Director Roulette: Charlie Chaplin

Birth: 16 April 1889

Death: 25 December 1977

First Film (as director): Twenty Minutes of Love [1914]

Last Film (as director): A Countess from Hong Kong [1967]

Notable Projects: The Immigrant [1917], The Kid [1921], City Lights [1931], The Gold Rush [1935], Modern Times [1936], The Great Dictator [1940]

Genres: Slapstick, mime, visual comedy

Common Themes: poverty, run in’s with the law, social commentary, autobiographical

Directing Techniques: Early in his directing career Chaplin never shot from a completed script to allow him to work out the story on film and as ideas came to him – until he started working on talkies in the 40’s

Interesting Facts: Chaplin directed 60+ films – and worked on 82 completed films according to his autobiography. Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux [1947] was a story idea of Orson Welles. Worked slowly for filmmakers of the time – doing many takes in order to get exactly what he wanted. While traveling to promote his 1952 film Limelight – Chaplin’s American re-entry permit was revoked due to supposed communist sympathies and lived in Switzerland the remainder of his life.

My Comments: I haven’t seen any of Charlie Chaplin’s films prior to starting my Director Roulette series – which is exactly what I was going for. Though Chaplin is an intimidating historical figure to start with due to the fact he had been in films since pretty much the beginning of the narrative art of movies – and it’s really tough to pick out a few things for what is supposed to be a brief entry.