Friday, April 16, 2010

Charlie Chaplin's The Kid

Recently, I was forced to watch the movie The Kid starring Charlie Chaplin in my Media Studies 20 course at school. This movie was released in 1921 and is a silent film which, to me, sounded extremely boring. For those of you who are like me, you probably have no idea what a "silent film" exactly entails. Well, a silent film is a film that has no synchronized recorded sound, especially spoken dialogue. Instead dialogue is commuted through exaggerated gestures, and title cards.

The story opens with a mother wandering around aimlessly after leaving the hospital with her infant child. Soon after, the mother writes a note reading something along the lines of "love and care for this orphan child". She sets the baby into an expensive looking vehicle along with the hastily scribbled note. Now the owners of this vehicle I assume are thieves, but to be honest they look more like clowns. These men do not even notice the child until it begins to cry in the back seat, and instead of caring for the infant they dump it carelessly in a dirty back alley. Charlie Chaplin finds the child and the story takes off from here.

Now, when my teacher told us we would be watching this old, silent film I was as happy as a fish out of water- but to my surprise the movie was a lot better than I had expected. I'm not saying that I would recommend picking this movie up at Blockbuster for your next Friday night movie but it is better than I had originally predicted. This film is described as "a picture with a smile & perhaps a tear", and I think this quote accurately portrays the emotions I felt while watching it. Charlie Chaplin is able to be create a very light comedic mood but also portrays more sad and deep emotions at the appropriate time.


It it's fun to watch Chaplin because he is unique in his appearance and is very absurd in the way he moves and walks. Because there is no dialogue, all the comedy must be through actions. He does a very good job of exaggerating his motions so that the viewer understand what is occurring- he does such a good job that dialogue isn't even needed to understand the film. In order for a silent film to be successful I think that it is necessary to have a talented actor, such as Chaplin, so that the viewer follow the film with some enjoyment.


It is slightly amusing to see how far the film industry has come in technology since 1921. Fading in and out must have been new technology at the time because the producer definitely overused this feature to the point where it actually become annoying. Music was used well in this film and helped to set the appropriate mood for the scene. Other features such as title cards also help describe what was going on.


I would never watch this movie by choice, but all things considered, I felt that it was a decent movie. It's not a movie I would watch again, or recommend to a friend but it was educational in that I learned about the old ways of film. Before watching this movie I was completely unaware that silent films existed and that they were the first form of movies produced. So I suppose if you are feeling ambitious, you could spend 50 minutes watching this informative yet comedic silent film.






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