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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Remembering The Time - Charlie Chaplin




Born as Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin on16 April 1889 best known for his work in the United States during the silent film era.He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I. Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s.His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in the Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice in 1914.From the April 1914  he was writing and directing most of his films and by 1916 he was also producing them. From 1918 he was even composing the music for them.





Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era. He was influenced by his predecessor, the French silent-film comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films.His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the music hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88. His high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin was identified with left-wing politics during the McCarthy era and he was ultimately forced to resettle in Europe from 1952.




In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Chaplin the 10th-greatest male screen legend of all time.In 1915, he burst onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I. Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job."George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin "the only genius to come out of the movie industry".




Chaplin was one of the first international film stars and one of the most famous men of the twentieth century,whose most recognised character, the Tramp, is considered to be cinema's "most universal icon". Chaplin is included in Variety's list of "100 Icons of the Century",in VH1’s list of "The 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons",in TIME's list of the "100 Most Important People of the 20th Century",and was voted 10th most important male star of all time by the American Film Institute.In 2002, he was also ranked number 66 on a list of the 100 Greatest Britons, broadcast on the BBC.Memorabilia connected to Chaplin still fetches large sums in auctions: in 2006 a bowler hat and a bamboo cane that he used while in the role of the Tramp were bought with a record sum of $140,000 in a Los Angeles auction.

In addition to being one of cinema's most iconic stars, Chaplin was one of the medium's first artists and one of the most influential filmmakers of the first four decades of the twentieth century.He was the first to popularise feature-length comedy and to slow down the pace of action, adding pathos and subtlety to it.

                                                Chaplin and Mr Ghandi

Chaplin not only influenced filmmakers, but also artists and entertainers in other fields: he inspired both pop culture for example comics and cartoon characters, such as Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse.As one of the founding members of United Artists, Chaplin also had a role in the development of the film industry.Although UA never became a major company like MGM or Paramount Pictures, the idea that filmmakers could themselves produce their own films was "years ahead of its time".

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