Friday, January 04, 2008

There are some things that must be said before we can even begin to talk about Artists such as DW Griffith and, much more importantly, Charles Chaplin.  Since there has been art, there has been a dispute about the separation of Art from Artist.  Can it be separated?  Should it be separated? Is “Beat it” a crap song because Michael Jackson is weird, or a pedophile? Should Wagner not be listened to because Hitler liked it, even though Wagner died almost 40 years before there even was such a thing as a Nazi? Should we ignore DW Griffith because he made the most racist movie in American history (aside from “Undercover Brother” and “Black Knight”!) and it was also the most successful film of the sound period – probably around $10 Million.  Thing is, Griffith got to do things that no-one had ever thought to do before, bigot though he was.  Hell, Hitler built the Audobon and the VW Beetle, so good things can come from the worst places.  I think it is fair to separate Art from Artist, in fact I think it is essential.

Now, that being said, DW Griffith was a great innovator as an artist, and probably, in fairness, not much more bigoted than any other Southern man of the period, which is to say, horrifically bigoted.  As for the work, Birth of a Nation (1915) is absolute crap.  It plays into every bad thing, technically as well as politically, and it is interminably self-absorbingly LONG.  It was the first feature ever to play over 120 minutes (2 hours), and it sucks as a movie.  Total Crap.  Racist awful, stupid, ignorant rubbish.  The Ku Klux Klan are the savior of white women virtue from marauding savages (escaped black slaves) for crying out loud!  It is to puke.

In your typical establishment, 25 words or less condensed version, film history goes like this: French invent it.  Birth of a Nation.  Russian’s “discover” montage and sound design.  Citizen Kane is the almighty greatest thing ever made, the second coming of Christ, and everyone ever after worships it “is influenced by it”, especially the French New Wave (Godard and Truffaut and more Godard – cause he’s a knock-off making punk), then Hollywood is ruined by Lucas and Spielberg and there’s no more art except for Scorsese and now Wes Anderson is really good.  THAT’S ABOUT IT.

Don’t watch this film. It is a waste of 3 hours of your time, it is absolutely the most embarrassing phenomenon in American screen history, and it F—D things up in a lot of ways for a long time.  Now, this wasn’t totally lost on the people of the day, in fact the Chicago and Los Angeles Police Department’s “banned” the film, and it took Court orders to cease their “interference with peaceful well regulated trade.”  Banning this is completely wrong, and totally un-American, and this film should be shown as a cautionary tale as well as a “thank-god-we’ve-finally-gotten-to-where-this-is-seen-as-being-as-horrible-as-it-really-is-congratulations-everyone-on doing-such-a-good-job-evolving-as-humans” feel-good political movie.  Those times ARE gone.  The Klan IS totally ridiculous fringe whack-jobs now, not hero’s of American virtue.  When the film premiered, barkers wore Klan uniforms to hawk it in L.A.  Bad news.  But anyone trying to censor or ban this, is a WAY more dangerous asshole than the worst Klansman (and they are REALLLLY low on the evolutionary ladder).

So, the reason that everyone still teaches this in film schools is because it is supposedly such a clearing house of innovations of technique, and it is true that Griffith scraped together and STOLE just about every decent technique that was ALREADY around, and threw them in the picture, so it LOOKS like it’s some revolution.  It did have a huge effect on the other artists of the time because it was so audacious, so LOOONNNGGG (appeals to every artist’s sense of self-indulgence and masturbatory tendencies), and such a spectacular when it was exhibited.  BUT, the alleged innovations either can’t be seen (Griffith made it all without a script, just making it up and shooting as he went along), or they exist prior in component form scattered across other films.

Personally, I think the most important thing, the only thing that has any meaning for me personally, is that John Ford and Raoul Walsh are actors in it, and THEY go on to great things, the GREATEST things, later.  Ford plays a Klansman on horseback crossing a river (an extra), and Walsh plays John Wilkes Booth believe it or not.  Apart from that, I wouldn’t have this pus in my house,  I resented having to watch it, and I resent it even more so since it is so, in my opinion uneccessarily venerated.

Chaplin is the Yin of this year to Griffith’s Yang.  Chaplin begins 1915 in Chicago at the Essanay company, set up by the FIRST screen cowboy, Bronco Billy.  He has left his $175 a week salary at Keystone studios (Sennett) for a $1275 a week salary at Essanay, and complete artistic freedom.  Here he begins to truly craft his character of the tramp that we ALL know and love.  Though the tramp had premiered at Sennett, the first 6 months of his year there was mostly spent playing “the funny drunk”.  He discovered the Tramp, exploded in popularity, made his first “feature” Tilly’s Punctured Romance (1914), and started to get a handle on “this making pictures thing”.

1915 would be the year that Chaplin really takes off as an artist, though only 1 film was made in Chicago before 9 hours of Chicago winter sent Chappers running for the secondary Essanay studio in Niles, California (just next to Fremont, in the East Bay area).  That film made in Chicago is His New Job (1915), and it is brilliant, and very funny.  It is like walking into a new world, even though it is not fully developed, there is more going on in this movie than in all the Arbuckle and Sennett put together up to this point, PLUS some of the dramatic films as well!  There is even one of the most subtle and intuitively brilliant dolly moves – in fact THE FIRST dolly move I have so far come across!

Auditions are being held at the local studio, and Chaplin is trying out.  Our scene begins in the office and consists of four rooms in total.  The office lobby, the bosses office, the “set”, and the wood shop/set shop.  They are arranged more or less left to right – shop-set-lobby-boss office.  The basic direction of this follows the Sennett 2D style, but has odd moments thrown in from time to time, such as these dolly shots I was raving about.  First Chaplin has to get in to see the boss, and to do this he must wait first for an acrtress ahead of him, then must compete with Ben Turpin (A brilliant comedian in his own right) to get “in the door”.  There are some priceless gags between these two, such as the cigarette swap, the match lighting gags, and the door slamming in the face duel.  In the end, Chaplin gets hired and sent to work in the set shop, working with a cantankerous stagehand.  The production consists of 3 actors in dress military outfit with swords, 1 “great lady” and 1 “leading man” (who doesn’t show up until later as a “star”).

In the course of his time in the set shop, Chaplin invents every board and door gag you have ever seen, and somehow they look fresh and are actually funnier than I have ever seen them any of the other 4000 times they have been done.  In the end, the Director throws out the stagehand for stabbing him with a sword (he didn’t, Chaplin did), and enlists Chaplin as the new “leading man”.  Chaos with a sword ensues, then Chaplin almost destroys the set, then he’s the worst ham, finally “He’s driving me MAD!” “screams” the Director and a huge brannigan/chase ensues with the Director AND Turpin (now at work in the set shop) getting knocked out and Chaplin making a getaway.

Now, the dolly shot in question takes place as Chaplin begins to “act” as the lead in this military farewell-unrequited love scene.  The Camera is BEHIND another camera (the one “shooting the scene”) and as the scene begins, the Camera dollies up and past the other camera and the director, leaving only Chaplin and the other actors on screen.  There is a cut to “the other side of the curtain” on the set, and when we cut back, we are now looking at the scene from the Camera on the Dolly.  Very very clever.  He has used a camera movement to enter from “without” to “within” a reality within the film itself.  This may be the first self-relexive moment in all screen history.  It is absolutely delicately done, Ovidian in it’s sneakiness.  Exceptional.  This time we are going to spend with Chaplin at the Essenay’s is going to be FUN!!

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