“Charles Chaplin’s Little Tramp is the supreme icon of motion pictures—still recognized and loved throughout the world, more than 90 years since he first burst on the screen. The shabby little figure – with derby hat, too-tight jacket, oversized boots and pants, dandified bow tie, and swagger cane – seemed to symbolize the hopes and fears, defeats and optimism of all humanity. Chaplin’s own biography was a rags-to-riches story that saw the product of a destitute childhood in Victorian London become one of Hollywood’s first millionaires and the owner of his own studio before he was 30. His supreme gift was to transform his experience and knowledge of the human lot into comedy, for which his invention and skill have never been surpassed. […]”
Edited by “Taschen”:http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/books/film/all/facts/03987.htm
Editor: Duncan, Paul
Text: Robinson, David
Photos: Roy Export Company Establishment
Flexicover, 14×19.5 cm (5.5×7.7 in.), 192 pages Icon
The Cineteca di Bologna has, for over six years now, sustained an important relationship with Charlie Chaplin and his heirs. The delicate and complex restoration work carried out by the Cineteca and L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, which began with “The Kid”:/articles/3 in 1999, is still in progress. Since then, thanks to a careful philological analysis, an accurate comparative study of existing materials and the use of the most sophisticated techniques to achieve the best possible sound and image quality, we have witnessed the restoration of “Modern Times”, “Monsieur Verdoux”, “Limelight”, “The Chaplin Revue” ({Shoulder Arms, The Pilgrim and Dog’s Life}), “The Circus” and Pay Day.} In 2003, alongside the restoration project that is due to complete all the director’s work in the next few years, a new initiative has been added. Promoted by {The Association Chaplin} in collaboration with BFI/National Film and Television Archive and Lobster Films, it proposes to restore the 35 slapstick comedies that Chaplin made with the Keystone Company in 1914.
h3. The Paper Archive
The Cineteca di Bologna is carrying out an ambitious project, thanks to the fundamental support of the Fondazione Carisbo, to catalogue, digitise and preserve the monumental “paper legacy” left by Charlie Chaplin. It is part of The “Chaplin Project”:http://www.charliechaplinarchive.org/. Nearly a century of cinema is contained in dozens of stories, screenplays, drawings and sketches, short stories, set stills and private photographs, daily production reports, ideas and notes for projects never realised, press books, letters and censorship documents. The 2003 inauguration of this “Chaplin Archive database” and of the Charlie Chaplin research centre at the Cineteca library, has allowed us to show the first results of a work, that once completed, will allow the world’s scholars, researchers and film experts access to this inexhaustible heritage. The project, currently in progress, has realised over 83,000 digital scans and nearly 5500 catalogue entries.
Please consult the archives here : “www.charliechaplinarchive.org”:http://www.charliechaplinarchive.org/
h3. The Publications
The original archive material, only available to a few film historians up to now, will be published and reproduced for the first time in a series of monographic volumes. The critical comments by film critics and historians of the unpublished papers, allow us to trace the crucial stages around the origins of the films, their creation, the unused versions, the censorship and distribution issues. Following on from the monographs dedicated to “Limelight”, “The Great Dictator” and “Modern Times”, Bologna published Kevin Brownlow’s {The Search for Charlie Chaplin} together with the memorable documentary Unknow Chaplin - for the first time on dvd - made by the same author and by David Gill.
Perspectives on the life and art of the great comedian
“Richard Schickel, the distinguished film critic, here gives us an indispensable collection of thirty-three essays on Chaplin’s life and art.
From a broad range of writings he has selected the most provocative and insightful criticisms of the great comedian’s beginnings through his early fims, his mid-life crisis, and his late works …”
This book is published by Ivan R.Dee
“Ivan R. Dee publisher”:http://www.ivanrdee.com/Catalog/singlebook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/IRD/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=1566637015
Re-issue of Charlie Chaplin’s “A Comedian Sees the World” with annotations and hyper-textual enhancements by Lisa Stein
Published by Le Mani in italian version then in english version
A Legion d’honneur medal, “hate” mail from King George, a photo of a tanned and smiling Chaplin posing with Mahatma Ghandi and entourage, a pith helmet, an idea for a new “topless” male swimsuit, and evidence of a foiled assassination plot. These assorted souvenirs only begin to tell the story of Charlie Chaplin’s second world tour, conducted in 1931-2 a tour from which he returned a changed man, changed by the people he met, the places he visited and the ramifications of the Great Depression he witnessed.
“A Comedian Sees the World” was Chaplin’s memoir of this tour, originally published in five installments in a popular American periodical known as The Woman’s Home Companion from September 1933 to January 1934. It was never available to Chaplin’s large world audience outside of the United States at that time. Progetto Chaplin’s new edition, the first in book form, allows the memoir to acquire its first new audience since its initial publication. This being the 75th anniversary of Chaplin’s second tour, there can be no better time to open the pages of his memoir and let him act as a guide through 1930s Europe and Asia as he saw and experienced it.
The archival evidence strongly suggests that “A Comedian Sees the World” is the first piece of writing Chaplin engaged in on his own. In its pages, the reader will see Chaplin’s political consciousness awakening, a consciousness that will go on to influence his films for the remainder of his career. The memoir also makes a writer out of Chaplin, for with its completion he began an accomplished writing life to include essays, poems, short stories and criticism as well as film scripts. The editor of this new edition, Dr. Lisa Stein, has worked to uncover a wide-ranging collection of visual and verbal artifacts from the Chaplin archives and other venues to contextualize the memoir for today’s readers. The memoir is enhanced by annotations that include original draft material excised from the final version, contemporary news article information and/or alternative versions of events recounted by other memoirists. More than 75 photos and illustrations adorn this edition, including the original full-color illustrations from the Woman’s Home Companion series, a never-before-seen collection of photos/artifacts compiled by a 1931 admirer, and scans of the original manuscript and typescript. Dr. Stein’s introduction provides a narrative of historical, cultural and biographical context for the work, as well as a description of the archival documents and an analysis of the tour’s specific influences on Chaplin’s later film work.
This new edition of Chaplin’s travel memoir hopes to usher in an era of new scholarship that looks beyond the great film work to his many other areas of creative endeavor, but especially to his writing. The draft evidence for this memoir clearly shows Chaplin’s evolution as a writer that he engaged in the same sort of drafting and redrafting of manuscript pages as he would shoot and reshoot film scenes. Chaplin the writer, in all of his manifestations, has yet to be considered adequately.
Blurb by Lisa Stein
Please have a look at:
* “Charlie Chaplin Archive”:http://www.charliechaplinarchive.org
* “Le Manie”:http://www.lemanieditore.com
* “Cineteca di Bologna”:http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/en/ritrovato.htm
Discovering early Hollywood through the films of Charlie Chaplin
Uncovering tidbits of the history of Los Angeles and the early film industry that are hidden within Charlie Chaplin’s timeless films, this stunning work of cinematic archeology combines Chaplin’s movie images with archival photographs, vintage maps, contemporary photographs, and scores of then-and-now comparison photographs to conjure up the silent-movie era from an entirely new perspective. Through his research of the locations used in such classic Chaplin films as “The Kid”:/en/articles/3 “City Lights”:/en/articles/4 and “Modern Times”:/en/articles/6 as well as Chaplin’s lesser known but equally brilliant short films and early work, the author illuminates both Chaplin’s genius and the evolving city that served as the backdrop of his art. Part time machine, part detective story, this title presents a truly unique look at Chaplin’s work, and a captivating glimpse into Hollywood’s most romantic era.
{{Publisher: Santa Monica Press (August 1, 2006)}}
The annual Festival Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy will take place from July 1st through 8th 2006.
On Thursday 6th and Friday 7th July
Screening of 9 brand new Keystone restorations carried out by Cineteca di Bologna and the BFI/NFTVA:
CAUGHT IN A CABARET , THE FACE ON THE BAR ROOM FLOOR , BUSY DAY , THE FATAL MALLET , THE STAR BOARDER, BEWTEEN SHOWERS, HIS PREHISTORIC PAST, THE KNOCK OUT and DOUGH AND DYNAMITE restored with the Library of Congress.
On the closing day, Saturday 8th in the afternoon, Lisa Stein will present her book on “A Comedian Sees the World” (which The Cineteca of Bologna is very proud to publish) widely researched on the archive and beautifully illustrated with photos, postcards and magazines from the author’s own collection and Association Chaplin’s materials)
On that same afternoon the “Dossier Chaplin” will be focused on “A King in New York”:/en/articles/9 The film, newly restored, will be shown in {Piazza Maggiore} that same night at 22.00 (and according to the Most Prestigious Old Farmer’s
Almanac: full moon that night!)
The complete program of the festival will be available soon on our website:
“Cineteca di Bologna”:http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/en/ritrovato.htm
For all information about registration/accomodation please contact:
Cinetecaanifestazioni1