Never Seen BW Look This Good: Charlie: The Life and Art of C

[S8 Booster]

harles Chaplin (2003)

(Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin (2003))
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379730/

watched last part of this TV program and i was simply stunned by the BW imagery - i watched clips from modern times (1936?) and on also the dictator (1939) which i last watched at a cinema abt 2 years ago.

anyway - this looked so awesome - anyone know if the films has been given an ultra modern scan or something?

s/hoot

[cinepathic soul reviver]

I saw a story on either ABC or PBS about how they found all of the old Keystone films featuring Chaplin and were in the process of restoring them.

It was really interesting. They collected multiple copies of most of the films from different collectors around the world. What was strange was that depending on what copy of the film you were looking at, scenes were cut differently...scenes would be shorter, longer, occur at a different point in the movie, or cut out all together.

They also ran it through some process to make it a lot more crisp and clean.

[S8 Booster]

interesting. seems like real genious´never settle but always search for the improvement.

i am not sure abt this but i believe mgm who produced the tv piece and the origin of that studio was united artists - chaplins´studio. it is possible that they still have the original negs?

not sure abt the next but i believe chaplin in the early days was in financial troble while finishing a film project - he ran away with the negs and edited the fiilm in a motel room or something.

those days.

btw there was what looked like 35mm docu stuff in colour from the dictator shooting in 1939 - looked amazingly good. could be 16mm though.

s/shoot.

[David M. Leugers]

Some years ago, over ten I believe, they did a special produced by the BBC where they had unbelievably discovered the out-takes to many of Chaplins short films. Since Chaplin always maintained strict control over his negatives, and it was long believed he destroyed all un-used footage, it was a minor miracle that the out-takes would still be around and found at such a late date. The fact that 80 year old nitrate camera original was in such excellent condition was truely remarkable. The footage gave good insight into how Chaplin worked and how he developed his ideas into film. The image quality was truely spectacular, looked like it was shot yesterday. I believe the show was narrated by James Mason so that kinda puts a date on it. I would love to see them again. The digital tools to improve image quality on silent films is wonderful, wish all silents would get the full restoration treatment.


David M. Leugers

[S8 Booster]

i wathced the same program some years ago and i too think it really showed the brilliance of the person/actor/director.

it is possible to get into it by watching the movies but it often looks straightforward but if you think about it it is very complex. the program you mention shows that to the full and how down to the detail huge amount of rehearsal work there was behind each scene.

Chaplin and Buster Keaton are my 2 biggest leading stars in filmmaking.
Buster Keaton unfortunately dont seem to have got the aknowledgment he deserves for his great work.

s/hoot

[VideoFred]

Chaplin and Buster Keaton are my 2 biggest leading stars in filmmaking.
Buster Keaton unfortunately dont seem to have got the aknowledgment he deserves for his great work.

s/hoot

Buster was genious in what he did..
His pokerface.... :lol:

But do not forget Laurel & Hardy!
Stan Laurel was the real brain, Oliver Hardy just did what Stan asked.
But it was a perfect duo.

The story goes: when Oliver was at the end of his life, he said to Stan:
"here's another fine mess you got me in"

And, yes, quality of these very old B/W films is stunning.
Be it digital remastered or not.
The originals must have been very good.

What do you all think about digital colored versions?
I have seen some Laurel & Hardy's... pretty good colored.

Fred.

[audadvnc]

I remember seeing L&H silent shorts in film school. There are some great backstage stories about these two in the 1 reeler days. Ollie wasn't a very motivated actor, he preferred to golf. Stan would purposefully hold up the production to make Ollie miss his golf date, then film him with that exasperated look we've all come to love.

One short involved them wrecking a house over the course of the movie. They set up in the morning and proceeded with their antics. At 5PM they were about to wrap up the shoot when the owner comes home in a rage. They got the address wrong and wrecked the wrong house! :oops: Life imitates art.

[S8 Booster]

life is art from chaplin to donald duck for the gritty observers.

as for l&h i watched them a lot too but as time went by i found them too predictalble as chaplin was not quite. chaplin films was apparently designed over truth of life while lh seemed to me like a lotto gags.

as a filmmaker i believe buster keaton was the one with the greatest potential for the modern times but it never materialized.



s/hoot

[David M. Leugers]

Buster Keaton unfortunately dont seem to have got the aknowledgment he deserves for his great work.

as a filmmaker i believe buster keaton was the one with the greatest potential for the modern times but it never materialized.

I am such a fan of Buster Keaton. He was far more than a comedic actor. He was one of the great innovators of the silent era. His films stand the test of time more than any other silent comedian, Chaplin included. Keatons films look fresh today in their approach and complexity. What a shame his manager cheated him selling him out to MGM where he lost control of his films and his wife left him leading to his alcoholism. His return to glory in the 1950's until his death in 1966 was remarkable. Appearing in Chaplin's "Limelight" was a nice nod from Chaplin to his old friend. Those two were on a level that few if any ever achieved before or since.


David M. Leugers

[BK]

Some years ago, over ten I believe, they did a special produced by the BBC where they had unbelievably discovered the out-takes to many of Chaplins short films.

I have this programme on laserdisk. The title is "Unknown Chaplin", really a great documentary.

It's interesting to see the working methods back in those days with primitive equipment, such as erecting huge white tents just to soften the harsh Californian sunlight for filming,( Not having HMI lights back then ) without them being blown over constantly by the strong wind, must have been terribly frustrating...and what a perfectionist Chaplin is with take after take, only to be abandoned and edited out in the end. Credit should be given to Thames Television and not the BBC who was responsible for it.

I believe a dvd set was released with the same title.

Bill

[S8 Booster]

agree about Buster Keaton - i think his filmmaking and/or films survives time better than chaplins. chaplin seemed to end up as preacher of morale and ethichs in later stages and this ofcourse was somewhat a break from his earlier productions and could not collect the biggest audiences however good the films were. however good - the morale preach at the and of an excellent film like the dictator (well funded though) or Monsieur Verdoux just dont make a film - to me anyway..

just want to mention a story on the recent TV program i saw - think is was Monsieur Verdoux - at one particulary tricky emotional scene the young actress (interwieved) told that there was no way she could manage that complexity and timeing of those takes.

chaplin knew that well in advance and brought her into a separate room nearby and was very rude to her - brought her out of balance and at the exact right moment of emotional disorder he commanded her back on the set and told the crew to shoot and it came out exactly the way he wanted and she admitted in the interview that there was no other way she could have fulfilled the acting goal.

s/hoot

[tlatosmd]

btw there was what looked like 35mm docu stuff in colour from the dictator shooting in 1939 - looked amazingly good. could be 16mm though.

It was shot by Charlie's brother, and it definitely wasn't 35mm. There's a two-part (45 minutes each) documentary consisting of this footage that's been aired on German TV several times, entitled Der Tramp und der Diktator. They tried to more or less synch the color footage shot from different angles with the original 35mm b/w footage and sound from the theatrical film but it was pretty hard as the color footage had been definitely shot at a lower framerate than the b/w 24fps. Both looked like fairly modern, quite pleasing transfers, so the color footage appeared to be transferred at its original shooting speed. I have it on VHS.

Anyway, another opportunity to catch great modern transfers of pre-talkie films is the BBC's People's Century where for the end of the old millenium, the Beep seemingly broke up all archives on earth to make crystal-clear and clean digital transfers of all this old stuff, resulting in a documentary that cut together probably runs for a few weeks. Have it all on VHS as well, currently trying to gather my tapes recorded from TV about five years ago to capture them all to DVD to save them from imminent magnetic doom.

[audadvnc]

Here is demonstrated one of the great advantages of the film medium; that transfers made 70 or 80 years after filming can look better than the originally projected prints. Video transfers will have a much greater difficulty showing improvement over the original tapes.