Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin, Silent Movies,
and the Great Depression
Guest author: Robert McManus
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| Free coffee for the unemployed was a common site during this country's Great Depression https://www.thebalance.com/great-depression-timeline-1929-1941-4048064 |
“Hollywood played a valuable
psychological role during the Great Depression. It provided reassurance
to a demoralized nation. ... A renewed sense of optimism generated by the New
Deal combined with industry self-censorship to produce new kinds of films
during the Depression's second half.”
Two events of
1929 radically changed the motion picture industry in the United States; the
widespread adoption of sound and the beginning of the Great Depression. Just as depicted in "Singin' In the
Rain" the introduction of sound was devastating. The "Demon Mike" ruined the career
of many silent film stars.
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_film |
Stage actors,
particularly British stage actors, were brought in to fill the gap, but they
were used broad, sweeping gestures to play to an entire theater, not the more
subtle movements that was used in filmmaking.
The early sound camera was almost entirely static, changing the movies
from fluid and free flowing to largely immobile. This difference is best seen in the 1927/1928
winner of the Academy Awards "Wings" (a silent film where the camera
truly soars) to the 1928/1929* winner "The Broadway
Melody" where the camera is almost entirely still and everything but the
song and dance numbers is dialogue, dialogue and dialogue.
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To make
matters worse no one knew how to make a sound film. Several pictures of the era are just people
sitting around and talking. Others are
no more than filmed plays. Many
directors struck out and experimented, some which led to the language of cinema
we know today, others that were more... visionary. One fine example of this is the Hal Roach
"Our Gang" short "Teacher's Pet" in which twin sisters read the
credit in unison; introducing a comedy with an effect similar to what Stanley
Kubrik would achieve fifty years later in "The Shining."
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| From "The Shining" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3298376/Grady-daughters-horror-classic-Shining-reveal-like-working-movie.html |
At the same
time sound was being adapted, The Depression was in its worst years. The low revenues and the cost of
transitioning to sound equipment forced a number of smaller studios out of
business. Some did survive; the
aforementioned Hal Roach kept on making movies until 1938. Others survived by making serials or short
films.
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| Depression era movie marquees https://www.pinterest.co.uk/ritelitesigns/theater-marquee-signage/ |
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| Scene from "The Circus," 1925 |
Charlie
Chaplin had started working on a picture after completing "The
Circus" in 1928. This was before
sound took off, so it was started as a silent picture. He was a slow worker, in part because he was
a perfectionist and in part because he almost never started a film with a
completed script. So he would have to
stop production while he came up with new ideas. He owned his own studio, so he could get away
with it, but as his picture progressed sound was becoming more prominent. He didn't transition it to sound. By the time the picture was released in 1931
the major studios made exclusively sound films; yet Chaplin's film, "City
Lights" was an enormous success.
Chaplin would go on to make another silent film "Modern Times"
in 1936 and use a variation of his "Tramp" character again in 1940's
"The Great Dictator," his first talkie.
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| https://secure.franklintheatre.com/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=62161~cfe40b7d-1c56-4c4b-b937-600bdd7c5904 |
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| http://tpr.org/post/city-lights-shines-blu-ray |
Technically
neither "City Lights" nor "Modern Times" are silent films,
they both had recorded soundtracks that were played along with them. Chaplin instead called "City
Lights" "A Comedy Romance in Pantomime." Silent films were accompanied by live
music. Some of the movie palaces had
full orchestras; others had to make do with less. My Grandfather was alive during the silent
era; he remembers going to afternoons children's matinees. The children were packed in without the
slightest regard for safety, with some sitting in the aisles or on ledges at
the back of the theater. Those films
were accompanied by a pianist; and all the boys would bring their pea-shooters
and pelt him throughout the performance.
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The audience
was more polite than that this year as, to open their season, the Brevard
Symphony Orchestra, played the soundtrack to "City Lights" live along
to the movie. The soundtrack was written
by Chaplin himself (although the main theme is a variation of a dance hall number by Jose Pedilla.) Chaplin would go on to write most of his own
soundtracks in the sound era; in fact his only Academy Award (other than the
honorary ones) was for Best Original Dramatic Score for “Limelight.”
To me, seeing
the live orchestra performance didn't add much to the movie. While the score is decent, it's
incidental. There are groups which
specialize in providing soundtracks to silent films. I recommend the Alloy Orchestra who has all sorts of
silent movies in their repertoire; but those are all original scores and are
written to be dynamic. Their music is an
experience in itself. In this case
watching the movie with the original score would have been nearly an identical
experience.
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| https://www.allmusic.com/album/silents-contemporary-scores-for-classic-silent-films-mw0000040152 |
The film tends
to end up on many critics’ "Best of" lists. I disagree with that; the film's problem lies
in that much of the film is like a series of short films strung together. This was due to the way Chaplin made movies;
he didn't have a completed idea when he started, so he had to come up with bits
to flesh out the movie. Some of the
individual scenes are hilarious, but they really don't drive the plot.
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| Opening scene from "City Lights" |
Most Chaplin
films are like that, many rely on dream sequences or similarly wandering plots
to get the funny bits in. It's obvious,
for instance, the Chaplin had an idea for a really funny boxing match so he
just grafted it onto his story.
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“City Lights” centers
on a blind girl who thinks The Tramp is a millionaire. The Tramp, through pluck and determination,
manages to make enough money to pay for an operation to cure her blindness, but
realizes that, by doing so, she'll be able to see him for what he really
is.
My personal
pick for greatest silent comedy is Buster Keaton's "The
General." Keaton didn't do pathos,
no comedian, really no dramatist, of the silent era could match Chaplin for
tears. Keaton, though, could put
together a film where the story flows and every scene builds on the one before
it.
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It is still a
great film though, and the audience enjoyed it immensely. Watching silent films, and especially silent
comedies, live is a great experience. The
film combines humor and pathos as Chaplin does best - The film critic James
Agee called the ending "The greatest single piece of acting ever committed
to celluloid". Still people who
know movies much better than I do (including no less than Orson Welles and
Stanley Kubrik) list "City Lights" as one of their favorite films.
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Want
more?
- Charlie Chaplin versus Buster Keaton was a hot topic back in the day. Read about the comparisons here:
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