The Fireman
Charles Chaplin, US, 1916
Anarchy! As has been often pointed out, Chaplin’s second film for the Mutual Company mostly resembles those earlier, unhinged Keystone films, or some of the crazier Essanays. In other words this production might not be a move forward, evolutionarily speaking. It sure is funny, though. Eric Campbell is a textbook of melodramatic villain gestures—which may just mean heroic gestures, enhanced that much. Then, here, enhanced that much again. More is more, and very funny. We also have fun with that fireman’s pole, with the firemen running in place, the film running backwards, with Albert Austin’s head and that bucket, with that ditch that Campbell keeps falling into. Look at those long ago Los Angeles streets! Every film is a documentary, of something or other.
Edna Purviance is charming, as always, especially with the slightly wayward tinge in her character.
It’s nice how the textbook arson subplot is so happily punctured by the travails of the goatee’d guy whose house is burning down. Absurdism moves right into the theatre of cruelty as he gets ignored and ignored. At one point he even starts reading a book. The power of convention: when her house does eventually go up in flames Edna’s peril actually registers, despite Charlie’s easy climb up, and the obvious fact that he’s carrying a dummy on the way down. Chaplin is such a beautiful actor that you believe in and care about his collapse at the end.
How gratifying when he turns out to have been faking, and steals off with the girl. After all the knockabout, the film’s conclusion is as tiny and tender as the end of The Immigrant.
How gratifying when he turns out to have been faking, and steals off with the girl. After all the knockabout, the film’s conclusion is as tiny and tender as the end of The Immigrant.
Best copies available on Image Entertainment’s 90th Anniversary edition of Chaplin’s Mutual Comedies (2006)
The Infernal Cake-Walk
Georges Meliés, France, 1903
The fun these people are having is powerfully palpable, and it’s all communicated to the viewer too. Not just fun, but well crafted fun. The establishment of the situation (those flats!), the themes that are played thereupon, the single turns and the group routines are all beautifully paced and presented. As often, the frame is full to the point of eye-popping. How do they do those flames? And by the way, it turns out that Meliés invented the musical! The dancing is superb, and Sosin’s score brings it wonderfully alive. Black face, notice. Get a load of the devil’s legs!
He gets dismembered and reassembled, for good measure. The key to the whole thing may be the provocatively, sweetly anomalous contrast between the hellish setting and the wholesome fun that’s going on there. Just delightful.
Available on Flicker Alley/Film Preservation Associates' monumental 2008 dvd set, Georges Meliés: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913). One hundred and seventy-three films, seven hundred and eighty two minutes, all prepared with love and heroism by Eric Lange and David Shepherd (who gave me my first film job).
