Film Chronicle

A couple of Film Chronicles ago, I mentioned some ideas about comedy which my students had found useful—“Comedy is a man in trouble,” “Life is a comedy to those that think,” and so on. I left out “Long shots for comedy,” which in its full, canonical form has a sequel, “close-ups for tragedy.” This rule-of-thumb really needs a Chronicle to itself. Universally attributed to Charlie Chaplin, it has often been cited by other filmmakers, for instance Jean-Luc Godard. It seems to me full of implication, compressing much experience in filmmaking (and knowledge of comedy and tragedy) into a few memorable words, though like all rules-of-thumb it must be deployed cautiously, admitting certain qualifications and allowing for certain exceptions.

And acknowledging some mystery about its origin. It is frustratingly difficult to find “Long shots for comedy, close-ups for tragedy,” those words exactly, in any of Chaplin’s published writings. He may well have said “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long shot,” which if less memorably expressed does capture the gist of the idea, or the two ideas. Chaplin himself would not have cared about the exact form of words. He preferred to practice rather than talk about his art, and indeed for much of his early career he practiced it at breakneck speed, developing his abilities so rapidly that he scarcely had time to talk about what he was doing. Late in life, in his 1964 My Autobiography, Chaplin did address the topic of camera distance, but in bland generalities:

With more experience I found that the placing of a camera was not only psychological but articulated a scene; in fact, it was the basis of cinematic style. If the camera is a little too near, or too far, it can enhance or spoil an effect. … Place of camera is cinematic inflection. There is no set rule that a close-up gives more emphasis than a long shot. A close-up is a question of feeling; in some instances a long shot can effect great emphasis.

From here Chaplin goes on to discuss an early work he calls “Skating,” noting that in one sequence his tramp character creates havoc on the rink, then skates to the rear, and as photographed in that position, a “small figure,” “is funnier than he would have been in close-up.” Why exactly, Chaplin does not say. My Autobiography is full of lapses of memory, and in fact “Skating” is not a film at all but a very early vaudeville sketch, performed by Chaplin and his brother Sydney while in the Fred Karno troupe. The film Chaplin might have been thinking of is the 1916 Mutual two-reeler The Rink, which includes an extended roller-skating sequence.

The twelve films Chaplin made for Mutual are now available on a 5-DVD Blu-Ray set from Flicker Alley and are all worth seeing, partly because of what they show about Chaplin’s development. He used these two-reel films, as at even earlier stages of his career he had used the short films produced for Keystone and Essanay, as a means of discovering new ways of being funny on film, funny with grace and ingenuity, not just with slapstick aggressiveness. The Mutuals are to Chaplin’s later full-length silent comedies what the Silly Symphonies of the 1930s are to Walt Disney’s full-length animations of the 1940s: adumbrations, warm-up exercises, try-outs. Besides that, the Mutuals are often brilliantly funny.

Take The Rink. Here Chaplin’s character is working, more or less industriously, as a waiter. Dressed from the waist up a bit more formally than usual, he...