Soapbox race in Venice

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Movie
German title Soapbox race in Venice
Original title Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal.
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1914
length 6 minutes
Rod
Director Henry Lehrman
script Henry Lehrman
production Mack Sennett
camera Enrique Juan Vallejo , Frank D. Williams
occupation
  • Charles Chaplin : Tramp
  • Henry Lehrman: director
  • Frank D. Williams: cameraman

Soapbox Race in Venice (Original title: Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal .; Also known as Kid Auto Races or The Pest ) is an American short film from 1914. The comedy produced by Keystone Studios shows a film director whose filming is at be disturbed by a curious spectator during a soapbox race . As a troublemaker, Charles Chaplin was seen for the first time in the role of the tramp .

content

The film begins with footage of a soapbox race. A carelessly dressed man happens to stand next to a camera filming the race. The cameraman and his director politely ask the tramp to get out of the picture. But this arouses the interest of the tramp, who from then on repeatedly pushes into the field of view of the camera. When panning the camera, he crosses the racetrack so as not to step out of the picture frame, in a further shot you can see him walking along the racetrack towards the camera.

Even when the cameraman moves into a new position on the edge of a dangerous curve, the tramp follows the film team. Neither the approaching vehicles nor the director, who reacts more and more violently, can drive him away. In the last shot of the film you can see the tramp standing in front of the camera, making faces.

Production and publication

Charles Chaplin in the role of the tramp (photograph from 1915)

Charles Chaplin was already a celebrated stage star in his native England when he was offered a film contract while touring the United States. Chaplin signed a one-year contract with Keystone Studios in the fall of 1913 and left Fred Karno's theater company in late November 1913 . Founded in 1912 under the direction of Mack Sennett, Keystone Studios had developed into the leading producer of slapstick comedies within a few months , with films with the keystone heads being the most outstanding.

When Chaplin started working for Sennett at the turn of 1913/1914, he was initially overwhelmed by the creative chaos. At the beginning of January 1914, he finally stood in front of the camera for the first time and, under the direction of Henry Lehrman , played the villain in the short film Making a Living , costumed with a top hat, a monocle and a drooping mustache. In his second film, Mabel's Strange Predicament , Chaplin played a shabby tramp alongside Mabel Normand . According to legend, Chaplin spontaneously put together the costume for this role from various wardrobe items. He borrowed an old pair of Ford Sterling shoes , oversized trousers from Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle , a bowler hat from Arbuckle's father-in-law, an under- sized jacket from Charles Avery and the fake beard from Mack Swain . Charles Chaplin first appeared in front of the camera on January 6, 1914 in these clothes. Mabel's Strange Predicament was a comparatively elaborate production by Keystone that took several days of shooting and was only finished on January 12th.

When filming had to be interrupted for a day, work was spontaneously started on another film, which was completed within 45 minutes on the afternoon of January 10, 1914. Soap box races in the coastal city of Venice on the outskirts of the metropolis of Los Angeles were selected as the venue . Lehrmann, who had also directed Mabel's Strange Predicament , moved with a camera team and Chaplin as the only actor to his location on the edge of the ramp where the soapboxes started. Lehrman first filmed the racing action, but it also had to be a funny story. At Chaplin's suggestion, it was agreed that Chaplin, in the role of the tramp, should disrupt the film work and push himself to the fore more and more intrusively. Without a given script, Chaplin was able to implement spontaneous ideas, and the unsuspecting audience of the races reacted in amusement to the little tramp's actions.

Just four weeks later, on February 7, 1914, the film soap box race was shown for the first time in Venice . The film was 174 m long and was shown as a one-act play together with the documentary Olives and their Oil . Two days later, Mabel's Strange Predicament also premiered. It has long been controversial among film historians whether Chaplin actually played the role of the tramp first in Mabel's Strange Predicament . Since the production plans of the Keystone Studios have been passed down and the event shown in the soapbox race in Venice could be dated January 10, 1914, it is now certain that Chaplin was the first tramp to appear in front of the camera for Mabel's Strange Predicament , but he first appeared in Soapbox race in Venice in the role that would make him famous was on screen.

Soapbox races in Venice are one of the Chaplin films that have been regularly re-released and excerpts have been shown in numerous documentaries . The film was cut several times and given new subtitles . The film was re-released by Mack Sennett in 1916 under the title Take My Picture . In 1918, WH Productions released a new cut under the title The Pest . As part of an international project to conserve and restore Chaplin's early works, the film was restored by the British Film Institute's National Archive in the early 2000s . A toned copy from 1920, a copy of the republication Take my Picture and a negative copy from the collection of the Library of Congress served as the basis . The restored version is 130 m long and was released on DVD at the end of 2010 .

reception

Despite the simple plot and staging, which today looks more like a test recording, the soap box race in Venice became a success and marks the beginning of Chaplin's career. The Cinema magazine reviewer hailed the film as one of the funniest he had ever seen. Chaplin is a born film comedian , he shows things that have never been seen on screen before. The industry journal Cinematograph Exhibitors' Mail predicted in February 1914 "without taking any great risk" that Chaplin would become one of the world's most popular film comedians within six months.

Film historians such as Harry M. Patience see Chaplin's role in the soapbox races in Venice only as a rough draft of the tramp figure, which was perfected in the following months, first at Keystone and then from 1915 at Essanay . For the film scholar John McCabe, the tramp in this film is still in the " embryonic stage " . The character manages to connect with the audience forever through their interaction with the film camera. Walter Kerr also considers Chaplin's handling of the camera to be the decisive moment in soapbox races in Venice : “He is slowly but surely making himself immortal, both as a film character and as an unforgettable professional comedian. And he does this by drawing our attention to the camera as a camera. "

According to the Chaplin biographer James L. Neibaur, the audience reacted so enthusiastically to Chaplin's character because they could identify with her. Chaplins Tramp was an " underdog " who dared to mess with higher-ups. He appeared much more subtle than the usual, heavily exaggerated characters in Keystone comedies. The peculiarities of the tramp, which Chaplin would eventually play for the next 22 years, were already evident when he made his first screen appearance. Among the interludes repeated in later films, which Chaplin first showed in soap box races in Venice , was the acrobatic kicking away of a cigarette butt. The outdoor shots in Venice documented the moment when the racing audience first noticed Chaplin's art.

Although the plot of the film was improvised, see biographers such as David Robinson or Paul Merton in soapbox derby in Venice a reflection of the tense relationship between Charles Chaplin and Henry Lehrman, the director for the first four films Chaplin was. In addition, the film satirized the entire film business. Lehrman appears in the film as a documentary filmmaker who is disturbed by the tramp at work, so according to Tom Brown , the soapbox races in Venice can also be viewed as a mockumentary .

literature

  • David Robinson: Chaplin. His life, his art . Diogenes, Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-257-22571-7 .
  • James L. Neibaur: Early Charlie Chaplin: The Artist as Apprentice at Keystone Studios . Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-8242-3 .

Web links

Commons : Soap Box Race in Venice  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Robinson: Chaplin. His life, his art. , P. 128.
  2. ↑ Kevin Brownlow : Pioneers of Film. From silent films to Hollywood . Stroemfeld, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-87877-386-2 , p. 574.
  3. ^ New York Motion Picture Release Book: 1912-1917 . In: Aitken Brothers Papers , Vol. 76. Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, p. 66.
  4. ↑ a b c d Ted Okuda, David Maska: Charlie Chaplin at Keystone and Essanay . iUniverse, Lincoln 2005, ISBN 978-0-595-36598-2 , p. 20.
  5. ↑ a b David Robinson: Chaplin. His life, his art. , P. 150.
  6. ↑ Johannes Schmitt: Charlie Chaplin: A dramaturgical study . Lit Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9317-0 , p. 27.
  7. ↑ Bo Berglund: The Day the Tramp Was Born . In: Sight & Sound , Spring 1989, pp. 106–113.
  8. ↑ Ted Okuda, David Maska: Charlie Chaplin at Keystone and Essanay . iUniverse, Lincoln 2005, ISBN 978-0-595-36598-2 , p. 3.
  9. ^ BFI Keystone Restorations: Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal. (1914) , accessed February 4, 2014.
  10. ↑ cited in James L. Neibaur: Early Charlie Chaplin , p. 20.
  11. ↑ quoted in Raoul Sobel, David Francis: Chaplin: Genesis of a Clown . Quartet Books, London 1977, ISBN 0-7043-3134-9 , p. 139.
  12. ↑ Harry M. Patience: Chapliniana: A Commentary on Charlie Chaplin's 81 Movies. Vol. 1: The Keystone Films . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1987, ISBN 0-2533-1336-8 , p. 18.
  13. ↑ John McCabe: Charlie Chaplin . Doubleday, Garden City 1978, ISBN 0-3851-1445-1 , p. 53.
  14. ^ Walter Kerr: The Silent Clowns . Da Capo Press, reprint, original edition by Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1980, ISBN 0-306-80387-9 ', p. 22.
  15. ↑ James L. Neibaur: Early Charlie Chaplin , p. 20.
  16. ↑ Dan Kamin: Charlie Chaplin's One-Man Show . Scarecrow Press, Metuchen 1984, ISBN 0-8108-1675-X , p. X.
  17. ↑ James L. Neibaur: Early Charlie Chaplin , p. 18.
  18. ^ Paul Merton: Silent Comedy . Arrow, London 2009, ISBN 978-0-0995-1013-0 , p. 44.
  19. ^ Frank Scheide: The Mark of the Ridiculous and Silent Celluloid: Some Trends in American and European Film Comedy from 1894 to 1929 . In: Andrew Horton, Joanna E. Raps (Eds.): A Companion to Film Comedy . J. Wiley, New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-4443-3859-1 , p. 32.
  20. ^ Tom Brown: Breaking the Fourth Wall: Direct Address in the Cinema . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2012, ISBN 978-0-7486-4425-4 , p. 42.