ritas kleine welt

one year ago, by complete coincidence, stephen weissman left a comment on one of my entries. that's how we came into contact. since then we have been mailing each other sporadically and i had offered my help to translate some of the german reviews for him.

some three weeks ago, the german translation of steve's chaplin: a life was released for the german readership. (in german: Chaplin: Eine Biographie). ilja richter wrote a somewhat unusual review for Die Berliner Morgenpost as he was very much taken in by the book. 

this afternoon, i watched my first ever d.w. griffith film, broken blossoms from 1919. i can see the appeal of this film, but, boy!, have i been spoilt by chaplin and keaton so far! the setting was fab. the story was kinda sweet-ish. lillian gish ripped my heart into pieces, but sadly, sadly, ... the film dragged on and on and on.

andrea and i just got back from a most wond'rous screening of harry potter in english -- here in leipzig!!! for the second time only did i catch the chance to see a potter-flick in english on the big screen. the first time was with PoA, which was, as you know, quite some time ago. what can i say? severus snape these films are best enjoyed in all their original glory.

in retrospect, chaplin called fulfilling the mutual contract the 'most consistently happy period' of his life. he was working his little tush off to adhere to the set time frame of roughly a year as much as possible, but despite all the stress and at time creative exhaustion (nearly every film ended in a wild keystone-like chase), he went as far as his contract possibly allowed it. he was not yet the owner of a studio, nor did he own the material he delivered. but that did not hinder him from streching his creative energies to the max and use these films as his personal testing lab. the result is a set of twelve films that burst with sheer energy and wild spirit. some things in particular stand out against the rest of his entire body of work. for instance:

bernardo bertolucci calls limelight (1952) chaplin's personal exorcism. not only is it terribly sentimental, something for which the little man had always had a knack, but it is also an unparalleled psychological tour de force when compared with any other of his films. chaplin has repeatedly gone through some sort of self-therapy by making his films, but none other come that close to his biography. there has always been the underlying motif of the dance hall girl (read prostitute) being rescued by the tramp's love, but never before nor after did this theme hit so close to his home.

just finished watching sunnyside by charles chaplin for the umpteenth time. but never had i watched it in dvd-quality before. and thus, a few things became quite noticable that hadn't caught my eye before. granted, the mk2-versions of chaplin's films may be based on stretch prints and edited film speed and so some film buffs call this rubbish. since i have nothing to compare it against, though, i'll just stick to this one until someone presents the restored version that is closest to the original prints upon release nearls 90 years ago.

at some point in the past few weeks, i had promissed to write a few reviews about the number of chaplin books i've been reading since the summer. well, here they are, four reviews. there are two photography collections and two unauthorised biographies. except for one, they are all top notch quality.