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.
