CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–January 24, 2014. The work of the legendary Charlie Chaplin, who made his filmmaking debut 100 years ago, is remembered and refocused in a new book of essays edited by Chaplin expert and Roosevelt University English and Film Studies Professor Lawrence Howe.
The book, Refocusing Chaplin: Screen Icon Through Critical Lenses, reflects on Chaplin’s career and films through a variety of critical lenses, highlighting the complexity of his filmmaking and providing insight into a number of films including: The Circus (1928); Modern Times (1936); The Great Dictator (1940); Limelight (1952); The Gold Rush (1925); City Lights (1931); Monsieur Verdoux (1947); as well as shorter films including A Burlesque on Carmen (1915); One A.M., The Pawnshop, The Rink, Behind the Screen, (all 1916); and A Dog’s Life (1918).
His first short film, Making a Living, was released on Feb. 2, 1914, and was followed that same year with the release of 35 other short films. In all, Chaplin released 86 films, 12 of which are feature length, and 71 of which he personally directed.
“The book provides a full examination of Chaplin’s career and presents a variety of theories that are applicable today to his work,” said Howe, the author of the book’s fourth chapter that looks at masculinity and its weakness in Modern Times, which was released during the Great Depression at a time when men, who were supposed to be the breadwinners of families, were unemployed and, Howe argues, therefore are portrayed as lacking in masculinity in the film.
“Charlie Chaplin was one of the most influential filmmakers of all time, and one of the most influential people in the world during the 1930s,” said Howe, who received essay submissions from all over the world. The Roosevelt University professor co-edited the book of 10 essays with several of the book’s other writers, James E. Caron and Benjamin Click.
Other essayists including scholars, researchers and experts on Chaplin, silent films and cinema, which are considered using a variety of theories including phenomenology, Marxism, feminism, gender studies, deconstruction, psychoanalytic criticism, new historicism, performance studies, cultural criticism, rhetoric, as well as formal analyses of the graphic image and tensions between visual and sound imagery.
“We are able to show in the book that Chaplin’s work – 100 years later – still has great staying power, even though it is filmmaking from another era,” the Roosevelt professor said.
For more information about the book and/or the centennial of Chaplin’s filmmaking career, contact Howe at 312-341-3709 or Laura Janota at 312-341-3511.
Source: roosevelt.edu
