Essential Cinema: SHORT FILMS BY CHARLIE CHAPLIN
"It is stupid to treat Charlie as a clown of genius. If there had never been a cinema he would undoubtedly have been a clown of genius, but the cinema has allowed him to raise the comedy of circus and music hall to the highest aesthetic level. Chaplin needed the medium of the cinema to free comedy completely from the limits of space and time imposed by the stage or the circus arena. […] [The] best Chaplin films can be seen over and over again with no loss of pleasure – indeed the very opposite is the case. It is doubtless a fact that the satisfaction derived from certain gags is inexhaustible, so deep does it lie, but it is furthermore supremely true that comic form and aesthetic value owe nothing to surprise. The latter is exhausted the first time around and is replaced by a much more subtle pleasure, namely the delight of anticipating and recognizing perfection." –André Bazin, WHAT IS CINEMA A WOMAN (1915, 20 min, 16mm) EASY STREET (1917, 19 min, 16mm) THE CURE (1917, 26 min, 16mm) PAY DAY (1922, 22 min, 35mm)