The Most Amazing Thing I Have Ever Seen
God, I love the internet. Further to my last post, here are some bloopers from Chaplin's Mutual series.
These are actual film outtakes, folks. From 1916.
Click to viewI can't even begin to express how much love I have for the fact that these exist. I love seeing the actors giggle, and adore the fact that Chaplin had the same attitude towards rebellious inanimate objects as I do (ie; they must be instantly killed).
What I love even more, though, is a sort of schadenfreude-esque satisfaction at seeing the warts and blueprints of a master craftsman: if you think about it, then you'd realise that of course Chaplin never got all his stunts, routines and visual tricks right on the very first go...but it's something else entirely actually seeing it. It's like hearing Josh Groban hit a sour note, or seeing Mikhail Baryshnikov trip over a brick. For all that Chaplin was the greatest visual comedic genius our species has ever produced? He still had to practice. He still had to work at it. Just like the rest of us mere mortals. And somehow, that makes me feel much better about tripping over the sidewalk or bumping into the woodwork in my apartment.
When I was in grad school, Kevin Brownlow (the guy who made Unknown Chaplin, where these clips come from) visited a class that the professor (David Shepard, who restored the Mutual Films) very kindly let me sit in on. After the lecture, Brownlow told me that the clips in the film came from a freight car full of old acetate reels that Chaplin had ordered destroyed, but somehow missed the incinerator.
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This means that there exists a whole fucking BOXCAR full of outtakes like this, just waiting to be restored and discovered. The operative word being "restored", sadly. That kind of thing takes big money, apparently, which documentary filmmakers haven't got a lot of. Sometimes I think about that boxcar, and wonder if they've ever got the funds together to bring any more clips back into the world.
Q