Here’s my list, and I encourage you to assault, disagree or perhaps even agree, and send in your own list in our readers’ section at ad***@tr**********.com . What is most important is to keep a dialogue going about cinema as a visual medium for artistic expression where it takes its place among other art forms.

1. Robert Bresson

The point is not to direct someone, but to direct oneself. When a sound can replace an image, cut the image or neutralize it. The ear goes more towards the within, the eye towards the other. – Robert Bresson

Bresson Films for Review:

• Diary of a Country Priest (1951)
• A Man Escaped (1956)
• Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)

 2. Yasujirō Ozu

I have formulated my own directing style in my head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others. I can make fried tofu, boiled tofu, stuffed tofu. Cutlets and other fancy stuff, that’s for other directors. – Yasujirō Ozu

Ozu Films for Review:

• I was born, but … (1932)
• Tokyo Story (1953)
• An Autumn Afternoon (1962)  

3. Alfred Hitchcock

If it’s a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on. – Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock Films for Review:

• Notorious (1946)
• Rear Window (1954)
• Vertigo (1958)

4. Jean-Luc Godard 

If you want to make a documentary you should automatically go to the fiction, and if you want to nourish your fiction you have to come back to reality. – Jean-Luc Godard

 Godard Films for Review:

• Vivre sa vie (1962)
• Pierrot le Fou (1965)
• Masculin Féminin (1966)

5. Roberto  Rossellini 

I want you to know how deeply I wish to translate those ideas into images, just to quiet down the turmoil of my brain. – Roberto Rossellini

Rossellini Films for Review:

• Paisà (1946)
• Journey to Italy (1954)
• La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV (1966)

6. Orson Welles 

A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. – Orson Welles

Welles Films for Review:

• Citizen Kane (1941)
• The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
• Touch of Evil (1958)

7. Ernst Lubitsch  

There are a thousand ways to point a camera, but really only one. I let the audience use their imaginations. Can I help it if they misconstrue my suggestions? – Ernst Lubitsch

Lubitsch Films for Review:

• Trouble in Paradise (1932) 
• Ninotchka (1939)
• The Shop Around the Corner (1940) 

8. Howard Hawks  

I’d say that everybody has seen every plot twenty times. What they haven’t seen is characters and their relation to one another. I don’t worry much about plot anymore. – Howard Hawks 

Hawks Films for Review:

• Bringing Up Baby (1938) 
• Only Angels Have Wings (1939) 
• Rio Bravo (1959) 

9. Kenji Mizoguchi 

You must put the odor of the human body into images [which] describe for me the implacable, the egoistic, the sensual, the cruel… there are nothing but disgusting people in this world.– Kenji Mizoguchi

Mizoguchi Films for Review:

• The Life of Oharu (1952)
• Ugetsu (1953)
• Sansho the Bailiff (1954) 

10. Jean Renoir  

What interests me is the interpretation of life by an artist. The personality of the film maker interests me more than the copy of an object – Jean Renoir 

Renoir Films for Review:

• The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1935)
• The Human Beast (1938)
• The Rules of the Game (1939) 

11. Max Ophüls  

The highest reaches of the actor’s art begin, I believe, at the point where words cease to play a part. – Max Ophüls

Ophüls Films for Review:

• Letter from an Unknown Woman (1949)  
• La Ronde (1950)
• The Earrings of Madame de… (1953)  

12. Luis Buñuel  

God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed. Thank God, I am still an atheist – Luis Buñuel

Buñuel Films for Review:

• Viridiana (1961)
• Belle de Jour (1967)
• Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972)

 13. Fritz Lang 

To begin with I should say that I am a visual person. I experience with my eyes and never, or only rarely, with my ear – to my constant regret. Each picture has some sort of rhythm which only the director can give it. He has to be like the captain of a ship. – Fritz Lang

Lang Films for Review:

• Metropolis (1927)
• M (1931)
• The Big Heat (1953)

14.  John Ford  

My name’s John Ford. I make westerns – John Ford

Ford Films for Review:

• My Darling Clementine (1946)
• Rio Grande (1950)
• The Searchers (1956)

15. Josef von Sternberg

Shadow is mystery and light is clarity. Shadow conceals – light reveals. To know what to reveal and what to conceal and in what degrees to do this is all there is to art. – Josef von Sternberg

Sternberg Films for Review:

• The Docks of New York (1928)
• The Blue Angel (1930)
• Morocco (1930)

 16. Billy Wilder  

I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut. – Billy Wilder

Wilder Films for Review:

• Double Indemnity (1944)
• Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• Some Like It Hot (1959) 

17. Robert Altman 

Making a movie is like chipping away at a stone. You take a piece off here, you take a piece off there and when you’re finished, you have a sculpture. You know that there’s something in there, but you’re not sure exactly what it is until you find it. – Robert Altman 

Altman Films for Review:

• McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
• Nashville (1975)
• Short Cuts (1993)

18. D.W. Griffith 

Remember how small the world was before I came along? I brought it all to life: I moved the whole world onto a 20-foot screen. I made them see, didn’t I? I changed everything. – D.W. Griffith 

 Griffith Films for Review:

• The Birth of a Nation (1915)
• Intolerance  (1916)
• Broken Blossoms (1919) 

19. Abbas Kiarostami 

My films have been progressing towards a certain kind of minimalism, even though it was never intended. Elements which can be eliminated have been eliminated. – Abbas Kiarostami

Kiarostami Films for Review:

• Close-Up (1990)
• Taste of Cherry (1997)
• The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)  

20. Carl Theodor Dreyer 

Nothing in the world can be compared to the human face. It is a land one can never tire of exploring. There is no greater experience in a studio than to witness the expression of a sensitive face under the mysterious power of inspiration. To see it animated from inside, and turning into poetry. – Carl Theodor Dreyer 

Dreyer Films for Review:

• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
• Day of Wrath (1943)
• Ordet (The Word) (1955) 

21. Michelangelo Antonioni  

After you’ve learned two or three basic rules of cinema grammar, you can do what you like – including breaking those rules. A film you can explain in words is not a real film. – Michelangelo Antonioni

Antonioni Films for Review:   

• L’Avventura (1960)
• L’Eclisse (1962)
• Blow-up (1966)  

22. Buster Keaton 

Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot. Charlie Chaplin and I would have a friendly contest: Who could do the feature film with the least subtitles. – Buster Keaton 

Buster Keaton Films for Review:

• Sherlock Jr. (1924)
• The General, co-director Clyde Adolf Bruckman (1927)
• Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) 

23. Chantal Akerman   

When people ask me if I am a feminist film maker, I reply I am a woman and I also make films. – Chantal Akerman

Akerman Films for Review: 

• Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
• News from Home (1977)
• D’Est, From the East (1993)

24. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Every decent director has only one subject, and finally only makes the same film over and over again. My subject is the exploitability of feelings, whoever might be the one exploiting them. It never ends. It’s a permanent theme. Whether the state exploits patriotism, or whether in a couple relationship, one partner destroys the other. – Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Fassbinder Films for Review:

• The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972)
• Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
• Berlin Alexanderplatz, a 14-part West German crime television miniseries (1980)  

25. Ousmane Sembène  

I think cinema is needed throughout Africa, because we are lagging behind in the knowledge of our own history. I think we need to create a culture that is our own. I think that images are very fascinating and very important to that end. Our forefathers’ image of women must be buried once for all.  – Ousmane Sembène

Sembene Films for Review:

• La Noire de… Black Girl (1966)
• Mandabi  (1968)
• Xala (1975) 

26. Charles Chaplin 

Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease from pain. You’ll never find rainbows if you’re looking down. We think too much and feel too little. – Charles Chaplin

Chaplin Films for Review: 

• City Lights (1931)
• The Great Dictator (1940)
• Monsieur Verdoux  (1947)

27. Andrei Tarkovsky  

The director’s task is to recreate life, its movement, its contradictions, its dynamic and conflicts. It is his duty to reveal every iota of the truth he has seen, even if not everyone finds that truth acceptable. – Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkovsky Films for Review:

• Andrei Rublev (1966)
•  Solaris (1972)
• Stalker (1979)  

28. Federico Fellini  

Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me. – Federico Fellini

Fellini Films for Review:

• Nights of Cabiria (1957)
•  La Dolce Vita (1960)
• 8½ (1963), 

29. Ermanno Olmi

I really don’t feel exclusive. My ambition instead, perhaps because of my peasant–worker background, is to look at the world with others, not as an aristocratic. – Ermanno Olmi

Olmi Films for Review:  

• Il Posto (1962)
• The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)
• Tickets, an anthology film directed by Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami  and Ken Loach (2005)

30. Akira Kurosawa 

Kurosawa Films for Review:  

For me, filmmaking combines everything. That’s the reason I’ve made cinema my life’s work. In films, painting and literature, theatre and music come together. But a film is still a film. – Akira Kurosawa

• Ikiru (1952)
• Seven Samurai (1954)
• Yojimbo (1961)

31. Sergei Eisenstein  

Now why should the cinema follow the forms of theater and painting rather than the methodology of language, which allows wholly new concepts of ideas to arise from the combination of two concrete denotations of two concrete objects? – Sergei Eisenstein

Eisenstein Films for Review:    

• Strike (1925)
• Battleship Potemkin (1925)
• Alexander Nevsky (1938) 

32. Éric Rohmer  

Rohmer Films for Review: 

I don’t think that my films are ‘literary’; they are based on the most ordinary things of life. – Éric Rohmer 

• My Night at Maud’s (1969)
• Perceval le Gallois (1978)
• Le Beau Mariage  (1981)

33. Jerzy Skolimowski  

As a poet my mind is trained along the path of poetic associations – I’m not afraid to wander away from direct narrative – I feel safe with a story that tempts you to believe or disbelieve. – Jerzy Skolimowski

Skolimowski Films for Review:  

• Deep End (1970)
• Moonlighting (1982)
• EO (2022) 

34. F.W. Murnau 

Don’t act – think! Films of the future will use more and more of these “camera angles” or, as I prefer to call them, these “dramatic angles.”  – F.W. Murnau 

Murnau Films for Review: 

• Nosferatu (1922)
• The Last Laugh (1924)
• Sunrise (1927).

35. François Truffaut

The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. – François Truffaut

Truffaut Films for Review: 

• The 400 Blows (1959)
• Jules and Jim (1962)
• Day for Night (1973)

36. Miklós Jancsó 

It’s very simple. Cinema has limits that it can’t exceed. It can never go beyond catching the spectator’s interest to make a spectacle. – Miklós Jancsó.

Jancsó Films for Review: 

• The Round-Up (1966)
• The Red and the White (1967)
• Red Psalm  (1971) 

37. Hou Hsiao-hsien  

The  “wu” in  “wuxia” means both “to cut” and “to stop.” It also refers to the weapon – usually a sword – carried by the assassin.  So wuxia stories are concerned with the premise of ending violence with violence. The hero’s journey is epic and transformative – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. – Hou Hsiao-hsien

Hou Hsiao-hsien Films for Review: 

• A City of Sadness (1989)
• The Puppetmaster (1993)
• Flowers of Shanghai (1998) 

38. Werner Herzog 

There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization. – Werner Herzog

Herzog Films for Review: 

• Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
• The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
• Stroszek (1977) 

39. Satyajit Ray 

The director is the only person who knows what the film is about. Cinema’s characteristic forte is its ability to capture and communicate the intimacies of the human mind. – Satyajit Ray 

Ray Films for Review: 

• Pather Panchali (1955) 
• Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959)
• Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest)  (1970) 

40. Stanley Kubrick  

A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. – Stanley Kubrick

 Kubrick Films for Review:

• Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• The Shining (1980) 

41. Alain Resnais  

I use formal techniques to make the film more perceptive emotionally. – Alain Resnais

Resnais Films for Review:

• Hiroshima mon amour (1959)
• Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
• Mon oncle d’Amérique (1980) 

42. John Cassavetes  

During the actual filming, I’m not really listening to dialogue. I’m watching to see if the actors are communicating something and expressing something. You’re not aware of exactly what people are saying. You are aware of what they are INTENDING and what kind of feeling is going on in that scene. – John Cassavetes  

Cassavetes Films for Review:  

• Faces (1968)
• A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
• Opening Night (1977) 

43. Claire Denis  

I am not at all interested in theories about cinema. I am only interested in images and people and sound. – Claire Denis

Denis Films for Review:

• Chocolat (1988)
• Beau Travail (1999)
• Stars at Noon (2022)  

44. Sam Peckinpah 

The whole underside of our society has always been violence and still is. Churches, laws – everybody seems to think that man is a noble savage. But he’s only an animal. A meat-eating, talking animal. Recognize it. He also has grace and love and beauty. But don’t say to me we’re not violent. – Sam Peckinpah 

Peckinpah Films for Review:

• Ride the High Country (1962)
• The Wild Bunch (1969)
• Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) 

45. Andrzej Wajda  

When a film is created, it is created in a language, which is not only about words, but also the way that very language encodes our perception of the world, our understanding of it. – Andrzej Wajda 

• Kanał (1957)
• Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
• Man of Iron (1981)  

46. Martin Scorsese 

Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out. – Martin Scorsese

Scorsese Films for Review:

• Mean Streets (1973) 
• Taxi Driver (1977)  
• Raging Bull (1980)   

47. Masahiro Shinoda

One thing I can say is either to look at films very carefully, watch a lot of films, or don’t see any films at all. Just imagine! – Masahiro Shinoda

Shinoda Films for Review:

• Pale Flower (1964)
• Double Suicide) (1969)
• Ballad of Orin (1977) 

Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. – Ingmar Bergman

Bergman Films for Review:

• The Seventh Seal (1958)
• Winter Light (1962)
• Persona (1966) 

49. Sergio Leone 

When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite. – Sergio Leone 

Leone Films for Review:

• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
• Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
• Once Upon a Time in America (1984) 

 50. Agnès Varda  

I’m not interested in seeing a film just made by a woman – not unless she is looking for new images. – Agnes Varda

Varda Films for Review:

• Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)
• Le Bonheur (1965)
• Vagabond (1985) 

51. Jacques Rivette  

I guess I like a lot of directors. Or at least I try to. – Jacques Rivette 

Rivette Films for Review:

• L’amour fou (1969)
• Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
• La Belle Noiseuse (1991)

52. Clint Eastwood 

I keep working because I learn something new all the time. – Clint Eastwood 

Eastwood Films for Review:

• Unforgiven (1992)
• Mystic River (2003)
• Million Dollar Baby (2004) 

53. Erich von Stroheim

In Hollywood, you’re only as good as your last picture. – Erich von Stroheim

Stroheim Films for Review:

• Blind Husbands (1919)
• Foolish Wives (1922)
• Greed (1924)

54. Chris Marker 

An object dies when the gaze that lights on it has disappeared. – Chris Marker

Marker Films for Review:

• La Jetée (1962)
• Sans Soleil (1983)
• Loin du Vietnam, short in compilation film (1967)

55. Robert Flaherty

Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit. – Robert Flaherty

Flaherty Films for Review::

• Nanook of the North (1922)
• Man of Aran (1934)
• Louisiana Story (1948)

56. Claude Chabrol

Films with a message just make me laugh. – Claude Chabrol

Chabrol Films for Review:

• La Femme infidèle (1969)
• Le Boucher (1970)
• Juste avant la nuit (1971)

57. Michael Powel & Emeric Pressburger 

Of course, all films are surrealist. They are because they are making something that looks like a real world but isn’t. – Michael Powell

Powell & Pressburger Films for Review:

• A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
• Black Narcissus (1947)
•  The Red Shoes (1948

58. Joseph Losey

Films can illustrate our existence… they can distress, disturb and provoke people into thinking about themselves and certain problems. But NOT give the answers. America has abandoned the strong woman of spirituality and is shacking up with the harlot of materialism. – Joseph Losey

Losey Films for Review:

• The Servant (1963)
• Accident (1967)
• The Go-Between (1971)

59. Preston Sturges

I did not think that a good movie was the equivalent of a good stage play, any more than I thought an automobile ride was as exhilarating as a drive behind a spirited horse, nor a trip by steam as soul-satisfying as a voyage by sail. – Preston Sturges

Sturges Films for Review:

• Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
• The Lady Eve (1941)
• Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

60. David Cronenberg

Everybody’s a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We’re all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos. – David Cronenberg

Cronenberg Films for Review:

• Spider (2002)
• Dead Ringers (1988)
• A History of Violence (2005)

61. Carlos Saura

I can’t separate cinema from my life. The two things are interrelated and enrich or impoverish each other. – Carlos Saura

Saura Films for Review:

• Ana and the Wolves (1972)
• Cría cuervos (1975)
• Flamenco Trilogy (1981 – 1986), Bodas de Sangre, Carmen, El Amor Brujo 

62. Wim Wenders 

Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed. – Wim Wenders

Wenders Films for Review:

• Alice in the Cities (1974)
• Kings of the Road (1976)
• The American Friend (1977)

63. John Huston

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. – John Huston

Huston Films for Review:

• The Maltese Falcon (1941)
• The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
• The Man Who Would Be King (1975) 

64. Shōhei Imamura  

I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure on which the reality of daily Japanese life obstinately supports itself. – Shōhei Imamura 

Imamura Films for Review:

• Vengeance Is Mine (1979)
• The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
• Black Rain (1989)

65. Nicholas Ray 

An actor can be as talented as another, but if he doesn’t stick to what the director’s intentions are, it all falls down. – Nicholas Ray 

Ray Films for Review:

• In a Lonely Place, (1950 )
• Johnny Guitar (1954)
• Bitter Victory (1957)

66. Jean Vigo 

However paradoxical it may seem, the film studio’s ideal would be to produce only one film which would go on making money forever. – Jean Vigo

Vigo Films for Review:

• Zéro de conduite featurette (1933)
• L’Atalante (1934) 

67. Vittorio De Sica

Art has to be severe. It cannot be commercial. It cannot be for the producer or even for the public. It has to be for oneself. – Vittorio De Sica

De Sica Films for Review:

• Sciuscià (1946)
• Ladri di biciclette (1948)
• Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1970)

68. Jacques Tati

The images are designed, so that after you see the picture two or three times, its no longer my film, it starts to be your film. You recognize the people, you know them, and you don’t even know who directed the picture. – Jacques Tati

Tait Films for Review:

• Les Vacances de M. Hulot (1953)
• Playtime (1967)
• Trafic (1971)

69. Richard Lester

Cinema must reflect the temper of the times. We must choose material not only on the basis of whether we feel deeply, but on whether or not anyone’s bloody well going to see it. – Richard Lester

Lester Films for Review:

• A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
• Petulia (1968)
•  Juggernaut (1974)

70. Kon Ichikawa 

I’ve made various types of films: period dramas, modern dramas, films set in the Meiji period. But I don’t make any distinctions between them – they’re all films. True, with a period drama, there are certain conventions. With a modern drama, there is a different style of shooting. So you have to make changes according to the genre, but I never think, “This is a period drama, so I have to shoot it in such and such a way.” Films are films. If you don’t understand that, then you start filming lies. – Kon Ichikawa

Ichikawa Films for Review:

• The Burmese Harp (1956)
• Odd Obsession (1959)
• Fires on the Plain (1959)

71. Laurent Cantet 

I think we’re going through a really precarious period in film production, and I very much fear that it’s going to be a lot more difficult to make my kind of cinema. If you make films that don’t exactly announce themselves as surefire hits, you feel like you’re walking a tightrope.  I don’t want to take larger scale films in order to show my evolution as a director. – Laurent Cantet

Cantet Films for Review:

• Human Resources  (1999)
• Time Out (2001)
• The Class (2008)

72. Jean-Pierre Melville

I believe that you must be madly in love with cinema to create films. You also need a huge cinematic baggage. – Jean-Pierre Melville

Melville Films for Review:

• Le Doulos (1962)
• Le Samouraï (1967)
• Army of Shadows (1969)

73. Krzysztof Zanussi

I think cinema has a unique capacity to show the passage of time. When the camera can cover a distance of forty years, and you see what really happened to the faces of the actors – how they really aged, with no need for make-up – you see what happens to us. In literature, it is only reference, it’s not sensual; in cinema it’s sensual. – Krzysztof Zanussi

Zanussi Films for Review:

• Contract – FR TV (1980)
• The Constant Factor (1980)
• A Year of the Quiet Sun (1984)

74. Luchino Visconti

I could make a film in front of a wall if I knew how to find the data of man’s true humanity and how to express it. – Luchino Visconti

Visconti Films for Review:

• Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960)
• Il gattopardo (1960)
• Morte a Venezia (1971)

75. David Lynch

Life is very, very complicated, and so films should be allowed to be, too. – David Lynch

Lynch Films for Review:

• Blue Velvet (1986)
• Lost Highway (1997)
• Mulholland Drive (2001)

Readers, feel free to comment or send your own lists to ad***@tr**********.com .

The post Traveling Boy Selects the 75 Greatest Film Directors of All-Time appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Well, it’s been a week. And once again I find myself sitting on the park bench in Vevey, Switzerland next to the statue of Charlie Chaplin, with whom I share the panorama of shimmering Lake Geneva and the pristine snowcapped Alps in the distance. I’ve covered a lot of tracks: indulging in the region’s world-class wines and scrumptious Swiss-French cuisine, wandering Lausanne’s cobblestone streets, and seeing the former home of Audrey Hepburn in Tolochenaz, near Lausanne, and the current home studio of Jean-Luc Godard, also near Lausanne. I tried to make sense of Huguenot, John Calvin’s Gestapo-like control of Geneva, and laid victim to the region’s steep prices. A simple café au lait and a buttery croissant set me back twenty U.S dollars! But it was time to return to the centerpiece of my trip, an exploration of the life of Sir Charles Spencer Chapin. He chose Manoir de Ban, a neoclassical mansion in Corsier-sur-Vevey, to live his remaining 25 years, which, according to his family, constituted his “happy years.” I had reserved my final day to visit the Manoir, now rechristened Chaplin’s World – which has been repurposed and expanded as a museum that showcases Chaplin’s work and life as a family man in Switzerland.

Personal Life

Chaplin enjoyed what had appeared to be a fun-filled period during his time in Hollywood, but privately led a lonely life, filled with scandal and haunted memories of his impoverished youth. His home in the Pickfair neighborhood of Beverly Hills – a neighborhood named after the mansion of married couple, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – was designed by himself and built by studio carpenters, not known for building structures that lasted.  It began to slowly fall apart, and was affectionately coined, “The Breakaway House.” The guests loved it, and it became a place of merriment and refuge from Hollywood’s bright lights. Chaplin would entertain his guests by playing a pipe organ, inventing new gags, organizing swimming parties and games of tennis, where even the elusive Greta Garbo was a frequent player.

Sadly, defamation was also part of his life. During World War 1, the British press labeled Chaplin as a self-absorbed coward whose loyalty to his home country of England was questioned for never serving in the military, despite aggressively selling war bonds and transferring large amounts of his substantial income to the British government. Nevertheless, cutouts of the Tramp were propped up by British soldiers in the trenches “so the Germans would die laughing” and his movies were projected on the ceilings of military hospitals where wounded warriors could enjoy morale-raising laughs from their beds. Another scandal occurred when Chaplin briefly dated 22-year-old Joan Barry, who later reappeared in his life, claiming that Chaplin was her baby’s father, and filed a paternity suit.

The public trial was so intense that Chaplin’s hair literally turned gray overnight. Blood tests proved that Chaplin was not the father, but, at the time, blood tests were inadmissible evidence and he was ordered to pay $75 a week until the child turned 21. Matrimony was also a problem for Chaplin: marrying three times to younger women with striking resemblances to his mother, Hannah. The wives club included Mildred Harris, age 17; Lita Grey, age 16; and actress Paulette Goddard, age 28, who costarred with Chaplin in Modern Times and The Great Dictator.

I have the good fortune to be married to a wonderful wife. I wish I could write more about this,
but it involves love, and perfect love is the most beautiful of all frustrations
because it is more than one can express.
– Charlie Chaplin

His life took a blissful turnaround upon meeting the luminous Oona O’Neill in 1943, daughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill. Chaplin had been looking for a lead actress for his next (unrealized) project, and discovered the mesmerizing 17 year old O’Neill. He was overwhelmed by her captivating beauty, and their meeting led to a life-long romance. A month after O’Neill turned 18, they eloped and married in a secret civil service in Carpentaria, California.  Playwright Eugene O’Neill immediately disowned her upon learning of her marriage to Chaplin, who was the same age as him. He refused all future attempts at reconciliation. Chaplin’s final marriage lasted until his death, producing eight children: Geraldine Chaplin, Michael Chaplin, Josephine Chaplin, Victoria Chaplin, Eugene Chaplin, Jane Chaplin, Annette-Emilie Chaplin and Christopher Chaplin. Although Oona stayed in the background, happy to focus on their home and children, she also spent time at the studios when Chaplin was working, offering her opinion about his various projects.

I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President.
– Charlie Chaplin

During the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee’s witch hunts, a disturbing period in U.S. history where Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion, was in full swing. The committee used various charges of communism, communist sympathies and disloyalty to attack a number of  individuals, which included many left-leaning Hollywood personalities. Chaplin was considered dangerously progressive and amoral. FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover and HUAC mistakenly believed that he was injecting Communist propaganda into his films. It was also revealed that he had never bothered to become a U.S. citizen. When Chaplin and family were departing back by vessel to Hollywood from a European vacation, Chaplin was informed that he would have to submit to an interview concerning his political views and moral behavior in order to re-enter the U.S. Rather than fight a pending investigation by Immigration Services, Chaplin decided not to return to Hollywood at all. The Chaplin family, though, needed a new address in Europe. His older half-brother Sydney Chaplin, suggested they visit Switzerland’s Lake Geneva region. Chaplin set his eyes on the enchanting town of Vevey, nestled along the lake. He was taken by its enticing tranquility, not to mention Switzerland’s attractive tax laws.

You’ll never find rainbows if you’re looking down.
– Charlie Chaplin

Manoir de Ban

He purchased the vacant Manoir de Ban, a neoclassical mansion in Corsier-sur-Vevey, in a resplendent country-like setting near the banks of Lake Geneva. This is where he chose to live his remaining years with his family, from 1952 until his death in 1977. It was the most joyful and contented period of his life, where he would take strolls in the spacious grounds, plant flowers in his radiant gardens, play with his children and host friends from around the globe. He also spent a large percentage of his time working on the screenplays for his films, A King in New York and A Countess from Hong Kong, as well as adding music to his silent feature films, which he composed at the family piano.

Chaplin’s health was in slow decline after suffering a series of minor strokes in the late 1960s. Despite the setbacks, he was soon writing a new film script, The Freak, which he intended as a starring vehicle for his daughter, Victoria. His fragile health prevented the project from being realized.  His speech, hearing and sight began to be impaired, and he later he was confined to a wheelchair.After 10 years of absence, Chaplin returned to the U.S. to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 1972 Oscar ceremonies. (The same year, Limelight is finally released in the U.S. and he wins an Oscar for best original score the next year). In this clip, Chaplin is clearly overwhelmed by the audiences’ response as he accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award.  The applause lasts for a record of 12 minutes, still the longest in Academy Award history.

In 1975, Chaplin was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace as Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin. He was 85 at the time. He commented that he hoped to be called ‘Sir Charles’ (as opposed to ‘Sir Charlie’).

On Christmas Day in 1977, Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin died peacefully in his sleep with most of his family at his bedside.  Lady Chaplin said “All the presents were under the tree. Charlie gave so much happiness and, although he had been ill for a long time, it is so sad that he should have passed away on Christmas Day.” Family doctor, Henri Perrier, ascribed death to old age. Funeral services in Vevey were private and restricted to the immediate family. Sir Charles and Lady Oona are buried side-by-side in a simple gravesite at Corsier-sur-Vevein. When I told son Eugene Chaplin that I visited the gravesite, he smiled briefly with British understatement, and said that James Mason is also buried there, too.

Chaplin’s World – Manoir de Ban

On April 17, 2016, Chaplin’s former home and expansive grounds were officially open for the whole world to see. Rechristened Chaplin’s World – Manoir de Ban, it was repurposed and expanded as a museum that showcases Chaplin’s work and life as a family man in Switzerland. The goal was to allow visitors to discover the man behind the movies. The centerpiece of the museum is the three-story, richly decorated Manoir, and a newly constructed studio.

In  Chaplin’s World – Manoir de Ban, visitors are introduced to the Chaplin family. The home has been restaged with a number of its original furnishings, personal items, photographs and family mementos. Each room focuses on a particular period of Chaplin’s personal life, while the dining room pays homage to the family’s everyday routines as well as the many Hollywood celebrities who visited them. An interactive studio features the work of Chaplin the artist which commences with a montage of clips from his half-century of writing, directing, producing, scoring and acting in movies.

The interactive studio is followed by an exhibition of recreated scenes and sets from many of his most famous films, along with wax figures of Chaplin’s famous co-stars.

It’s almost like a theme park where guests can enter the iconic cabin from The Gold Rush, while in the middle of a simulated blizzard, sit in the famous barber’s chair from The Great Dictator, or negotiate  the cogs of the industrial revolution machine from the madcap scene in Modern Times.

A stroll in the Manoir’s 10 acres of expansive green grounds is mandatory with the reward of stunning views of the Swiss Alps and Lake Geneva. This is where Chaplin lived and what he saw and what he loved.

The world misses you, Sir Charles – but your legacy lives on.

This is the final installment of a three-part series about Charles Chaplin.

In Part 1, the focus is on Chaplin’s early life and the genesis of the Little Tramp, Part 2, Chaplin’s movies.

Special thanks to Chaplin’s World for their assistance in this article, and to My Switzerland for making my journey to Vevey possible.

The post In Search of Charlie Chaplin: His Personal Life, Part 3 appeared first on Traveling Archive.

A warm wind blows across Lake Geneva, which I find both soothing and invigorating. Soon I’m amidst the steep terraced vineyards in the UNESCO region of Lavaux, the largest contiguous vineyard area in Switzerland. Terrace after terrace of vines surround me. It has been said that the vineyards in Switzerland’s Lake Geneva region are blessed with three forms of sun:  direct sunlight, second-hand sunlight that bounces off Lake Geneva, and the warmth of the sun contained in ancient Roman walls that terrace many of the vineyards. It was the Romans who introduced winegrowing on the shores of Lake Geneva, with Benedictine and Cistercian monks continuing the tradition, dating back to the 11th century. My senses are kicked up a notch higher, with magnificent views of the deep blue lake below and the snowcapped alps in the distance above. Who wouldn’t want to live here? I was in the Lake Geneva Region to explore its seemingly endless wonders. But the centerpiece of my time would be a journey to the neoclassical mansion, Manoir de Ban in Corsier-sur-Vevey, and the final resting place of Sir Charles Chaplin and his wife Oona in a nearby simple grave. In Los Angeles, I once had the pleasure of meeting Chaplin’s middle son, the most gracious Eugene Chaplin. He had informed me that Manoir de Ban had been repurposed as Chaplin’s World by Grévin and expanded as a museum that showcases Chaplin’s work and life as a family man. I was already champing at the bit to see it.

Vevey has long been popular for its sublime tranquility, not to mention its position in a nation which serves as a tax haven for wealthy expats. This is where Chaplin spent the last 25 years of his life, which were his happiest, according to the Chaplin family.  I recall a scratchy home move, where Oona, his wife of 36 years and daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill, pushed the elderly wheelchair-bound Chaplin along Vevey’s lakefront path, stopping to gaze at the bronze statue of the diminutive Little Tramp. Despite their differences in age, you could tell they were still happily in love. Upon my arrival at Vevey I too gazed admiringly at the Little Tramp statue. Chaplin’s work as a film director and actor had an immense effect on the world, including my life as well. Now I would walk in his tracks, breathe the same fresh air and experience the same enchanting beauty as I reflected on his life.

The magical name of Charlie Chaplin is known throughout the far corners of the globe. Just saying “Charlie” or “Charlo” (popular in France and Spain) is bound to elicit a smile. The positive act of smiling is something that Chaplin strove for, and the world really did smile along with the most famous actor in film history, not to mention one of its greatest film directors. Despite a horrific childhood right out of Dickens’ bleakest novels, it was his embrace of life that kept him marching onward, taking the world along with him.  His situation, according to his authorized biographer David Robinson, was “the most dramatic of all the rags to riches stories ever told.” Charles Spencer Chaplin was born into immense poverty in the slums of Victorian London. His father (who abandoned the family when Charlie was still an infant) was a successful music hall artist. He died at age 38 as the result of his alcoholism when Charlie was 12 years old. His mother, Hannah, was also a professional musical hall entertainer, whose career was plagued on and off by ill health. She was a loving mother who would perform humorist bits for Charlie and his older half-brother Sydney. Charlie and Sydney’s younger half-brother, Wheeler Dryden, was taken away from Hannah by his father, Leo Dryden, when he was a baby. Hannah instilled confidence in Charlie, frequently telling him he possessed remarkable talent. She was also overtly sensitive with a very fragile grip on life. Her health continued to decline and she found herself making a poor living as a seamstress and was eventually put into a mental hospital.  His mother’s tenure in asylums was a frequent occurrence throughout her life, and the children had no choice but to be placed in a series of bleak workhouses and residential schools during her bouts of ill health and psychosis, believed to stem from syphilis and malnutrition. “There was nothing we could do but accept poor mother’s fate,” Chaplin later wrote, and she remained in my care until her death in 1928.” Critics have noted that many of Chaplin’s waif-like leading ladies and wives often bore a strong resemblance to her.

Mother illuminated to me the kindliest light this world has ever known,
which has endowed literature and the theatre with their greatest and richest themes:
love, pity and humanity.
– Charles Chaplin

The seven year old Chaplin would take to the streets, performing ingenious comedic routines. Little Charlie’s talent was wide-spread throughout his neighborhood, eventually leading to stints in the theatre and on the vaudeville circuit, where, despite his young years, he rose through the ranks to become a lead performer. Thanks to Sydney, also working on the stage, he was recruited by the British music hall’s preeminent impresario, Fred Karno.

His success with the Karno troupe led to two tours of the U.S. Six months into the second American tour, early movie pioneer  Mack Sennett of Keystone Film Company was in the audience. Impressed with Chaplin’s performance, he turned to his business partner sitting beside him, and purportedly said, “If I ever make it in this town I’m gonna hire that guy.” And Sennett’s success was achieved shortly after with the advent of his slapstick Keystone Cops, often spelled “Keystone Kops.” Sennett’s comment became a self fulfilling prophesy, and Chaplin was signed by Keystone Film Company in 1914, with the character The Tramp debuting  in Kid Auto Races at Venice.

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.
– Charles Chaplin

The Genesis of The Little Tramp

The Little Tramp was a man with the toothbrush mustache, undersized bowler hat, baggy pants, bamboo cane, and a funny walk, who struggled to survive while keeping his dignity in a world with great social injustice. Chaplin created a character with a positive outlook on life, where the human spirit always reigns supreme, despite a cruel and unforgiving social order that still exists in Britain’s class system today. The usual bitter sweet endings in the Little Tramp films are where the character waddles down a dusty road alone; at first dejectedly and then with a familiar spring in his waddled steps. He created comedies with a deep undercurrent of pathos. At the time of Chaplin’s arrival, Hollywood movies portrayed tramps as villains: housebreakers, street muggers and train robbers. It was a remarkable move to present a vagrant as a hero, or even a romantic lead.

A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow,
always hopeful of romance and adventure.
– Charles Chaplin

According to Chaplin’s much-quoted recollection, he was hanging around the Keystone lot after having finished his first short film for the studio. Mack Sennett complained that the film they were currently shooting was lacking in big laughs, so he ordered Chaplin to go to the wardrobe department and get into comedy make-up, stressing anything will do. He added, then return to the set with some new gags. The image of Little Tramp came to him after only a moment’s thought: “On the way to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. I wanted everything a contradiction.” A toothbrush mustache was added to age his 24-year-old face without masking his expressions, according to Chaplin’s autobiography. “The clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the set he was fully born.” Keystone employees noted that when Chaplin returned back to the set in his Little Tramp costume, he started fooling around, swinging his cane and ad-libbing gags.

My costume helps me to express my conception of the average man, of almost any man,
of myself. The derby, too small, is a striving for dignity. The mustache is vanity.
The tightly buttoned coat and the stick and his whole manner are a gesture toward
gallantry and dash and ‘front.’ He is chasing folly, and he knows it. He is trying to meet the world
bravely, to put up a bluff, and he knows that, too. He knows it so well that
he can laugh at himself and pity himself a little.
– Charles Chaplin

Truth be told, Chaplin had some help along the way in his inspired costume of contrasts: as he charged into the dressing room he found soon-to-be comedy legend, Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle and fellow comedic actor, Chester Conklin, playing pinochle. The extra large baggy pants was borrowed from Arbuckle; the small derby from Arbuckle’s father-in-law; the small cut-away coat from the diminutive Conklin; and the toothbrush mustache made from crepe paper belonging to actor Mack Swain, best remembered for his large supporting role as Big Jim McKay in Chaplin’s third feature film The Gold Rush. To complete the costumes, Chaplin took a pair of size 14 shoes from comedian Ford Sterling of Keystone Cops fame, which were so big on him, he had to wear them on the wrong feet to keep them on.  This resulted in the Little Tramp having to waddle when he walked. The only item that actually belonged to Chaplin was the cheap bamboo cane.

To cinephiles, Chaplin is more than the man who created the iconic Little Tramp, but one of the greatest filmmakers of all-time. Famed film critic, Andrew Sarris places Chaplin in his pantheon of the greatest American film directors in his still ground breaking book, ’The American Cinema: Directors and Directions,’ which changed the course of film criticism. As head of his own studio, Chaplin had an unique approach in translating his ideas into visual form, virtually never shooting from a working script. Often times he would simply sit on the set, surrounding by his cast, waiting for an idea to come. Occasionally the idea would not come, and he would dismiss the cast for the day, still with full payment. This resulted – along with his perfection of never releasing the final cut of his film until 100% satisfied – in long periods of absence on the silver screen. In his autobiography, the only mention of his shooting style was long-shot for comedy, close-up for tragedy, in which he embraced both in his stylistic signature; the essence of the duality of the Little Tramps films.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where Ed Boitano addresses Chaplin’s work as a director.

See teaser below:

1925 The Gold Rush (Feature): The Little Tramp is a lonely prospector who ventures to the Klondike looking for gold. He gets mixed up with some burly characters and falls in love with the beautiful Georgia Hale, playing a rather hardened, dance-hall girl. He tries to win her heart with his kindness, but with no success. According to David Robinson, the idea came to him when viewing stereoscope pictures of the 1896 Klondike gold rush, and was struck by the image of an endless line of prospectors snaking up the Chilkoot Pass, the gateway to the gold fields. For two weeks the unit worked on location in the snow country of California’s Sierra Nevada, recreating the historic image of the prospectors struggling up the 2300 feet Chilkoot Pass through the mountain snow. Six hundred extras were used, with many vagrants and derelicts of Sacramento. The film was an important box office success after A Woman of Paris had bombed with audiences. In a revised version in 1942 Chaplin composed an orchestral score, and replaced the title cards with a commentary which he spoke himself. Chaplin, who was known to have changes in opinion, felt it was the greatest picture he had ever made. In this clip, The Little Tramp has fallen asleep while waiting for the dance-hall girl and her three friends to arrive for a New Year dinner in his little cabin. The ladies had forgotten about the party and never arrive. The Little Tramp dreams about how the party could have been, and does perhaps his most famous bit: ‘the dance of the rolls,’ with just forks and rolls. Audiences were so thrilled by the scene that often times they demanded theatres to stop the film, roll it back and perform an encore.

Special thanks to Chaplin’s World for their assistance in this article, and to My Switzerland for making my journey to Vevey possible.

For news about upcoming events at Chaplin’s World, visit Chaplin’s World’s PRESS RELEASE

The post In Search of Charlie Chaplin: The Man and the Genius appeared first on Traveling Archive.