Charlie Chaplin: Essanay Shorts

Charles Chaplin - 1915
His New Job, A Night Out, The Champion, The Tramp
Pretty early Chaplin. This is obviously in the earlier stages of the cinema, with the specific kind of oblong cinematic space, the (inaccurate) attempt to represent the theatre. Chaplin does use depth, but obviously the pinned against the wall horizontals are much more in place. Chaplin has mastered the continuity cut from space to spcae, as well as the match on action (I think); he can cut in in the middle of a scene, to get a better look, if on one angle. One interesting thing about the compositions is the Chaplin is not overly fussy, or perhaps even avoids, centered framings. Not that this is exactly 'Machorka-Muff', but it's just a little off-center in nearly all of them. The compositions are also very complex, with tiny actions, often a hand, not centered but revealing a gag, or even a 'plot' point all of their own.
To get to important matters; every location change, indeed every shot change, seems to reveal an entirely new location, even though the actions (i.e. direction of movement) can show it continous with the last. Moving to a road next to a forest, or a stage next to a dressing room, seems to give a new kind of way of living, a new way to approach life.
And approach life is what Chaplin's figure does, even before the Tramp is really developed. Using feet and hands, he intereacts with the world by striking against it. And he finds it difficult, he gets it wrong. Nearly everything in all these films relates to the difficulty in finding, keeping a job. Surviving employment. Everything else is rather secondary to this, which is revealed is difficult, extremely difficult. Obviously, the physical usages are not 'realistic' in one sense; yet that very physical idea of 'here I am, i am meant to do this, do that', is remarkable. It is the classic modernist position of defamiliaridation, in a way. And with this is combined some really subtle psychology; just a little look.