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Charlie Chaplin Short Comedy Classics - The Complete Restored Essanay & Mutual CollectionRating:
Release Date: 08 July, 2003 Retail Price: $69.99 OUR Price: $62.99 You SAVE: $7.00! Cast: |
Charlie Chaplin Short Comedy Classics - The Complete Restored Essanay & Mutual Collection Reviews
Wonderful films!
Thanks to Image Entertainment I now have gorgeous presentations of almost all of Chaplin's films. These early gems are finally restored to the point where it is no longer a chore to watch them. For the longest time these films were such poor quality, cut-up and missing scenes, and worse they were played too fast giving that familiar "fast forward" effect we associate with many older films. As they are now presented at the correct speed (as they would have been seen in 1915) we can finally appreciate the subtleties, agonies, complexities, and of course comic timing of Chaplin's performances. Real gems here are "A Woman" and "The Bank" from the Essanay years, and "The Immigrant", "The Rink", and "Easy Street" from the Mutual years.
I really like the music for the Essanay DVDs: piano improvisations by Eric James and orchestral scores by Robert Israel. The Mutual films on the other hand have "orchestral" music by Michael Mortilla which is actually quite good, except that it is performed on a rather nasty cheesy synthesizer. If only the budget for these releases has stretched to hiring an orchestra to read Mortilla's scores this release would have been perfect.
The addition of the extra DVD about Eric Campbell is nice. It is good to find out about this actor who the world forgot. Charlie Chaplin himself seems to have forgotten him! In Chaplin's autobiography there is a photo of him and Eric playing golf. Chaplin states the picture is from "The Idle Class", a film that not only didn't feature Campbell, it wasn't even made until 3 years after Campbell's death!
I completely agree with the reviewer below who acknowledges David H. Shepard's enormous role in the restoration of these classic films. I sincerely hope that Mr Shepard continues what he has started and restores Chaplin's earliest movies, the Keystone films. These 1914 films are now the only Chaplin films that aren't available in a pristine condition.
Two Words
There are two words to explain the absolutely superb restoration and editing of this collection: David Shepard, David Shepard, David Shepard. His enormous contribution to the history of silent film is put on full display in this collection. He is, quite simply, the expert on Chaplin's film production, which in many cases took place without a script and emerged only through weeks of cast improvisation in front of the camera, with Chaplin constantly filming until he found what he was searching for. This is one aspect of Chaplin's working method that Shepard has given us: shorts and outtakes reveal Chaplin's working method, and his genius sense for comic timing, which is what always moves the story forward. Shepard's respect for Chaplin's working method, both for his actual technique of using the concept of chance events to create feature-length films by endlessly filming and screening until the script and storyline emerged, and his extensive knowledge of the technical aspects that went into it, make his restorations from the master prints simply unbelievable. Chaplin's endless pursuit for perfection in using the camera to write the script (there were no written notes) is entirely impossible today: the cost of film prevents it. I look forward to every release in David Shepard's long list of planned restorations, in his commitment to put Chaplin once again in front of an audience in a way that makes his work palpable and gripping.
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