MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
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A fearless rebel whose work mirrored troubled times
The sumptuous The Chaplin Archive provides the patient reader an opportunity to assess the complex personality of an undoubted genius, writes GORDON PARSONS
CHALLENGING FASCISM: Adenoid Hynkel (Chaplin) dances with the world in The Great Dictator, 1940
[Roy Export Company Establishment]
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
The missing sister, the vengeful WAG, cruise ship claustrophobia, and reanimated Avengers
Three great releases of lost concerts by Duke Ellington Orchestra, John Taylor & Stan Sulzman, and Joe Henderson
To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
The Charlie Chaplin Archive
Edited by Paul Duncan
Taschen £60.00
“A LITTLE Englishman, quiet, unassuming, but surcharged with dynamite, is influencing the world right now … the world has Chaplinitis … but, for the life of you, you can’t analyse the reason.”
Since this 1915 journalistic assessment, a myriad books have attempted to understand the phenomenal achievement of a man whose name was, through the first quarter of the last century, better known internationally than that of Jesus Christ.
At first, what appears to be an imposing coffee table book from the Cologne art publisher Taschen, “the home of beautiful books,” priced well beyond an Everyman Pocket, might appear superfluous to even the most devoted Charlie Chaplin fan.
However, while this comprehensive record of Chaplin’s life and work may not have unearthed unknown facts, it will provide an invaluable research tool as it tracks through, describing and illustrating every film with a kaleidoscopic commentary from colleagues, critics, friends, enemies, fellow actors, wives, children and Chaplin himself.
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