Violet Crown Cinema is pairing up with the Criterion Collection to bring new restorations of classic art-house titles to Austin the second Tuesday of every month in celebration of their Blu-ray release. This month, we are delighted to present Charlie Chaplin’s THE GOLD RUSH with a special performance by The New Movement comedy troupe before the show. Tickets are now on sale, so get yours while you still can and see this masterpiece on the big screen!
On a Sunday afternoon in October 1923, Charles Chaplin paid a visit to the home of his friends Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. There, the Hollywood couple showed Chaplin a series of stereoscopic photos depicting the rugged lifestyle of gold miners in the Klondike. Inspired by the image of an endless procession of miners ascending a mountain pass, the director immediately began work on what would become The Gold Rush, the second feature-length film to spotlight his signature “Little Tramp” character. Within a year, Chaplin would be on location in the Sierra Nevada employing hundreds of real-life tramps to faithfully recreate the mountain pass image for the opening of his film. Although this tableau, filled with an intense feeling of adventure and optimism, was the catalyst for The Gold Rush, Chaplin had another, darker muse for the project.
Having read of the extreme adversity suffered by the lost and starving band of pioneers, The Donner Party, Chaplin, in fact, based many of the film’s funniest and most-memorable sequences on their plight. What may at first seem unusual inspiration for humor becomes clear in the context of Chaplin’s specific genius. No stranger to hunger, the actor had endured malnutrition in his own childhood on the streets of London, and had frequently used this experience as fodder for comedy throughout his career. For Chaplin hunger was an essential state of being, an experience that everyone has had, and therefore the perfect subject for a joke.
He never exploited this fact so perfectly as in the first act of The Gold Rush. When The Little Tramp finds himself holed up for winter with two very large, very hungry men, his struggle for survival becomes the platform for a series of ever more humorous events. As the men’s hunger increases, so does the hilarity of their response to it. Still starving after The Tramp’s gourmet preparation of his leather boot, the situation is pushed further into the ridiculous when Big Jim imagines The Little Tramp as a man-sized chicken. Here, Chaplin’s light-hearted treatment of an entirely desperate situation results in a type of timeless, universal comedy that subverts the very darkness of its subject matter.
At times The Tramp’s absurd optimism within the worst circumstances recalls Candide. But Chaplin’s humor lacks the barbed, vitriolic nature of Voltaire’s, which is precisely what makes it so much more relatable and universal. Although other characters in Chaplin’s films frequently take advantage of The Tramp’s buffoonery and naivety, it’s always the right characters that can see the purity of intention behind the spastic goofball bumbling. More importantly, the audience in turn sees unexpected complexities within a seemingly simple protagonist, which, in a nutshell, is the appeal of the underdog. Chaplin would capitalize on The Tramp’s underdog appeal for the remainder of his silent film career. Yet, in The Gold Rush, it plays out most dramatically, due in large part to the harsh environment and brutal conditions of film’s geographic and temporal setting.
Mark Twain famously remarked, “Humor is tragedy plus time.” Indeed some of the best comedy comes from the cathartic effect of being able to laugh at the mistakes, embarrassing moments, and even the hardships of not only one’s own life, but those of humanity at large. However, few artists have approached this notion with blithe purity of Chaplin. This quality, as embodied by The Little Tramp, has cemented the director as an enduring icon of the timelessness of great cinema. — Hunter Shaw, Arthouse Monthly Programmer
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