Chaplin, (Sir) Charles (Spencer) - William Hunter
WILLIAM HUNTER
Historically this remarkable film [Public Opinion (A Woman of Paris] is as important as The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and Potemkin. It was in its time a remarkable technical film. But its technique was concealed; it was rather an "emotional" than a "scientific" technique, an instrument for bitter comment rather than for the conscious construction of a filmic scene. [Chaplin's] technical gifts have been given to the cinema almost, as it were, unconsciously.
What is certainly more important than the accomplished technique of Public Opinion is the expression of an individual attitude. Such of the technique as is capable of transference has been assimilated by other directors, and if the film (as it does) remains, after nine years, of value, it is for intrinsic and personal rather than for technical reasons. Chaplin has a very remarkable personality, and in [Public Opinion] he has communicated a valuable...
[The entire page is 757 words long]
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