So this is the last of those silents

Modern Times

I have had this film on my computer for some ages and finally decided to watch it. If you ask yourself why I have never watched this film for so long – it’s an old silent classic. Personally, I’m not a big fan of silent films exactly because I dislike the fast frame rate. It makes all those stories seem blatantly unnatural for me (the same happens with most musicals, by the way). If you also ask yourself how I got the idea to watch this: Right after I went to the museum of the Cinemathèque last year, I saw the scene in which Chaplin falls into the machinery and then slips back again. Somehow I found that utterly hilarious and it intrigued me so much that I decided to watch the film at that time, but never came around to do it.

Now, after getting very interested in the repeated discussion in “The Dreamers” whether Keaton or Chaplin is funnier, I decided to finally check it out myself. (Oi oi, “The Dreamers” is going to become the “Unbearable Lightness of Being” of film for me… not really. “The Unbearable Lightness” is just THE work of fiction in my young life.) When I was younger, I remember that my parents have liked watching Chaplin’s films a lot, and so I still remember having watched one involving Chaplin in a circus – and I especially remember the last scenes in which the tramp always turns his back to us and goes away. I wonder which film that was?

Anyways, this is the list of Chaplin films I want to start with (in this order):
– A King in New York
– City Lights
– The Great Dictator
– Gold Rush
– The Kid
I have no idea what Keaton’s major works are… the Wikipedia article on him is too long!

Recently, I have also realized something horrible: even though I like films much more than I used to and put much more thoughts into watching them, but when I look at the box-office-top-1 films from 2003, I actually have watched much more back then, and I even spent loads of money on the cinemas. O.o

WordPress is evil, because it has killed a part of my posting again. Oh well, here I go onto the review of the actual film (as you can see, I am much less committed to write this now, but I still had to write about it): What I realized very quickly is that Charlie Chaplin’s is blatantly funny, but not in the way of making me laugh. It’s more like I feel like smiling throughout the whole film, maybe because comedic situations just don’t make me laugh as much, I was just amused at seeing the tramp’s delightful clumsiness and hilarious pantomime. My favourite was how he was waving the red flag, I think, hahaha. But, there is not much more to say about it – comedic films are just better watched.
Speaking of the red flag, I do think that this film has some pseudo-communistic touches, but I think that’s way not enough to rise such a political controversy as it happened back then. I really love how Charlie Chaplin was hated in Hollywood, hehe.

Finally, I think that I still don’t like silent films as much – and this one actually isn’t even a “real” one, it’s just that Charlie Chaplin prefers to remain, well, silent. However, I find the beginnings of film quite intriguing, and definitely will be watching more of ‘the old times’.