Director: Charlie Chaplin
Year: 1925
Run time: 1 hr 35 min
Source: Amazon (make sure to find the 1925 version)
Charlie's Chaplin's The Gold Rush is an excellent movie in any time, but it will not strike a modern viewer as very ambitious. That's because in our era, comedies and dramas are mostly considered equals, at least outside of award season. This wasn't so in the silent era: while D.W. Griffith could spend extraordinary sums creating massive sets for a three-hour long "serious" film, Chaplin took a huge risk in making the longest (90 minutes) and most expensive comedy at that time. (It doesn't really look expensive, being shot mostly in one-room cabins. But being the perfectionist that he was, it makes sense that he spent a lot of that money on few short establishing shots and one memorable ending.)
But while the movie doesn't feel as ambitious as it was, it does feel very iconic, the epitome of Charlie Chaplin. The love story is trite, but extremely poignant in a few key moments. Each gag is simple, as if they're designed to be re-explained later. Boiling and eating a shoe is such a simple joke, executed perfectly without any unnecessary fluff. You couldn't ask for more from that scene, and then to watch Chaplin walk around with one shoe for the rest of the film is sublime. Same with the dance scene (a call-back to A Dog's Life), or even the tilting house, which is the most extravagant we get here. The film is about surviving in the harsh wilderness, and it feels like the comedy here is similarly austere, by design, but it just works.
And yet it was a real risk - even the idea of Chaplin's Tramp character trudging Alaska doesn't sound like it will work, but it's my favorite of his films so far.
Year: 1925
Run time: 1 hr 35 min
Source: Amazon (make sure to find the 1925 version)
Charlie's Chaplin's The Gold Rush is an excellent movie in any time, but it will not strike a modern viewer as very ambitious. That's because in our era, comedies and dramas are mostly considered equals, at least outside of award season. This wasn't so in the silent era: while D.W. Griffith could spend extraordinary sums creating massive sets for a three-hour long "serious" film, Chaplin took a huge risk in making the longest (90 minutes) and most expensive comedy at that time. (It doesn't really look expensive, being shot mostly in one-room cabins. But being the perfectionist that he was, it makes sense that he spent a lot of that money on few short establishing shots and one memorable ending.)
But while the movie doesn't feel as ambitious as it was, it does feel very iconic, the epitome of Charlie Chaplin. The love story is trite, but extremely poignant in a few key moments. Each gag is simple, as if they're designed to be re-explained later. Boiling and eating a shoe is such a simple joke, executed perfectly without any unnecessary fluff. You couldn't ask for more from that scene, and then to watch Chaplin walk around with one shoe for the rest of the film is sublime. Same with the dance scene (a call-back to A Dog's Life), or even the tilting house, which is the most extravagant we get here. The film is about surviving in the harsh wilderness, and it feels like the comedy here is similarly austere, by design, but it just works.
And yet it was a real risk - even the idea of Chaplin's Tramp character trudging Alaska doesn't sound like it will work, but it's my favorite of his films so far.
Comments
Post a Comment