This seminar deals with one of the greatest male screen legends of all time, Charlie Chaplin. »Chaplin was not just ›big‹,« one of his biographers notes, »he was gigangtic« (Sieff, 2008). One of the most distinguished and influential filmmakers and actors of the foundational years of cinema, Chaplin was also one of the most controversial ones, in part due to his life-long involvement with progressive and left-leaning causes. The course will trace Chaplin's career from the early days at Keystone and his co-founding of the film studio United Artists to his break with the silent film in the 1930s and his banishment from America in the late 1940s. We will deal with Chaplin's extraordinary merits in the visual aesthetics of silent cinema and analyze his unusual acting techniques which culminated in the creation of his screen persona »The Tramp.« How was the genre of the American film comedy (especially slapstick and screwball) influenced by Chaplin's cinematic works? How did Chaplin as a free-thinking, independent director inspire other artists? Films to be discussed in class include The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), and Monsieur Verdoux (1947).
- Dozent/in: Janice Mitchell