Building works for “Chaplin’s World”, the future Chaplin museum, are nearly over, at the Chaplins’ family home, Manoir de Ban. To celebrate the occasion, a photo exhibition was organized on October 29, 2015, on site, for and about the workers, with Michael Chaplin in attendance. Click here to watch a video on the regional Swiss TV station “La Télé” in French about the event. However, there is still plenty of work to be done before the museum is ready.
Construction of “Chaplin’s World” (the future museum in the Chaplins’ family home, Manoir de Ban, in Corsier sur Vevey, Switzerland) is underway. Watch the progress below:
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In 2010, the Association Atelier 76 began running filmmaking workshops called “Ciné-Pousse” in primary schools in the working-class neighborhoods of Seine-St-Denis near Paris. But Ciné-Pousse is much more than just a filmmaking project…
These workshops aim to open up children’s minds to art and culture through slapstick film. The association is committed to offering equal opportunities to the children of Seine-Saint-Denis. Every child involved has several roles in a multifaceted cultural project. The children (re)discover the life and work of Charlie Chaplin, and are also taught to write, act in, and produce their very own short silent film.
The association now also organizes workshops with children and teenagers at an out-of-school setting, the Cinéma Le Trianon in Romainville. To date, 15 films have been written and produced by the participating kids, including a class of children with disabilities. When the films premiere at Cinéma Le Trianon, the kids themselves welcome guests and run the ticket booth.
To get in touch, donate or simply to learn more about this fantastic association, check out the Ciné-Pousse webpage. Roy Export and the Chaplin family are happy to be sponsors of Ciné-Pousse.
“One happy thing about sound was that I could control the music, so I composed my own.
I tried to compose elegant and romantic music to frame my comedies in contrast to the tramp
character, for elegant music gave my comedies an emotional dimension. Musical arrangers rarely understood this. They wanted the music to be funny. But I would explain that I wanted no competition, I wanted the music to be a counterpoint of grave and charm, to express sentiment, without which, as Hazlitt says, a work of art is incomplete…. Nothing is more adventurous and exciting than to hear the tunes one has composed played for the first time by a fifty piece orchestra.” -Charles Chaplin, Extract from My Autobiography, 1964
Chaplin’s full original soundtrack from “City Lights” is now on youtube so you can listen from anywhere! Visit our Youtube channel or play the video above to listen.
Chaplin returned to his early silent films later in life, to compose music to accompany them on soundtracks for new theatrical release. The Circus was re-released by United Artists in 1969. At the music recording session, a male vocalist was employed to sing Swing High Little Girl, which was to be played over the opening credits of the film as Merna Kennedy swings on a trapeze. His recording still exists in the Chaplin archives, but according to arranger Eric James, the interpretation, though good, was not quite what they were looking for. Chaplin was apparently always singing the song, and James suggested that they record him, just so that he and his family could have it to listen to with orchestral accompaniment. Chaplin happily complied… and his rendition was the one that was chosen for the film. He was 79 years old.
The full soundtrack from The Circus is now on youtube so you can listen from anywhere! Visit our Youtube channel or play the video above to listen.
