Chaplin Fans, take advantage of this exclusive opportunity! For a limited time, play a brand new Puzzle Game BEFORE its eventual release to the general public.
B Df’rent Games is launching the first officially licensed Charlie Chaplin mobile game ever: “Charlie Chaplin,The Missing Pieces”!
The demo is available on the App Store, Google Play Store, or on PC.
Download it now and share your valuable feedback to help B Df’rent Games on their official Discord server to create the perfect gaming experience tailored just for you!
A new double LP of the CITY LIGHTS soundtrack is now available as part of the collection of Chaplin film soundtrack vinyls we are producing in collaboration with [PIAS] France. This deluxe edition includes two 180g vinyls (in full mono), rare bonus materials and a 24-page booklet illustrated with photographs and documents from the Chaplin Archive.
The new 4K restoration of A WOMAN OF PARIS has just been released on blu-ray and DVD by POTEMKINE films in France.
This exciting edition includes a recently recorded soundtrack based upon Chaplin’s 1976 score for the film and on a selection of his 1952-1969 composition sketches, restored, orchestrated, and conducted by Timothy Brock. According to Brock, “Over the course of many weeks I aurally transcribed what Chaplin was working out on the piano, and identified about 14 finished compositions and about 20 un-finished, or incomplete, musical ideas. It is these pieces, in conjunction with some of the 1977 score, that make up the new posthumous score, 100% composed by Chaplin. I developed the new score as best I could in the Chaplin earmarks and idioms, and orchestrated it in the model of CITY LIGHTS, which was Chaplin’s earliest personal attempt at orchestration, some 8 years after A WOMAN OF PARIS.” Recording by the Orchestra Città Aperta. Audio Post Production by l’Immagine Ritrovata.
Bonus materials:
- Introduction by David Robinson (5’)
- Chaplin Today: A Woman of Paris - Documentary by Mathias Ledoux with the participation of Liv Ullmann. (27’)
- Presentation of rare archives with commentary by Arnold Lozano of the Chaplin Office (9’)
- Outtakes
- United Artists signature archival footage
Professor Lisa Stein Haven takes us back to The Early Years of Charlie Chaplin, her latest book just released by White Owl (an imprint of Pen & Sword Books).
Charlie Chaplin’s career has been described, critiqued, and scrutinized. There are book-length studies on Chaplin’s music hall career, his career at Keystone Studios and the Mutual Studios. Somehow, his tenure with First National, however, has been largely neglected, even though it was during this several-year contractual time period that Chaplin built and occupied his own studio for the first time, that he attempted and succeeded in filming a comedy feature (The Kid) and that he helped to set up United Artists, an organization that protected the salaries and creative freedom of actors in Hollywood. This period in Chaplin’s story is especially interesting because such landmark moments are accompanied by Chaplin’s first marriage and divorce, the death of his first child, his friendship with French silent film comedian Max Linder , World War I and the role he would play in it, and the production and release of several unsuccessful films that marked Chaplin’s first creative blockage - one that threatened his future career.
This book discusses the transitional periods just before and after the First National contract, as well as the all-important period satisfying it. Archival evidence provides most of the support for the book’s assertions, from the Chaplin archive (property of Roy Export, digitised by Cineteca di Bologna, Italy), and the personal archives of other individuals or institutions discussed. Rare photos illustrate the story.
It is with deepest regret that we share news of the passing of Josephine Hannah Gardin-Chaplin, daughter of Charlie Chaplin and Oona O’Neill, on Thursday, July 13, 2023. She passed away peacefully, surrounded by her beloved family and friends.
For years, Josephine managed the Chaplin Office in Paris on behalf of her siblings until she took leave to care for her husband Jean-Claude Gardin.
She appeared in a number of films, including Pier Paolo Pasolini’s THE CANTERBURY TALES, and her father’s LIMELIGHT and A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG.
We are delighted to announce that THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940), Chaplin’s visionary satire that marked history, will be presented for the first time with live orchestral accompaniment on June 23rd at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma’s outdoor summer venue, the ancient Roman ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, located in central Rome. For this world premiere, Timothy Brock will conduct the Orchestra dell’Opera di Roma’s performance of his new painstaking restoration of the original score, commissioned by the Chaplin Office. Brock previously restored twelve other Chaplin film scores.
Composed by Chaplin himself with musical associate Meredith Willson, the score not only features Chaplin’s signature musical style, but also the unforgettable music of Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms. Willson remarked, “I have never met a man who devoted himself so completely to the ideal of perfection as Charlie Chaplin. […] I was constantly amazed at his attention to details, his feeling for the exact musical phrase or tempo to express the mood he wanted… Always he is seeking to ferret out every false note however minor from film or music”.
THE GREAT DICTATOR was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Original Score in 1941.
Brock will also conduct a live-to-film concert of THE GREAT DICTATOR at the Ravenna Festival on July 21st, thanks to agent MAMUSIC.
For a film concert near you, see our regularly-updated list of screenings with live orchestra for more dates and different film titles in other countries.
