After watching and
discussing The Gold Rush, our group has
agreed that Charlie Chaplin mastered the art of silent film making. Charlie Chaplin was not only the main
character in this silent, black and white film produced in 1925, but it was
written and produced by him as well.
While a silent
film can include music and captions to help guide the plot, most of the
audience’s interpretation comes from the actors and props. Chaplin does a perfect job of keeping the
viewers focused without the use of words spoken, but rather dramatic facial
expressions, body language, and hand gestures.
These physical aspects allow us to understand feelings, emotions, and
relationships without hearing dialogue. The
Lone Prospector’s face tells us exactly how he is feeling about Georgia at the
moment, just by the exaggerated way he looks at her. Another example of Chaplin’s silent
brilliance is the dinner scene when he entertains the women and the audience
with his dance performance using dinner rolls.
Our whole class was laughing and he didn’t speak a word. The slapstick and irony of the film is also enhanced
by the silence, evident in the caption that reads “Speech, speech!” when the
audience knows they would not be able to hear any sort of speech. This silence allows our attention to focus on
props. Chaplin carefully selects props to
be in each scene, potentially foreshadowing future events. The paper compass allows us to infer that
Chaplin is ill prepared and lost from the beginning. Although Chaplin’s priority is striking gold,
we are also able to follow an entire love story, on the side, between The Lone
Prospector and Georgia without voices.
Chaplin portrays Georgia’s true love for The Lone Prospector, at the end,
with Chaplin’s modest outfit change.
Love is easy to get across with words, but difficult with solely props
and actors’ movements. Chaplin’s use of
cross-cutting also displays his brilliance in avoiding resorting to captions such as
“meanwhile.”
Charlie Chaplin incorporates
history, a complex plot, and pure entertainment as he shows us that actions do indeed
speak louder than words.
Calvin D. Brent Jr (Group 2)
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with group three stating that Charlin Chaplin playing the role as the lonely prospector was a brilliant Idea. The film actually did show the irony that actions do speak louder than words since this was a silent film. I got alot out of the movie, with the exaggerated role playing and screen text. Adding on to Georgias love for Cahplin at the end of the film you could actually tell that she had true love for him: When the guards came to take him away she tried to protect him not knowing that he was rich, but know that if she lost him how much pain she would feel. I think it was great how you could see how much she loved him based on her expressions through her role. I agree with group 3s blog 100%.
Writing on Behalf of Group 1
ReplyDeleteChaplin's use of cross-cutting throughout the film and his ability to display multiple scenarios of action at the same time not only prevent boredom but keep the film exciting. As stated above not having to take away from the story and use captions and text transitions helps keep the film exciting and fast paced. His ability to incorporate history into his film also helped the film to seem believable but not strictly historical as this would bore the audience. Over all the review was spot on.