Interview in American Culture - Research Paper Example

Interview I, Simon Peter, had a great opportunity that I availed from my as part of my studies. It was an assignment to interview a person who had seen a silent film before 1930. The very next moment a person came to my mind. It was Mr. Anderson, a native of New York who had seen the film named The Kid (1921) of Charlie Chaplin in the year 1929. It may be a wonder how he remembered the year and the answer is here. He had seen the film on the 10th birthday of him. He was taken to the theatre by his father who unfortunately died after a few days due to Pneumonia. He is now staying with his daughter Mary Slater in the same city. It seems that he is of 90 years now. I got acquitted with him by one of my friends, Alex. Actually Mr. Anderson is a relative of Alex. Last month I had visited the aunt of Alex, Mary Slater and from there I got acquainted with Anderson who talked a lot about his period when he was a boy. He was very friendly with me and so when I thought of such an assignment I had no other choice, but Anderson. I went to his house and I showed the list of choice of assignments on which he would have to talk a little of his experience. He chose the topic ‘silent motion picture’ that he had seen when he was a boy. Actually his father was a dramatist and who had acted in many plays. Anderson too had deep interest towards the making of films. He had seen the film ‘The Kid’ by the greatest comedian of all ages, Charlie Chaplin. Anderson was much excited to speak on the first film that he had seen in his life. He navigated me through the film: the comedies and at the same time the pathos associated with it. How the child in the film happened to be parentless and how the Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) tried his level best to return the baby to its mother. This aroused much laughter among the audience. As he failed in this attempt he had taken the pain of looking after the baby. Their attempts to earn a living by breaking windows and mending the same made the audience roared with laughter. He remembers that people laughing together at the farce of the characters created a sense of unity. For ‘little Anderson’ the play of the Tramp and the Kid seemed to be real and he associated it with his father. He remembered that situation of the period was also the same as in the film. The poor had to struggle a lot to earn their livelihood, and he was familiar with the Tramps in his surroundings. Mr. Anderson admitted that he had seen the same film in a second time in the Chaplin’s festival at New York City. And this time he learned more about the film. He knew that this film is “a story with a smile-perhaps, a tear” The combination of Chaplin’s Tramp and the little boy Jackie Coogan was excellently acted in the film and thereby making an enormous box office hit. Both these characters could set up both comedy and painful aspects throughout the picture. Anderson stated that all the boys of the period were eager to become so famed like the Kid. They had acted many similar roles in their school too. He remembers at the second viewing of the film, when the Kid and his real mother meet the whole audience yelled out that it is his mother. He feels that the only flaw of the film was the peculiar dream sequence at the end of the film in which the Tramp imagines to have a reunion with the Kid in heaven. Any how the final reunion of the mother, the Kid, and the Tramp make all relieved. The interview with Mr. Anderson showed me how much pain it was taken to release such films of his period irrespective of hardships both physically and technically. In the history of films ‘the Kid’ ranked one of the highly noted silent pictures of the era. It can be seen that Charlie Chaplin rose to be the greatest comedian upon his own tragedies. During this time his marriage was breaking up and the creativity of him was lagging and all feared a breakdown of Chaplin, but he rose with sustaining patience and fidelity. The star image of Chaplin really lied with his works. It is said of ‘the Kid’ that, “the film portrays a bleak social background, and the method of the film is one that would increasingly characterize Chaplin’s work: it juxtaposes two moral universes, a negative one associated with various ills of the society and a positive one embodied in Charlie and his closest relationships” (Maland, 1991. P. 55). In the same book we come across that the dream scene towards the end of the film is apt and this facilitates Chaplin’s concept of mind, which in me turned another picture of it apart from my interview with Anderson. In my attempts to study the era (1920s) I could see that the film industry made a great move towards growth. Chaplin’s role in forming up of The United Artists Corporation was notable, and it happened in the year 1920. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, husband and wife, were the king and queen of the movies, and their house was centred the Hollywood. Very soon Rudolph Valentino became the star of the country. In this era the most famous boy actor was Jackie Coogan who was brought into the film by Charlie Chaplin. Paramount Pictures produced more than 100 movies during these years, and Walt Disney too came to the field by releasing cartoon pictures. Slowly, the public’s demand for bigger and better pictures came out and a tendency towards moving talkies started by the year 1926.Warner Brothers too came into the art of film making . A move from silent pictures to talkies was a salient feature of the period. A turn from black and white to colour too witnessed this period. By the year 1929 the film industry completely turned to be Talkies. The growth of film industry of the period is really surprised me. The assignment helped me a lot to understand the period of 1920’s and how the silent film ‘The Kid’ played a key role in depicting the then society. The film industry of the United States rose from silent to talkies at this period and people’s demand for better films instilled the growth further and further. I feel really proud on the success of the then people in achieving their goal and aims despite of hardships and failures. This gives energy to do something of mine in visual media. To sum up, it can be said that the interview with Mr. Anderson led me a lot of research in the topic. It has made me travel through the evolution of film in US and moreover I could get the style of the Tramp stories of Chaplin. The application of both comedy and pathos in his films really make it more than talkies. Both the selection of themes for the films and the way of acting made Chaplin the greatest comedian of all ages. His vigour for good and vibrant films and the mastery over casting techniques and moreover his indomitable willpower make him a pole star for all the people in the world. Work cited: Maland J. Charles. Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image. Illustrated Edition , Princeton University Press, 1991 Read More