The young, ambitious David Raksin, hired by Powell to help orchestrate and arrange the music with Chaplin, toiled 20-hour days, lost 25 pounds, and was often so exhausted that he’d sleep in the studio. Orchestrator Edward Powell nearly lost his eyesight from concentrating so hard on writing the music. remarked that watching his father compose was like getting a “free performance,” but he admitted that the music associates “suffered pure torture.” This certainly proved to be true on the set of Modern Times (1936). He neither glorifies nor criticizes Chaplin, instead defaulting to the role of historian, allowing the reader to decide.Īccording to Lochner’s text, Charlie Chaplin Jr. Yet Lochner doesn’t contend sufficiently with how such stories (some of which reveal an artist’s ugly sadism) are normalized as a result of society’s positive perceptions of artists’ work and persona. The often harried professionals would record these sounds in musical notation and take care of all the practical elements of producing: arranging, conducting, playing, recording, and so on. A few artists quoted in the book describe Chaplin sounding out his notes (“la-la-ing” or humming) or thematic ideas (e.g., “Wagnerian”) for each second of every scene, repeatedly changing the musician’s interpretation until it was exactly right, note for note. It read, “It takes time to play a violin if you want to be good at it eight hours a day for five years.”Įight hours a day for five years may also be the cumulative amount of time Chaplin spent communicating his unique musical vision to his musicians, a torturous exercise in creative collaboration. In an early draft for his 1952 film Limelight, one line epitomized the director’s personal struggle on this front. Chaplin taught himself how to play the violin and cello as a young man-but he couldn’t read a note. The way Lochner fleshes out the behind-the-scenes drama of Chaplin’s scores, his workaholism, and deficiencies (where they existed) can be riveting. The Music of Charlie Chaplin is rich in detail: the relentless effort Chaplin put into learning instruments, the musical influences in his work, samples of sheet music. But in its contextualization of Chaplin’s film scoring, the book provides vital insight into a person considered one of the most important figures of early cinema, and reveals an artist with a deep hunger for complete authorship. Jim Lochner’s The Music of Charlie Chaplin, a rare kind of film and music history book, doesn’t weigh in morally on the subject. It can lead to lionization instead of a complete account of who they were as human beings. While nightmarish production stories about legendary artists are worthy of dramatizing in biographical narratives, a failure to consider how artists’ mistreatment of others should shape their legacy is misguided. Yet society tends to correlate a ceaseless work ethic with high-quality craft. It’s impossible-perhaps redundant-to speculate on the extent to which Chaplin’s perfectionism was necessary to create his masterpieces. Stories of Chaplin’s onerous on-set demands are part and parcel of an enduring legacy, even if his treatment of collaborators isn’t considered legally or morally acceptable by contemporary standards. The opening scene of City Lights (1931)-wherein Chaplin’s signature childlike, vagrant character, the Tramp, is given a flower by the romantic lead, Virginia Cherrill-took an astounding 342 takes over the course of five days before Chaplin fired, and then rehired, Cherrill. He worked some of his actors and crew into the ground until they quit, were fired for less-than-perfect quality, or collapsed from mental exhaustion. One of the most pivotal filmmakers of the early Hollywood era, Chaplin developed a reputation for perfectionism. To work with the great Charlie Chaplin meant suffering some of the most traumatic creative pains imaginable.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |