Chaplin: His Life And Art

Book was very interesting and informative on this live. Kept we interested throughout the read. Would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the subject.

This exhaustedly researched bio leaves little out. It is not only a detailed review of Chaplin's life, but also provides insight into his filmmaking and the hands-on perfectionism he brought to bear on his work. Plenty of photos included.

One of the finest books on Chaplin ever written. A joy to read.

Great read about complex man

Everything ok

It’s easy to think of Shakespearean or great dramatic actors and actresses as artists. I never thought of Charlie Chaplin that way. One of the best things about this book is that it shows how Chaplin turned slapstick and vaudeville into an expressive and creative art form. Chaplin had a great imagination for how simple everyday events had comic potential. Robinson gives many examples and they still produce a smile even just reading about them. But Chaplin was not alone in this. What made Chaplin unique in movie history was to portray through actions and facial expressions how these everyday comic situations were expressions of a much deeper human experience. Chaplin shows the “human comedy” in a way that made us laugh and at the same time provoked sympathy for the character and increased our awareness of the human condition. This combination done with no words was so powerful that people around the world in vastly different cultures could understand Chaplin’s work and came to deeply love the actor. Chaplin’s pantomime and comic skills along with his directing and writing skills transformed the nature of comedy in movies. It was a remarkable creative achievement and Robinson documents Chaplin’s development and life as one of the first and finest artistic geniuses in the history of film.When I was much younger growing up in a conservative religious home, I was given the vague impression that somehow Charlie Chaplin was not a good person. My parents and local community bought into the McCarthy era claim that Chaplin was somehow a Communist threat to America and they also knew enough superficial information to think that Chaplin’s personal life was a series of immoral actions. Robinson spells out in detail Chaplin’s personal life and the lunacy of the McCarthy era which treated Chaplin as “dangerous” and banned him from returning to the United States for twenty years. Chaplin’s affairs and marriages take on a different light when viewed in context and in the environment of Hollywood in the first half of the 20th century. His views on militarism and nationalism also look very different today. Judgments about Chaplin’s personal life are left to the reader but Robinson gives the reader all the relevant information. This is what a biographer should do.This is a well-written and thoroughly engaging book. Robinson has extensive quotes not just from Chaplin’s own letters and books but from those who worked with him or knew him. The result is that this is not simply a biography of Charlie Chaplin but of much of the early film industry. For me the book was not just enjoyable to read but opened up a much better understanding of how the early movie industry evolved. Robinson centers most of the chapters on one of Chaplin’s films and the reader can see Chaplin’s creativity and imagination develop over time and how a changing world and a changing industry affected him. I highly recommend this book.

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