Chaplin: The Tramp's Odyssey (The Louvish Hollywood Biographies) - Softcover

Louvish, Simon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 156656011X ISBN 13: 9781566560115

Publisher: Interlink Books, 2016

Synopsis

An essential volume for understanding Chaplins body of work. An Everyman who expressed the defiant spirit of freedom, Charlie Chaplin was first lauded and later reviled in the America that made him Hollywoods richest man. He was a figure of multiple paradoxes. Simon Louvishs book looks afresh at the mask behind the man. Louvish charts the tale of the Tramp himself through his films, from the early Mack Sennett shorts through the major features (The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, et al.). He retrieves Chaplin as the iconic London street kid who carried the surreal antics of early British music hall triumphantly onto the Hollywood screen. Louvish also looks anew at Chaplins and the Tramps social and political ideasthe challenge to fascism, defiance of the McCarthyite witch hunts, eventual exile, and last mature disguises as the serial killer Monsieur Verdoux and the dying English clown Calvero in Limelight. This book is an epic journey, summing up the roots of comedy and its appeal to audiences everywhere, who reveled in the clowns raw energy, his ceaseless struggle against adversity, and his capacity to represent our own fears, foibles, dreams, inner demons and hopes.

About this title

About the Author:

Simon Louvish is the author of the acclaimed biography of W.C. Fields, "The Man on the Flying Trapeze". He is also the author of novels including "The Days of Miracles and Wonders". He teaches at the London International Film School.

From Publishers Weekly:

Along with his 11 novels, the London-based Louvish writes biographies of cinematic comedians (Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, Mae West, the Marx Brothers). Amid the many books about Chaplin published since the 1920s, Louvish offers fresh insights as he focuses on the famed, iconic cane-twirling Tramp character. He documents Chaplin's costuming, the development and evolution of the Tramp through the earliest films, plus departures to experiment with other characters. The book opens with the 1914 Keystone comedies and films Chaplin directed for Essanay, followed by Mutual titles and his creative expansion at First National, where he moved from shorts to features. The book often parallels film plots with similar situations in Chaplin's life, such as the 1919 death of his first child (who lived only three days). That event galvanized him into action, and he immediately began auditioning babies for his first feature, The Kid (1921). Louvish writes with an authoritative, nonacademic clarity, and his remarkable research benefits both from the vast collection at the Chaplin Research Centre in Bologna, Italy, and a close study of recent film restorations, seeing the films as they were seen and known in their first releases. Interweaving reviews, interviews and early screenplay drafts, Louvish unveils an impressive, prismatic portrait of Hollywood's majestic jester. (Oct. 13)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Interlink Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 156656011X
• ISBN 13: 9781566560115
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464