The silent films that inspired Charlie Chaplin’s storytelling
All films in cinema history owe their existence to the silent film. Tracing its roots back over a century to the Roundhay Garden Scene, the first-ever motion picture was made in 1888 by Louis Le Prince with a three-second running time. It didn’t take long for the newly found medium to gain serious traction around the world.
At first, films didn’t have much of a story, and they would rather focus on capturing society itself out of sheer fascination. Then, throughout the following decade, filmmakers began to experiment with the ability to capture moving images, leading to a focus on bringing storytelling into a new light. In 1895, films were first projected in Paris using the cinématographe created by Auguste and Louis Lumière, AKA the Lumière brothers. Of course, as these films didn’t have any sound. Silent films presented incredibly unique challenges for both actors and filmmakers in terms of giving the audiences something to remember. However, it’s not like they had anything else even close to these films to compare them to.
Moving into the 1900s, as the runtimes grew longer and longer, the first narrative-driven films graced the screen, with The Great Train Robbery and The Story of the Kelly Gang being two of the most prominent of the time. The same decade, daring practical stunts started to take place that wouldn’t even get a second look by today’s safety standards, unless you’re Tom Cruise, of course. Combining these stunts with the burgeoning comedy scene would lay the blueprints for one of cinema’s all-time greats, Charlie Chaplin.
The British filmmaker’s first film was released in 1914, over 25 years after the first silent film was produced. Still, Chaplin is considered one of the fundamental figures who helped shaped the modern film industry. His character, ‘Lone Prospector’, quickly gained the moniker ‘The Tramp’, which was the basis of his immense popularity that wouldn’t stop growing for decades. An incredibly innocent, oftentimes socially awkward man, Chaplin’s bowler-hat-wearing character wasn’t hard to get behind throughout his various escapades.
He would go on to play the character in pictures such as The Kid, The Gold Rush, and The Circus before retiring the role in the aptly-named Modern Times in 1936. But while Chaplin himself is rightfully placed in the pantheon of all-time legends, there’s one filmmaker who came before him to whom he owes a tremendous amount.
Unfortunately, nowhere near as well-known as Chaplin on the international stage, Max Linder was one of the main sources of inspiration for the former’s unmistakable style. Max Linder was the stage name for the actor-director Gabriel Leuvielle, who took on the new persona to enter the entertainment industry in 1905 as an actor. He then went on to direct his own films in the following years and decades, starting with films such as The Skater’s Debut and Max’s First Job, as well as later releases like Seven Years Bad Luck. He took slapstick-style comedy to the ‘mainstream’ and invariably was a direct influence on Chaplin’s own iconic character and his antics.
In 1925, Linder and his wife, Hélène Peters, died together in what was widely considered to be an act of double suicide. The industry continued to move forward, with only Chaplin closing down production for a day to honour him, but Linder’s work was quickly forgotten by many. One of the biggest tragedies of the era, he is the reason why Chaplin existed and garnered such renown. Truly, he would likely never have seen the limelight, at least not in the same way we know and love, if it wasn’t for the man the industry left in the shadows.
