Max Linder is seen as the first international film star. He was the source of inspiration for slapstick comedians such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold LLoyd.
Linder made more than 500 films, but unfortunately only 82 of them have been preserved. In most films, he plays the dandy Max who has all kinds of funny adventures. In this short film, Max falls in love with a somewhat erratic lady. She only wants to marry him if he can juggle. It goes without saying that he makes all kinds of attempts to learn that during the rest of the film.
We see Arlette d'Umès here in the role of the potential bride. As far as I know, she has only played in 1 film. Linder, who often also directed his films, showed what he wanted from his actors once, rehearsed it once and then filmed it immediately. This film was written and directed by Camille de Morlhon, but I can imagine that he, too, did not rehearse and re-take too much. Everything looks so spontaneous. You can also see that the actors have a lot of fun doing it.
What strikes me about this film is that it is acted in in a very exaggerated way. Nowadays, when silent films are parodied, they act like this. It has become the cliché image of the silent film. I have seen quite a few silent films, but I have never seen that cliché used so one on one. It also seems that this comedy is already a silent film parody on the silent film in 1909. Even before the cliché really has become a cliché.
Linder had been fascinated by the circus since his youth and, without his parents' knowledge, started a theater course at the age of 17. His parents were not happy with that because they would have preferred him to take over the family vineyard. When Max was unsuccessful in his theater career, they undoubtedly hoped that he would still show interest in the vineyard, but in 1905 he got the chance to play in a short film by film pioneer Charles Pathé and his comic talent turned out to have a better effect on the silver screen. Two years later he would invent the character Max and become enormously popular.
Given the interest that he had in his youth for the circus, I can imagine that he had a lot of fun learning to juggle in this film. It also reminds me a bit of Tommy Cooper, that comical magician with the red fez whose magic tricks always failed.
Quite early in his career, Linder realized that being on stage was quite different from making a film. Although it was still common to use long shots in film, as if it were a play that one recorded from the audience's point of view, Linder realized that the behavior and appearance of an actor was much more important in film than on stage. On stage an actor can convey emotion with his voice and there is a kind of interaction with the audience. With a different type of audience, the actor can do something a little different, making it work a little better. With film it is always the same performance.
Linder was also one of the first to realize that it was important to have the right music played when the film was shown. He often sent notes, with music that he found fit with his films, to cinema operators.
When the First World War began, Linder tried to join the army, but was rejected for medical reasons. He was allowed to become a courier for the army and so he became a driver. In 1914 a newspaper wrote that he died in the Battle of Aisne, but Linder personally called the newspaper to report that he was still alive. The newspaper headed the next day; "Max Linder not dead!"
In 1916 he came into contact with mustard gas, causing severe lung problems and depression. Because of this he could no longer stay in the army and that it was too uncertain a time in France, he decided to leave for America.
Although he was already known in America, his career did not really take off. He did become friends with Charlie Chaplin, who was recording a film next to the studio where Linder was making a film. They sometimes spent whole nights talking together about the best way to film their jokes. You see at the end of "La Petite Rosse" that Linder does the typical walk of Chaplins the Tramp. Before Chaplin used it.
Chaplin called Linder "My professor" and Linder said about this; "He calls me his teacher, but I have been the happy one, to take lessons from his school.”
Linder made his last film in 1925; "The king of the circus". Three years later, Chaplin would make "The Circus" that had the same kind of plot. Undoubtedly an ode to Linder who had committed suicide in 1925 with his wife.
Comments
Post a Comment