Charles Chaplin, Comic, Director, Musician and more

Who was Charles Chaplin? Read and find out. Look carefully. You will find links to some of his films, for study and enjoyment.


Sir Charles (Charlie) Spencer Chaplin was comedic actor, film director, composer and musician. 
 
He was born in the United Kingdom and moved to the United States of America (USA) in 1913 and
eventually became one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era.

His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the Music-hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer until his death at the age of 88. 

 
Chaplin’s most prolific creative activity occurred in the USA from 1914 to the mid 1940s. 

His most well-regarded movies were made with United Artists and include City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940) and Monsieur Verdoux (1947), although he made many other classic movies.

Chaplin was critical to the development of film as an art form and he showed the potential of the medium to  communicate complex themes.

Chaplin, in his mature period, made intricate films, and provided an  abrasive exploitation of paradox and ambiguity. He was the premier comedian and film maker of his  time, and remains influential in the present day.

His contribution as a creative person himself and as  an inspiration to countless other people has been unique, widespread and timeless.

Chaplin demonstrated stage presence, a natural aptitude for impersonation, and dancing prowess
when he was a young child.

 He joined the Fred Karno troupe in 1910, and when the troupe toured America in late 1913 Chaplin's act was seen by Mack Sennett who hired him for his studio, the  Keystone Film Company. Sennett mentored the young Chaplin and Chaplin sought out role models,  mentors and people he could learn from throughout his life.

 Chaplin's pictures were popular successes, and he was one of Keystone’s biggest stars. Keystone was Chaplin’s creative ‘infancy’.

Chaplin learned about film making and developed his tramp character while he worked at a
phenomenal rate completing 34 short films in one year. Chaplin’s ‘Tramp’ gained enormous
popularity among cinema audiences all over the world.

 He was known as Charlot in French speaking countries, Italy, Spain, Andorra, Portugal, Greece, Romania and Turkey, Carlitos in Brazil and Argentina, and Vagabond in Germany.

In  1915 Charlie signed a more favorable contract with Essanay Studios.
Chaplin’s time at Essanay was his ‘adolescent’ creative period; he further developed his cinematic
skills, added new levels of depth and pathos to Keystone-style slapstick.

His films became much more ambitious, being twice as long as a typical Keystone picture. Many of the films he made with Essanay are classics including The Tramp. They show Chaplin’s growing talent and many of the ideas that were to come to mature fruition in his later mature period of film making.

Chaplin sought complete artistic control over his products from very early in his career. At Essanay
he became a full-blown celebrity, as he was very popular and he made himself and those around him
wealthy.
From Essanay Chaplin moved to the Mutual Film Corporation in 1916. Mutual paid Chaplin $670,000 to produce a dozen two-reel comedies.

He was given near complete artistic control, and produced twelve films over an eighteen-month period that rank among the most influential comedy films in cinema. Practically every Mutual comedy is a classic: Easy Street, One AM, The Pawnshop, and The Adventurer are perhaps the best known. This period in Chaplin’s career was his happiest¸ although he found the stringent production schedule demanding and restrictive, especially because his method of film-making involved improvisation and repetition, which were both expensive and time- consuming.

At the conclusion of his contract with Mutual contract (in 1917) Chaplin signed a contract with First
National. Chaplin enjoyed much more creative control over all aspects of the filming process including production and he built his own Hollywood studio. He was also able to perform at a more relaxed pace that allowed him to focus on quality.

Although First National expected Chaplin to deliver short comedies, he expanded most of his personal projects into longer, feature-length films, including Shoulder Arms (1918), The Pilgrim (1923) and the feature-length classic The Kid (1921), which introduced a strong element of pathos and sentimentality to silent movies which was innovative at this time.

In 1919, Chaplin along with other celebrities  co-founded the United Artists film distribution company in order to escape the growing power of film distributors and financiers in the fast developing Hollywood studio system.

With this move to United Artists Chaplin assumed complete control of film production. He became independent and this move was crucial in allowing him to achieve his artistic maturity.

After the arrival of sound films, and while still with United Artists, Chaplin made The Circus (1928),
City Lights (1931), as well as Modern Times (1936) before he committed to sound.

 Modern Times and City Lights are considered to be prime examples of Chaplin’s art. Both are sophisticated pieces of symbolic film-making that were essentially silent films scored with Chaplin’s music and sound effects.

Chaplin's first dialogue picture, The Great Dictator (1940), was an act of defiance against German
dictator Adolf Hitler, Nazism, Anti-Semitism and Fascism. It was filmed and released in the United
States one year before the U.S. abandoned its policy of neutrality to enter World War II.

Chaplin exploited the similarities between Hitler and The Tramp (especially the little moustache) and played the role of Adenoid Hynkel, Dictator of Tomania, clearly modeled on Hitler. The film was seen as an act of courage in the political environment of the time, both for its ridicule of Nazism and for the depiction of Jewish persecution. Chaplin was nominated for Academy Awards for The Great Dictator, but he did not win.

Chaplin made his home in Vevey, Switzerland.

He briefly and triumphantly returned to the United States in April 1972, with Oona O’Neill to receive an Honorary Oscar.

Chaplin's final films were Limelight (1953), The King in New York (1957) and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967).

Chaplin was a musician, composer and choreographer as well as film-director and actor. He
composed scores, wrote songs, and choreographed most of his films. Two of his most popular songs
are ‘Smile’ and ‘This is my song’. Chaplin's score for Limelight won an Academy Award in 1972.

There was a delay in the film premiering in Los Angeles due to Chaplin’s unpopularity in America in the early 1950s and so the movie became eligible decades after it was filmed.

In his later career Chaplin wrote extensively on his life. He also wrote original music compositions
and scores for his silent pictures and re-released them. Chaplin's last completed work was the score
for Woman of Paris. He was knighted at age eighty-five.

Sir Charles Chaplin died in his sleep in Vevey on Christmas Day 1977.

What were the kinds of edit cuts defined by Lev Kuleshov and the Moscow School?

Lev Kuleshov’s film workshops were the birthplace of Russian Montage. The Kuleshov students learnt that editing served three primary purposes while building a film. A cut could serve a narrative purpose. A cut could generate an intellectual response. The third kind of cut that the Kuleshov students discovered was a purely emotional one.

Watch this video on the Soviet Theory of Montage

 

The narrative cut allows the director to analyze the action into its most interesting elements and then re-synthesise these elements of an event into a powerful sequential action.

A flash-back or flash-forward is also a type of narrative cut.

The cross-cut is another kind of narrative cut.

 

The metaphorical cut or associational cut is a type of intellectual cut. A shot where workers are falling to the bullets of soldiers, can be followed by oxen being led to the slaughterhouse. Eisenstien uses this imagery in ‘Strike’. The audience  understood that the workers were being compared to dumb cattle being led to their death.

A contrast cut can also produce an intellectual response.

The parallel cut produces a third kind of intellectual response.

 

Emotional response can be generated by the very method of joining the strips of film together. here the method, rather than their content produces a kind of kinetic response that the director can control.

Rhythmic cuts in which a  director uses shorter and shorter lengths of film increases the tension and tempo of the action. The reverse can take place if longer lengths of film are joined together rhythmically.

The tonal cut is another method of hooking the viewer’s emotions. The use of steadily darker toned visuals can evoke a sense of darkness or heaviness, and the use of brighter visuals can bring a sense of lightness and joy.

Form cuts and directional cuts can also evoke emotional responses in the audience

A short note on Ardeshir Irani

Khan Bahadur Ardeshir Marwan  Irani (5 December 1886 – 14 October 1969). He is remembered for starting the earliest cinema theatres in Bombay. Popularly known as Ardeshir Irani, he was a writer, director, producer, actor, film distributor, film showman and cinematographer in the silent and sound eras of early Indian cinema. He was renowned for making films in Hindi, Telugu, English, German, Indonesian, Persian, Urdu and Tamil. He was a successful tycoon who owned film theatres, a gramophone agency, and a car agency.

 

Ardeshir Irani was born on 5 December 1886 in Poona, Bombay Presidency. In 1905, Irani became the Indian representative of Universal Studios and he ran Alexander Cinema in Bombay with Abdulally Esoofally for over forty years. At Alexander Cinema Ardeshir Irani learnt the rules of  filmmaking.  In 1917, Irani entered the field of film production and produced his first silent feature film, Nala Dayamanti, which released in 1920.

 

At age  forty, Irani was an established filmmaker. Ardeshir Irani became the ‘father’ of the Indian talkie films. He created history with his sound feature film, ‘Alam Ara’ released on 14 March 1931. Ardeshir Irani  is also accredited with making the first Indian English feature film, ‘Noor Jahan’ (1934). He completed his hat-trick of fame when he made Indiia’s  first colour feature film, Kisan Kanya (1937).

 

His contribution is not limited to giving voice to the silent cinema and colour to black-and-white films. He gave a new courageous outlook to filmmaking in India and provided such a wide range of choice for stories in films that till date, there are films being made which have a theme relating to one of the one hundred fifty-eight films made by Irani.

 

Irani made one hundred fifty-eight films in a long and illustrious career of twenty-five years, between the First and Second World Wars. He made his last film, Pujari, in 1945. He introduced a number of new actors to Indian Cinema, including Prithviraj Kapoor and Mehboob Khan.

What is Dada?

'By July 1916, Dada was a Zurich sensation, this while the Battle of the Somme accrued its grisly statistics: roughly 500,000 German casualties, 200,000 French and 420,000 British. The military incompetence and arrogance of those in power escalated to an unfathomable scale. Hans Arp wrote, "We had a dim premonition that power-mad gangsters would one day use art itself as a way of deadening men's minds."

 

'Gaga for Dada,' The New York Times Style Magazine, Fall 2005

 

The Basics of Dada Movement in Art

 

Dada was an artistic and literary movement that started in Europe when World War I was going on. Because of the war, many artists, intellectuals and writers, especially those from France and Germany, moved to Switzerland, which was a neutral country. Instead of being relieved that they had escaped, the artists, intellectuals and writers were furious with the modern society. So, they decided to show their protest through artistic medium. They decided to create non-art since art in the society anyway had no meaning.

 

Dada was many things, but it was essentially an anti-war movement in Europe and New York from 1915 to 1923. It was an artistic revolt and protest against traditional beliefs of a pro-war society, and also fought against sexism/racism to a lesser degree. The word "dada" was picked at random out of a dictionary, and is actually the French word for "hobbyhorse".

 

The most widely accepted account of the movement's naming concerns a meeting held in 1916 at Hugo Ball's Cabaret (Café) Voltaire in Zürich, during which a paper knife inserted into a French-German dictionary pointed to the word "dada".

 

The European movement was started in 1915 in Zurich by sculptor Hans Arp, film-maker Hans Richter, and poet Tristan Tzara.

 

 

The so-called non-artists turned to creating art that had soft obscenities, scattered humour, visible puns and everyday objects.

The most outrageous painting was created by Marcel Duchamp, when he painted a moustache on a copy of Mona Lisa and scribbled obscenities under it.

He also created his sculpture called Fountain, which was actually a urinal without the plumbing and it had a fake signature.

 

The public were repulsed by the Dada movement. However, the Dadaists found this attitude encouraging. And, slowly the movement spread from Zurich to other parts of Europe and New York City. Just as many mainstream artists were thinking about this movement seriously, the Dada movement dissolved around the early 1920s.

 

By the end of World War I, Dada was very popular in the German cities Berlin, Cologne and Hanover, expressing the view of many Germans at the time that the war was folly. The artists included: Raoul Hausmann, John Heartfield, Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters, Otto Dix, and George Grosz (Dix and Grosz later became part of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement). The German artists released the issued Dada publications: Club Dada, Der Dada, Jedermann sein eigner Fussball ("Everyman His Own Football"), and Dada Almanach.

 

The New York art movement arose almost independently. The movement was centred at Alfred Stieglitz's gallery, "291," and at the studio of the Walter Arensbergs. Its leaders were: Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Francis Picabia. The New York counterpart tended to be more whimsical and less about the violence that was happening overseas.

 

Picabia founded a Dada periodical called "391" in Barcelona and introduced the Dada movement to Paris in 1919. Most notable among the French Dada pamphlets and reviews was 'Littérature' (published 1919-24), which contained writings by André Breton, Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault, and Paul Éluard.  The Paris Dada movement later evolved into Surrealism by 1924

Dada  also influenced the experimental French film-makers in the 1920s. The films of Man Ray are the purest examples of Movie Dada such as 'Return to Reason' (1923).

This art movement was a protest, but at the same time it managed to be enjoyable and amusing. It was sarcastic, colourful, quirky and silly. If a person at that time had not been aware of the logic behind the movement, he or she would have been wondering what the artist was up to creating pieces like the ones that were created. However, the artist who created the Dada art was very serious about his work. The movement did not favour one medium over another. It used everything from glass to plaster to geometric tapestries to wooden reliefs.

 

 In addition, the movement was also responsible for influencing many trends in the field of visual art, the most well-known being Surrealism.

 

 

Right: Hannah Hoch - Cut with the Kitchen Knife Through the First Epoch of the Weimar Beer-Belly Culture, 1919.

 

The piece on the right by Hannah Hoch epitomizes the Dada attitude towards war: That it is chaos. That the world has gone mad. That war itself is craziness incarnate destroying humanity.

 

What are the functions of colour in Cinema?

Noted Film analyst RN Dash writes about  

Functions of colour in cinema :

(1)Colour is considered a necessity for certain categories of films : those on Arts and Artists and those depicting splendour and glamour, such as the glory of the Mughal palaces, the grandeur of Royal courts and house-holds, or the world of Fashion. Costume oriented films require a variety of shades of colour appropriate to their textures. Art oriented films (Gaja Gamini, 2000 and Meenaxi, 2004 of M F Hussain, Holi, 1984 and Mirch Masala, 1987 of Ketan Mehta) display a variety of colours in brilliant shades.

(2) Colour enhances grandeur of palatial structures, as of Moghul palaces, and costumes of the royalty, danseuses and models.

(3) Colour has become an essential requirement for presentation of spectacular dance performances and fashion shows.

(4) Colour is often used to indicate the period to which the story of a film relates. Lagaan (2001) was filmed in sepia colour to indicate that it was a period film, relating to the old days of the British Raj.

(5) Colour defines the moods of characters. Facial expressions are often shown in blue, green or reddish colour to represent the state of mind of an actor.

(6) Colour adds to the visual effects of any presentation; the intensity and shades of different colours are manipulated in a film to create desired effects. Colour defines the moods of characters and also the ambience of a situation. Different colour schemes and shades are designed by the film makers to depict different type of activities, to set the tone and mood of the film and to match the contents of the scenes. The battle scenes in Birth Of A Nation (1915, D W Griffith) were tainted red, while the other outdoor scenes were greenish and domestic scenes were yellowish. In Agent Vinod (2012), scenes of Afghanistan were yellowish, whereas scenes of Pakistan were greenish. Romantic activities are shown in soft colours whereas scenes presenting fear, horror or terror are shown in deep colour. Deep and bright colours are used to present flamboyant activities and glamour; sober colour scheme is used to present restrained activities.

(7) Colour in cinema is also used as an editing device, to present past or future, as discussed earlier.

(8) Colour is also being used as a narrative technique to enhance the dramatic effects of the visuals, and occasionally to add meanings to the portrayals.

What is mise-en scene?

 The arrangement of everything that appears in the framing – actors, lighting, décor, props, costume – is called mise-en-scène, a French term that means “placing on stage.” The frame and camerawork also constitute the mise-en-scène of a movie.

 

 

Don't be confused. Mise-en-scène isn't a production term. Directors don't walk around saying “Let's create an elaborate mise-en-scène.” Not at all.

 

From the craftsman that builds fake bookcases to the cinematographer that chooses where the lights will go, the mise-en-scène is the result of the collaboration of many professionals. Thus in the production environment, the director is more specific with his requests and orders. Is he trying to talk to the prop master, the set designer, the actors, the make-up artists? All of them are part of different departments. But all of them, in the end, have influence in the mise-en-scène.

 

In the academic realm, the term mise-en-scène is always invoked when the overall look and feel of a movie is under discussion. Students taking Film Analysis should be quite familiar with the term.

 

Even though many professionals are involved in its creation, the director is the one that oversees the entire mise-en-scène and all of its elements. Not just that, but during the early stages of pre-production, the director or his AD sits down with set designers, prop masters, location managers, costume designers, and scenic artists to determine the look and feel intended.

 

In some instances, the mise-en- scène is used to evoke lasting feelings throughout the movie and not just for selected scenes. In the German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), distorted shapes and claustrophobic scenery is implemented to disturb the audience and enhance the horror.

 

Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967) has been praised by its amazing, exciting, and multi-layered  visual design. For this reason, the following segments will shed light on many scenes from The Graduate but also from other pictures.

 

Décor

 

Décor refers to the decoration or decorative styles, comprising mainly of the set and props used in a movie. Instead of just dressing the set, the director must be savvy to fathom how objects may bear significance in a deeper level, while also emphasizing themes, creating meanings, and provoking thoughts.

 

An early scene from The Graduate (1967) opens with a close-up of Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) alone on his bed. Behind him is a fish tank, which may symbolically represent Ben’s entrapment in a life that he doesn’t want. Later in the movie, Ben finds himself at the bottom of a swimming pool, thus further elaborating on that concept.

 

In Rear Window (1954), an enlarged photograph placed in the living room offers exposition on the accident that rendered L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) handicap:

 

Lighting

 

Unarguably one of the film elements that has the greatest power to evoke emotions, lighting must be manipulated by the director to accommodate his or her desires for the movie. The two broad types of lighting approaches are: low-key lighting and high-key lighting.

 

High-key lighting is often seen in romantic comedies and musicals, encompassing an even lighting pattern and avoiding dark areas in the frame. Everything looks bright with little to no shadow at all. High-key lighting has little dramatic effect, and it is often used in a scene with no tension.

 

 

Low-key lighting is often seen in horror movies and thrillers, comprising of a lighting pattern that has both bright and dark areas in the frame. The chiaroscuro (Italian: bright-dark) technique, long used by painters, is characterized by strong contrast, often employed to unnerve the audience.

 

 

Note that this terminology is counterintuitive as low-key lighting is high contrast and high-key lighting is low contrast.

 

Costume

 

 The obvious purpose of costuming is to dress an actor according to his character. Lawyers wear suits, nurses wear scrubs, and a drifter could wear worn out shoes, ragged shirt, and baggy pants.

 

But, more than that, costuming can also be used to establish someone’s hierarchic level. Regimentals, for instance, bear the status of the person who wears it. And even the color may distinguish an enemy from a friend. In The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), a comic situation arises when Blondie (Clint Eastwood) heads toward the enemy cavalry that was covered in dust. When the enemy general slaps his gloves on his sleeve, his apparently gray uniform changes to blue.

 

 Costuming may also be used to emphasize a theme. In the first scene at the Taft Hotel in The Graduate, Mrs. Robinson wears a fur coat that makes her look like a predator hunting for her pray. Her coat bears a pattern that resembles the fur of a cheetah. Or could it be a cougar?

 

 

Location

 

In Witness (1985), on the day after declining Rachel’s (Kelly McGillis) seduction, John Book (Harrison Ford) explains to her why nothing could have happened between them the night before. Quiet conveniently, the confrontation takes place in a barn, while Rachel is collecting eggs. The location emphasizes Rachel’s responsibilities as a woman. If they had made love and Rachel gotten pregnant, she would have to carry the baby and eventually give birth. Also, during the conversation, John stands outside the barn, thus being separated from Rachel by the barn’s door. In this case, the door functions as a metaphor of the social and cultural barriers that keeps them a part.

 

The final confrontation in The Graduate takes place in a church. Ben tries to prevent Elaine (Katherine Ross) from getting married, but he arrives too late. Nonetheless, when Elaine sees him, she runs to him, and they run away. When the couple is cornered by infuriated parents and relatives, Ben starts swinging a cross to avoid them. Stepping out, Ben uses the cross to hold the church’s doors shut.

 

The prop (cross) and location (church) impose a comment on religious institutions, perhaps implying that Elaine’s parents are trapped by traditional believes and practices.

 

Shot, Scene, Sequence

SCENE, SHOT; SEQUENCE

 

The terms scene, shot and sequence are sometimes misunderstood.

 

Scene defines the place or setting where the action is laid . This expression is borrowed from stage productions, where an act may be divided into several scenes, each of which is set in  a different locale. A scene may consist of one shot or series of shots depicting a continuous event.

 

Shot defines a continuous view filmed by one camera without interruption. Each shot is a take.

When additional shots of the same action are filmed from the same set-up - because of technical or dramatic mistakes - the subsequent shots are called re-takes. If the set-up is changed in any way - camera moved, lens changed, or different action filmed - it is a new shot, not are-take.

 

A sequence is a series of scenes, or shots , complete in itself. A sequence may occur in a single setting, or in several settings. Action should match in a sequence whenever it continues across several consecutive shots with straight cuts - so that it depicts the event in a continuous manner, as in real life. A sequence may begin as an exterior scene, and continue inside a building, as the players enter and settle down to talk or perform.  A sequence may begin or en d with a fade or dissolve; or it may be straight-cut with bracketing sequences.

 

Confusion arises when the terms scene and shot are used interchangeably. Individual shots in a script are referred to as scenes. But , a master scene script would require a number of shots to film the entire event. In such cases, a single scene number may be used and the shots designated by letters a, b, c, etc . While production personnel may consider a single take as a shot, they refer to the shot by scene number. For practical purposes,  therefore, scene and shot arc generally interchangeable.

 

A shot - or a portion of a shot - is also referred to as a cut. This term is derived from a portion of a shot which is cut out and used separately such as a cut of a player's silent reaction removed from a dialogue sequence.

 

A short note on Raj Kapoor

Ranbir Raj Kapoor (14 December 1924 – 2 June 1988), also known as "The Show Man", was a noted Indian film actor, producer and director of Hindi cinema. He was called the ‘Clark Gable’ of the Indian film industry.  He was the winner of 2 National Film Awards and 11 Filmfare Awards in India, and a two-time nominee for the Palme d'Or grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his films Awaara (1951) and Boot Polish (1954). His performance in Awaara was ranked as one of the top ten greatest performances of all time by Time magazine. His films attracted worldwide audiences, particularly in Asia and Europe. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 1971 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1987 for his contributions towards Indian cinema.

 

Raj Kapoor was born in Dhakki Munawwar Shah near Qissa Khwani in Peshawar, (then) India (modern day North Pakistan). His Parents were to Prithviraj Kapoor and Ramsarni Devi Kapoor. He was the eldest of six children in the family. His brothers are actors Shashi Kapoor and the late Shammi Kapoor. He also had a sister named Urmila Sial. Two other siblings died in infancy. They later on moved from Peshawar into Punjab for residence and for education.

 

At the age of ten, he appeared in films for the first time, in 1935's Inquilab. After acting in several films over the next 12 years, Raj Kapoor's big break came with the lead role in Neel Kamal (1947) opposite Madhubala in her first role as a leading lady. In 1948, at the age of twenty-four, he established his own studio, R. K. Films, and became the youngest film director of his time making his directorial debut with Aag starring himself, Nargis, Kamini Kaushal and Premnath. In 1949 he co-starred alongside Dilip Kumar and Nargis in Mehboob Khan's hit film Andaz which was his first major success as an actor. He had his first success as producer, director and star of Barsaat released later that year.

 

He went on to produce and star in several hit films made under his R.K. Banner including Awaara (1951), Shree 420 (1955), Chori Chori (1956), Jagte Raho (1956) and Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai (1960), the last was directed by Radhu Karmakar, his longtime cinematographer, and which won Filmfare Award for Best Film. These films established his screen image modeled on Charlie Chaplin's most famous screen persona of The Tramp.

 

 Outside of his home productions, his other notable films as a leading actor included Anhonee (1952), Aah (1953), Anari (1959), Chhalia (1960) and Dil Hi To Hai (1963). He also produced the hit social films Boot Polish (1954) and Ab Dilli Door Nahin (1957).

 

In 1964, he produced, directed and starred in the romantic musical Sangam alongside Rajendra Kumar and Vyjayantimala which was his first film in colour. This was his last major success as a leading actor as his later films like Around the World (1966) and Sapnon Ka Saudagar (1968) with younger starlets Rajshree and Hema Malini which failed at the box-office. In 1965 he was a member of the jury at the 4th Moscow International Film Festival.

 

In 1970 he produced, directed and starred in his ambitious film Mera Naam Joker which took more than six years to complete. His son Rishi Kapoor made his debut in this film playing the younger version of his character. When released in 1970, at the time, it was a box office disaster and put Kapoor and his family into a financial crisis. It was a movie before its time. Today, it  acknowledged as a cult classic.

In 1971, he launched his eldest son Randhir Kapoor in the family drama Kal Aaj Aur Kal starring himself, his son Randhir, his father Prithviraj Kapoor as well as Randhir's would-be-wife Babita. He launched his second son Rishi Kapoor's career in 1973 when he produced and directed Bobby which was a huge box office success and introduced actress Dimple Kapadia, later a very popular actress; it was the first of a new generation of teen romances. Dimple wore bikinis which was quite unique for Indian films then. In 1975 he acted alongside his son Randhir again in Dharam Karam, which Randhir also directed.

 

In the latter half of the 1970s and early 1980s he produced and directed films that focused on the female protagonists: Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978) with Zeenat Aman, Prem Rog (1982) with Padmini Kolhapure and Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985) which introduced Mandakini.

 

He acted in fewer films by the late 1970s and early 1980s but played a notable supporting role alongside Rajesh Khanna in Naukri (1978) and as the titular character alongside Sanjay Khan in Abdullah (1980). He played a detective in two comedy films directed by Naresh Kumar Do Jasoos (1975) and Gopichand Jasoos (1982). In 1979 he was a member of the jury at the 11th Moscow International Film Festival.

 

 Raj Kapoor's last major film appearance was in Vakil Babu (1982) where he appeared with his younger brother Shashi. His last acting role was a cameo appearance in a 1984 released British made-for-television film titled Kim.

 

He was set to direct Henna starring his son Rishi and Pakistani actress Zeba Bakhtiar before his death in 1988. His son Randhir directed the film and it released in 1991.

 

 

Raj Kapoor suffered from asthma in his later years; he died of complications related to asthma in 1988 at the age of 63. He collapsed at the event where he was to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, and was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for treatment. He was hospitalised for about a month before he succumbed to complications arising from his asthma. At the time of his death, he was working on the movie Henna (an Indo-Pakistan based love story). The film was later completed by his sons Randhir and Rishi Kapoor and was released in 1991.

 

 

Raj Kapoor is appreciated both by film critics and movie fans. Film historians and movie buffs speak of him as the "Charlie Chaplin of Indian cinema," since he often portrayed a tramp-like figure, who, despite adversity, was still cheerful and honest. His fame spread worldwide.

 

He was adored by audiences in large parts of Africa, the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, China, and Southeast Asia; his movies were global commercial successes. Raj had the knack of getting the best out of any one, since he had mastered all departments of film making and even marketing them.

When Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru died in 1964 coinciding with release of Sangam, he took the opportunity to create a scene when Gopal’s ashes were immersed in Ganges, like Pandit Nehru described in his poetic will. His films reflected the Era in which it was made.

 

He had a great understanding of the public taste and a great sense of Box-Office. He was one of the pioneers of the Indian cinema, who talked about the potential of Hindi cinema emerging as a great revenue earner from the world market in fifties, which has become a reality today.

 

Many of Raj Kapoor's movies had a patriotic theme. His films Aag, Shree 420 and Jis Desh Men Ganga Behti Hai (In the country where the Ganges flows) celebrated the newly independent India, and encouraged film-goers to be patriots.

Raj Kapoor commissioned these famous lyrics for Mera Joota Hai Japani, a song from the movie Shree 420:

 

Mera joota hai Japani (My shoes are Japanese)

Ye patloon Inglistani (These trousers are English)

Sar pe lal topi Roosi (The red cap on my head is Russian)

Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani (But still, however, my heart is Indian)

 

The song is still extremely popular and has been featured in a number of movies since Shree 420 was released. Indian author Mahasweta Devi stopped the show with her inaugural speech at the 2006 Frankfurt Book Fair when she used these lyrics to express her own heartfelt patriotism and debt to her country.

 

Raj Kapoor was an astute judge of film music and lyrics. Many of the songs he commissioned are evergreen hits. He introduced the music directors Shankar-Jaikishan and the lyricists Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra. He is also remembered for his strong sense of visual style. He used striking visual compositions, elaborate sets, and dramatic lighting to complete the mood set by the music. He introduced the actresses Nimmi, Dimple Kapadia, and Mandakini, as well as launching and reviving the careers of his sons Rishi, Randhir and Rajiv. He was also famous for making his actresses wear revealing clothing which was not very common in Indian cinema.

 

A postage stamp, bearing his face, was released by India Post to honour him on 14 December 2001. To honour him, a brass statue of him was unveiled at Walk of the Stars at Bandra Bandstand in Mumbai in March 2012.

 

 

Write a note about DW Griffith

David Wark Griffith   (born January 22, 1875, in  Floydsfork, Kentucky, U.S.—died July 23, 1948, Hollywood, California), was a  pioneer American motion-picture director. He is sometimes called ‘The man who made Hollywood’. D.W. Griffith was one of cinema's earliest directors and producers, known for his innovations and for directing the 1915 film ‘Birth of a Nation’.

 

He  developed many of the basic techniques of filmmaking, in such films as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), and The Struggle (1931).

 

Films

 

By 1908, Griffith had entered the new world of moviemaking. He did acting work for the New York City film companies Edison and Biograph and went on to become a director of hundreds of shorts for the latter company, working with actors like Lionel Barrymore, Mary Pickford and the Gish sisters. He started to develop two-reel works and eventually made the four-reel film Judith of Bethulia.

 

Griffith appeared as an actor in one film for the Edison Company, Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest, under Porter’s direction, and in several films for the Biograph Company. When an opening for a director developed at Biograph, Griffith was hired. From 1908 to 1913, Griffith made more than 400 films for Biograph, the majority in the one-reel format, lasting approximately 12 minutes.

 

 His first film as director was The Adventures of Dollie (1908), about a baby stolen by and recovered from Gypsies. During the latter part of his employment, he experimented with longer films; his last Biograph film, Judith of Bethulia (1913), a biblical story of Judith and Holofernes, based loosely on a play of the same title by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, comprised four reels.

 

 'Birth of a Nation': First US Blockbuster

 

He independently directed Birth of a Nation, released in 1915 and telling the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction era. Adapted from the book The Clansmen, the work was seen as the first U.S. blockbuster and has been praised for its pioneering storytelling forms, greatly influencing modern moviemaking and shaping ideas around audience cultivation.

 

Racist Themes

 

‘Birth of a Nation’, however, was blatantly racist and distorted history, with its demeaning depictions of African Americans and a storyline that positioned the creation of the Ku Klux Klan as a means of vengeance over a woman's death. The film earned much criticism, and riots broke out during showings. Over the decades, Nation has continued to spur outrage and dialogue.

 

Later Work

 

Griffith's next film, was  ‘Intolerance (1916)’. It was innovative in its narrative structure by juxtaposing four different locales and eras. Then in 1919, Griffith co-founded United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford, with the production company serving as a distributor for his films. Griffith continued his output with works like 1919's Broken Blossoms (which was about an inter-ethnic romance), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921) and America (1924).

 

He made two pictures with sound, Abraham Lincoln (1930) and The Struggle (1931). Yet Griffith's sensibilities were considered out of sync with the evolving tone of film and he was unable to find work, though he did donate prints of his movies to the Museum of Modern Art.

 

He lived in hotels during his later years and died in Hollywood, California, on July 23, 1948.

 

Contribution to Cinema

 

 Griffith was highly innovative with his filmmaking techniques, utilizing cross-cutting, close-ups and fade outs to distinctive effect, cultivating a deeper emotional milieu.

 

Griffith identified that the shot, not the scene was the basic unit of cinema.

 

He developed and used the basic shots: Long shot, close-up, mid shot, as well as the extreme close up and extreme long shot.

 

Griffith discovered that the emotional content of the scene, not the location of the scene, determined the correct placement of his camera and the correct moment to cut from one perspective to another. This is often called the grammar and rhetoric of film.

 

Griffith introduced frequent camera movement (pan and travelling shots), and cross-cutting technique .

 

He experimented with artificial lighting in films and  was the first to use lighting to indicate mood.

 

He was the pioneer director who demanded natural acting from his actors, and  began casting actors to fit their roles according to their physical type. He demanded rehearsals before shooting.

 

He made several types of films, and was an acclaimed director of the silent era. No wonder he was called  ‘The man who made Hollywood’.