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28 April 2024 Berlin (Germany)
Chaplin's The Circus live
Babylon Orchester Berlin conducted by Stefanos Tsialis - Babylon
Program Info: Charles Chaplin - The Circus
The Circus brings the series of long Chaplin silent films at the Babylon to its grand finale.
Following the overwhelming success of The Kid, Gold Rush, City Lights and Modern Times, here is Chaplin's reflection on the circus from the perspective of its most important character: The Clown.
Thanks to live performances of Chaplin's original music, audiences can experience the masterpiece exactly as it hit theatres nearly 100 years ago. Where is the culture of European travelling theatres, where is the centuries-old culture of comedic popular theatre? Supplanted by the cinema.
And Chaplin's art sets the high point and the end point for this in the new medium. You will laugh, you will cry and, you will never forget this film!
The Circus won Charles Chaplin his first Academy Award - it was still not yet called the ‘Oscar’ - he was given it at the first presentations ceremony, in 1929. The special award was for ‘Versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing’.
The film certainly merited the honour. It contains some of his best comic inventions, subtly balanced with sentiment that is kept tightly in control.
Yet paradoxically, though, this is the only film from his mature feature productions which Chaplin does not once mention in his extensive autobiography. As late as 1964, it seemed, this was a film he preferred to forget.
- The Tramp is mistaken for a pickpocket and chased by the police. In the process, he accidentally ends up in a circus, where the audience thinks his performance is a successful act and celebrates him wildly. He is promptly hired by the ringmaster. When the Tramp, who can't be funny on cue, falls in love with the principal's daughter, the challenges begin.
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