
Tickets - $10
9/29 @ 8:00pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features A Woman Of Paris (new 35mm print!)
Chaplin as actor: a body dancing through space, deftly expressive, indelibly iconic; and eyes, eyes filled with tenderness, flashing with anger, ennobled by suffering, closed in near-prayer. Chaplin as director: sometimes harder to visualize when irresistibly diverted by his powerful presence onscreen. In one of the very few dramatic features he ever made, and one of only two of his films in which he did not act, Chaplin as director looms large, providing untrammelled insight into the workings of the mind that animated it all and created such rich worlds. Hidden beneath the ravishingly innocent Victorian tale of a country girl tarnished by the rich life is the truth about A Woman of Paris -- it is the record and swan song of Chaplin’s feelings for its star, Edna Purviance. Discovered at a San Francisco cafe while Chaplin was at Essenay, she appears in 33 of his films and was his first great cinematic love; she retired from the screen in 1927, two films after this, but he kept her on his payroll until her untimely death in 1958. He crafted this film precisely to display her talents as a dramatic actress. It is to Edna that the Little Tramp owes his development from rowdy cad to deeply sympathetic Everyman, and in this lyrical love poem of a film, she is amply repaid.
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1923, 35mm, 93 min.
Watch the trailer for "A Woman Of Paris"!
Tickets - $10
10/13 @ 8:00pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features The Kid (new 35mm print! shown with A Dog's Life (new 35mm print!)
"But it was in The Kid that Chaplin seemed to realize, at last, precisely what was required." - Walter Kerr, The Silent Clowns
In this milestone early Chaplin feature, the Tramp adopts an abandoned toddler (Jackie Coogan) whom he discovers in an alley, and raises him to become his sidekick in a variety of schemes and cons. Chaplin's first feature-length directorial effort, The Kid is a moving and hilarious portrait of paternal love, or as the film's first intertitle says, "A picture with a smile, and perhaps a tear..." As well, it's the landmark work of genius in which Charlie the jester metamorphasized into Charlie the full-blooded actor, whose iconic dignity in the face of comic adversity made him one of our greatest cinematic treasures. Also screening is A Dog's Life, the 1918 short that the presages The Kid, and features the Tramp's sweet misadventures in the company of a young pup, who happily watches by as Chaplin hides from the cops, taunts hard-faced gangster types, and tries to get the girl! The Kid Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1921, 35mm, 68 min. A Dog's Life 1918, 35mm, 33 min.
Watch an excerpt from "The Kid"!
Tickets - $10
10/20 @ 8:00pm / Series: Chaplin's Silent Features Modern Times “The ‘road’ ending has been stock for Chaplin almost from the beginning. But this time it is definitive.” - Walter Kerr, “The Silent Clowns”
In the process of producing his farewell to silent film as a medium, Chaplin crafted in Modern Times a superlative statement about the American everyman’s place amongst the crushing realities of the Great Depression, all couched inside truly memorable slapstick conceits whose images haven’t lost an ounce of their power. From its Metropolis-meets-Devo “mechanized man” opening act (which would later inspire I Love Lucy’s classic “assembly line” routine), to its later “department store fantasia”, political demonstration, prison break and high-class restaurant sequences, this send-up of both capitalism and its socialist counterpart delivers its powerful message amongst a non-stop parade of magnificent antics handpicked and re-created from Chaplin’s early days, and a clever, subtle sound effects backdrop that never intrudes on the “silent”-ness at the film’s core. Serious and silly, contemplative and crazy, Modern Times is an unmissable treasure.
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1936, 35mm, 87 min.
City Lights (new 35mm print!)
SPECIAL THURSDAY CHAPLIN/TATI DOUBLE FEATURE:
SPECIAL FRIDAY TATI/CHAPLIN DOUBLE FEATURE:
SPECIAL SATURDAY TATI/CHAPLIN DOUBLE FEATURE:
Jour-de-fête - 9:15pm
A Woman Of Paris
The Kid (new 35mm print!
