The famous Chaplin, but I have only seen his "Modern Times" and some classic clips. For some recognized classic movies, I always have a kind of resistance to some extent, perhaps it should be said to stay away. The reason for this is mostly the fear of breaking the expectations in my heart. After all, my expectations may be higher than others: I regard it as a cake that is too delicious to touch, and I would rather watch it in a glass hood than taste it myself. However, I finally saw Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" in class.
The number one film artist who could have a reputation in the silent era, and who survived long after the masses ditched silent and embraced talkies, is Chaplin. "The Gold Rush" was originally a silent film due to time constraints when it was released in 1925, but in 1943, it was nominated for the 15th Oscar for the sound version of the 1942 re-edited and added music, narration and dialogue recorded by Chaplin / Best Score for a Comedy. I saw the 1942 version, not the original 1925 silent film. This is a pity, the first encounter with "Gold Rush" is not what it is. However, this does not affect my judgment on the 1942 version of "The Gold Rush" itself and on Chaplin, who has multiple identities such as director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. My respect is only more than before watching The Gold Rush.
While watching the movie, I didn't know that the soaring male voice in the narration and dialogue was the voice of Chaplin himself. Now I think that the narration that hides the identity is a bit more clever than the dubbing that reveals the identity. The stars of silent movies are mostly dimmed in talkies, and Chaplin's narration, while catering to the trend of the times, also makes his own performance characteristics still charming, and retains the characteristics of silent movies that leave enough room for the audience to imagine.
"The Gold Rush" has a lot to offer, and one of them is undoubtedly how it strikes the right balance between plot and comedy. When Big Jim was hungry and cold, he saw Little Kid as a chicken and wanted to hunt Little Kid with a gun. The series of actions between Little One and Big Jim is so full of laughter that it leaves the audience laughing and swooning for a moment. Shocked by the "cannibalism" incident, only immersed in full comic effect. When Little Dog hunted down the foraging bears in times of crisis, he avoided becoming Big Jim's meal, and he also completed the competition with the bears in the food chain. When the audience instructed Big Jim to dispose of the corpse after Little Budian shot the bear, rubbed the tableware and was so excited that he couldn't help himself, did he suddenly realize what happened just now, and couldn't help being horrified. This may also indicate that Little Bit will counterattack in the future. When Little Dot and Georgia "looked at each other" for the first time, the front and back shots made the audience feel the enthusiasm in the eyes of both sides, as if they fell in love at first sight. However, King Xiang had intentions, and the goddess had his heart. Just when the audience thought they were going to have a beautiful start, it was astonishing to watch Georgia walk past him, hugging the hat behind him, and how disappointing it was for others and himself. And Chaplin's shrewdness is undoubtedly revealed here: the little bit that just missed with Georgia can't hide the loss, in order to cover up the embarrassment, the bartender's back turned to him. , and also made the audience who was still immersed in pity for the male and female protagonists laugh. In Chaplin's films, after moving people's hearts, they often play a trick and make a joke, which makes the audience's emotions rise and fall, and their hearts are surging with his every move. He will not give the audience cruel sadness, he has always faced life with a playful optimism.
As introduced in the opening narration, Chaplin is like the brave and indomitable lonely prospector in The Golden Rush: he discovered the gold mine by accident and succeeded in counterattack; he fell in love with George without a head. Ya, got the heart of the beautiful woman with sincerity... Chaplin spent a lot of hard work on the road of film art, developed his own style, and achieved his classic works that are still acclaimed after a hundred years.
Also from 1925, I was fortunate enough to have seen China's "Wind and Rain" a week before watching "The Gold Rush". "The Night of the Storm" is a film released by the Greater China Lily Company in 1925. Due to multiple reasons such as war and chaos, this "Wind and Rain", which was discovered in Japan a few years ago, is one of the few Chinese films that survived in the Republic of China. In the 1960s, domestic scholars called it a shady movie, saying that it exuded both the feudal class's declining sentiments and the colonial ideology, and was poorly evaluated. The director and screenwriter Zhu Shouju is a writer of the Mandarin-Butterfly School, which Zhang Ailing admires very much. He has made many movies with the trend of the times. "Wind and Rain" is a completely silent film. I thought that the viewing experience would not be very good. Most of the time I couldn't help but take out my mobile phone and flip through it in the silent light and shadow. What I didn't expect was that I watched the whole film with all my heart, and I still didn't know what to do. "The Night of the Storm" uses a two-line narrative, with many characters and full of personality. The limitation of fixed camera position does not affect the look and feel of the whole film, and the use of scenes, frames, and especially montage is amazing. Compared with many domestic films in today's theaters, "Wind and Rain" is a superior work, whether it is storytelling or lens grammar. If more audiences can see this film, they will feel sad for Chinese films that have made little progress in the past eighty or ninety years.
Come to think of it, Chinese films during the Republic of China were also full of masterpieces that stood the test of time like "The Gold Rush". It is a pity that there are too few Chinese films of that period that have survived and that the audience can see. Is our country lacking a film prospector as indomitable as Chaplin? Maybe so. Few people can entertain themselves during the long wait like Chaplin, dance a cheerful bun dance, and enjoy the loneliness and loneliness in front of gold mines and beautiful women.
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