New Movie about Steve Jobs Fails to Impress Critics

By MANOHLA DARGIS

Published: August 15, 2013

From the New York Times

It would drive Steve Jobs nuts to know that the new movie about his life has all the sex appeal of a PowerPoint presentation. It isn’t only that PowerPoint has become synonymous with the dry, dreary, droning of corporate meetings or that it’s an application developed by Microsoft, itself a favorite target of Jobs. (“The only problem with Microsoft,” he said, “is they just have no taste.” Also: “They just make really third-rate products.”) Jobs, who died in 2011 at 56 from complications of pancreatic cancer, thought of himself as an artist, one who, in talking about the design of the Macintosh, said, “Great art stretches the taste, it doesn’t follow tastes.”

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The historical record is all that’s stretched in “Jobs,” which stars Ashton Kutcher and was directed by Joshua Michael Stern. Compression and omissions are part of any biography. So it’s to be expected that a two-hour movie about one of the most important public figures in recent times leaves out a lot, including famous feuds, forgottencolleagues and even significant business ventures. The point isn’t that there are gaps; the point is what and who have been left out. It’s understandable that a movie that concentrates on Jobs’s earlier years would overlook his involvement with Pixar, which he capitalized in 1986; given the filmmakers’ difficulties dealing with hisdifficulties it’s also understandable that they slide over a little player called the Xerox Corporation.

The story of Jobs visiting Xerox’s Palo Alto research center in 1979 and realizing that the company was, as he put it, “sitting on a gold mine,” is an oft-repeated foundationaltale, partly because he appropriated some of Xerox’s ideas. It was during this visit, he later said, that he could see “what the future of computing was destined to be.” In the movie this epiphanic moment seems to occur earlier, during an acid trip. It’s the early 1970s and Steve, who’s dropped out of college, is bumming around, usually barefoot. One day he and two friends, Chrisann Brennan (Ahna O’Reilly) and Daniel Kottke (Lukas Haas), go on a lysergically enhanced picnic that culminates with Steve drifting into a field and, as the camera twirls around him and the sun shines upon him, throwing his arms open to the infinite.

Before long, Steve has embraced his destiny, hooked up with Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad, delivering a sympathetic, sensitive performance) and is staring into a different immensity: the Apple computer and the technological revolution that it helped bring about. Things move quickly for Steve, who one minute is cobbling together the first Apple in his family’s garage and the next is crunching numbers with an investor, Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney). There are good, bad, happy, sad times, mostly with guys (women barely register), though it all gets heavier after Steve starts driving a Porsche and shacks up in a mansion with only an Einstein poster for company, a trajectory echoed in the soundtrack: “Life’s Been Good,” “Roll With the Changes,” “You Can Do (Whatever).”

Written by Matt Whiteley, the movie is bookended by scenes of the middle-aged Jobs, doing what some believed he did best: pitching new products. Fuzzed up and hunched over, Mr. Kutcher looks somewhat like the young Jobs, and there are moments — as when he gives another character a small, devious look as if sliding in a knife — that the casting seems more than a matter of bottom-line calculation. But Mr. Kutcher doesn’t have the tools that some actors use to transcend weak material and either he didn’t receive any help or didn’t allow any real direction from Mr. Stern. Mr. Kutcher’s tendency to cap so many emotional scenes with small, self-satisfied smiles is especially unfortunate because they can’t help but bring to mind his other career as a pitchman for digital cameras.

The greater blame rests on the filmmakers, who never find a way to navigate the “passions, perfectionism, demons, desires, artistry, devilry and obsession for control” that Walter Isaacson enumerated in “Steve Jobs,” his 2011 authorized biography. Mr. Stern and Mr. Whiteley pile up Jobs’s multitudes: he screams and smirks, the score rises triumphantly only to ease and darken. Other characters announce to Steve and one another that he’s changed. But how and why? There are nods at his adoption and the daughter he initially refused to acknowledge, but those never amount to much and, after a while, you don’t care. The Great Man theory of history that’s recycled in this movie is inevitably unsatisfying, but never more so when the figure at the center remains as opaque as Jobs does here.

Great Article on Kelly's Crowning Achievement

The Art Theater continues to be a film lover’s best friend as it continues to screen classic movies during its weekend late night slots.  This week, Singin’ in the Rain will be screened (Friday and Saturday at 10 p.m.), the influential movie musical that is continually listed on “Best of” lists some 60 years after its release.  Really, it comes as no surprise that this is the case as the film still seems fresh, primarily because of the enthusiastic performances of its three principals as well as the many innovative dance sequences that set the bar high for all other entries in the genre that would come in its wake.

The plot of the film is relatively simple as it focuses on the motion picture industry’s transition to sound and the difficulties it posed not only from a technical point of view but a personal one as well when it comes to the talent of those involved.  Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) are a popular on-screen couple whose latest silent feature is being transformed into a musical.  While Lockwood has the chops to accomplish this task, his co-star’s voice is not suitable for sound films let alone singing so dire steps must be taken.  The star enlists his old friend Cosmo (Donald O’Connor) to help him write songs and come up with dance numbers for the revamped production, while he enlists Kathy (Debbie Reynolds), a young actress eager to make it big, to dub Lina’s dialogue and singing.

The musical numbers are not only delightful to behold but something to wonder at as well.  The precision and innovation present in each of them never cease to amaze and none of them was accomplished without many hours of hard work.  Some production days stretched to 19 hours in length and from all accounts, Debbie Reynolds had it worst of all.  Only 19 years old at the time, the actress still lived with her parents and would have to wake up at 4 a.m. in order to get to the studio in time, what with having to take three different buses to get there. Equally trying for the actress was dealing with Kelly, a notorious taskmaster who had no problem berating Reynolds whenever she made a mistake.  After a particularly rough day, she retreated under a piano to hide, only to be found, in tears, by Fred Astaire who helped her master some of the film’s more difficult dance scenes.

Even O’Connor, a veteran vaudeville entertainer, was intimidated by Kelly as he recounted long after the film was made that he was afraid of making a mistake for fear of incurring his co-star’s wrath and that overall making the movie was an unpleasant experience.  He was so stressed that he took to smoking four packs of cigarettes a day, something that came back to haunt him during has incredible Make ‘Em Laugh number in which Kelly asked him to recreate a trick he had done as a young dancer – running up a wall and doing a somersault. The actor put so much into the sequence that he spent time in a hospital afterward due to exhaustion and severe carpet burns.  Unfortunately, the footage that was shot was ruined due to an accident and O’Connor had to redo the sequence when he was up to it.

Without question, the hard work done by all paid off handsomely as the film was a huge hit for MGM as it took in nearly $8 million during its initial release against a budget of $2.5 million.  More importantly, it proved to be a landmark work in the genre of the movie musical, providing inspiration for those who would attempt to emulate the dizzying heights that directors Kelly and Stanley Donen achieved.       

What Chaplin and Kelly Have in Common

Something Chaplin and Kelly have in common: Roller Skating was something they were both incredible at and this skill ended up in their films. While Gene is the master here with his roller skating number in It's Always Fair Weather from 1955, Chaplin beat him to it by 40 years in the movie The Rink from 1915. Not as polished, but incredible.Click Here for Video

Good Artists Copy, but Great Artists Steal

Something Chaplin and Kelly have in common #2: In a scene from Singin in The Rain, from 1952, Gene Kelly is dancing with Cyd Charisse. She approaches and Kelly flips his head back shooting his hat onto the floor. In a similar scene from The Gold Rush, from 1925, Chaplin does the exact same thing. What would Steve Jobs have said? "Good artists copy, Great artists steal." A great sight gag is a great sight gag.

Early Mention of Chaplin Before his Movie Career 1912

Chaplin's Worldwide Reach

Kambiz Derambakhsh in an undated photo TEHRAN -- Iranian cartoonist Kambiz Derambakhsh has said that he is “strongly influenced” by English comic actor and filmmaker Sir Charles Spencer “Charlie” Chaplin.   “He is my idol,” Derambakhsh admitted during a meeting at the City Book Institute in Tehran on Monday. The meeting was part of “The Artistic Dialogue”, a program organized by the institute every week.   “Chaplin’s works are simple, silent, emotional and meaningful. The works make people laugh and enjoy themselves, but they have not been produced just to make you laugh,” he stated.   Derambakhsh, who won the Grand Prize at the 33rd International Nasreddin Hodja Cartoon Contest in Istanbul, Turkey in mid-July, said that he would not like to draw cartoons about politicians and political issues.   “Politicians have become thick-skinned and cartoons do not affect them anymore,” he said.   “I would like my works to refresh the world and… to give people peace of mind,” he added.   The veteran cartoonist has participated in many international events in Canada, Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy, Belgium and Brazil over the past four decades.   He won the grand prize at Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun competition in 1998, the grand prize of a contest in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1998, the bronze medal for third place of a South Korean contest in 1998, and the grand prize of a Polish anti-war caricature contest in 2002.

My Artist Hero: Chaplin, Kelly and Jobs

The word artist is thrown around as much as genius, but there were and are very few who truly can be classified as both.

These three men fall into the category of genius and artist:

The series is called Artist Heroes.  Click the names to read each article.

Steve Jobs

Gene Kelly

Charlie Chaplin

New Movie on Steve Jobs

New Movie on Steve Jobs

Article from the Huffington Post:

LOS ANGELES — It's clear from Ashton Kutcher's tone – even though he's siting 2,500 miles away in New York – that the 35-year-old actor and technology enthusiast holds an unflinching reverence for Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder he portrays in the film "Jobs," opening Friday.

When he speaks about embodying the notoriously demanding Mac mastermind during a recent video conversation on Skype, in which Kutcher was an early investor, he's resolute and thoughtful. It's the antithesis of his goofball on-screen personas in TV series like "That `70s Show" and "Two and a Half Men" and in films such as "Dude, Where's My Car?" and "What Happens in Vegas."

For Kutcher, he says it was imperative that he personify, not parody, the well-documented mannerisms of Jobs, who died in 2011 of pancreatic cancer and will also be profiled in an untitled Sony film by Aaron Sorkin. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who's played by Josh Gad in "Jobs," has been hired as an adviser on the upcoming Sorkin film.

With "Jobs," Kutcher hopes his performance is as much a lesson about entrepreneurship to today's youth as it a profile of a man who revolutionized technology.

___

AP: You don't paint a spotless portrait of Steve Jobs in this film. How did you balance playing a man that's obviously an icon but also has flaws like everyone else?

Kutcher: I think Steve cared about the end result and wasn't worried about being liked and knew he would eventually be liked if his creations were properly executed. He was very blunt, but it's because he cared. I tried to look at his faults as his gifts, and I tried to understand it and not judge it. I think the way that guy received love in life was by creating products that people loved, and when they loved the products, they thereby loved him.

AP: How did you mentally prepare for the scenes where Jobs goes into beast mode and he's yelling and combative?

Kutcher: He was never just senselessly combative. I think there was something he desired, and he had a goal and passion for his consumers that were driving his frustration. He wanted the people around him to care as much about the result as he did. I think his frustration was in an effort to motivate people to care.

AP: Why do you think now is the right time for this story? It isn't too soon?

Kutcher: As time passes, I think the tales get taller. He'll become more glorified for the things he did right, and more vilified for the things he did wrong. We had a great opportunity to tell a story about a guy with an exponential amount of resources to inform us about what really happened – or as close to what really happened as they can recall.

AP: How do you feel about Steve Wozniak declaring some scenes weren't accurate after he saw footage of the film?

Kutcher: Steve Wozniak is being paid by another company to support their Steve Jobs film. It's personal for him, but it's also business. We have to keep that in mind. He was also extremely unavailable to us when producing this film. He's a brilliant man and I respect his work, but he wasn't available to us as a resource, so his account isn't going to be our account because we don't know exactly what it was. We did the best job we could. Nobody really knows what happened in the rooms.

Gene Kelly and a 9 Year Old

Gene Continues to Inspire  Click link for full article

A great story I found of how Gene continues to inspire new generations:

By Rod Dreher in the August 9th issue of the American Conservative.com

A couple of weeks ago, we watched An American In Paris as a family. Tonight the boys and I watched On The Town tonight. After it was over, Lucas, who is nine, said, “I want to see every movie Gene Kelly ever made!”  I told him that sometime this weekend, we would watch Singin’ In The Rain, which is Gene Kelly’s most famous movie.  “I think I’ve heard of that,” he said.  “Come see this,” I said, and showed him the clip above.  It dazzled him. Lucas said, “It’s hard to believe somebody like that died.” Which, after a second or two, I realized might be just about the best thing that anybody could say about Gene Kelly, or anybody: that you were so full of life that it seemed only right that you should live forever.  Look what I found just now. Gene Kelly, the quintessential American, was a Francophile who spoke French. Good man!: 

UPDATE.2: Look what just came in the e-mail:

Dear Mr. Dreher,

A Google Alert this morning directed me to your lovely piece about my late husband Gene Kelly. I smiled when I read your son’s comment about Gene’s death.

I feel the same way. I am often on panels with filmmakers who say that young people don’t have any attention span and that you need to dumb things down – hype them up – in order to make them appealing to kids. I disagree completely and your son’s response to the films is a good example of why. Instead, I think you have to do what Gene did – make something of quality that is both contemporary and timeless.

By the way, Gene also spoke Yiddish and pretty fair Italian. He read Latin, wrote poetry and often read a book a day.

Good man is right!

Warm regards,

Patricia Kelly

Isn’t that marvelous? I can’t tell my children what to like, but what I can do is expose them to the greats, and hope that their imagination is captured. My son Lucas is athletically and musically inclined, so I’m not surprised that he is fascinated by Gene Kelly … but I am delighted. Thanks to Mrs. Kelly for this generous note. He read Latin and spoke Yiddish! Can you imagine? How great it would have been to have known him.

A New Yorker Article Chaplin's Perfectionism

Chaplin's Perfectionism

AUGUST 5, 2013

CHAPLIN’S PERFECTIONISM

POSTED BY RICHARD BRODY

My favorite (though perhaps apocryphal) story of an artist’s inability to let go is about Pierre Bonnard, who, in old age, is said to have visited museums with paints and brushes hidden in his coat in order to add some touches to his works on display. The cinema, built as it is of cuts, is a natural medium for self-critical or penitent artists; Stanley Kubrick famously had scenes cut from prints of “2001” and “The Shining” after the movies were already in theatrical release, and there is the remarkable subgenre of directors’ cuts that are shorter than the released version (certainly Charles Burnett’s “My Brother’s Wedding,” and Elaine May showed a slightly shortened version of “Ishtar” at the 92nd Street Y two years ago). In the mid-nineties, André Téchiné told me that he was considering making trims to his film “My Favorite Season” for its American release (the distributor later said that Téchiné went into the editing room to rework the film but then decided to leave it as-is, a wise decision regarding a fine movie). And, of course, directors often rework the same material, as Alfred Hitchcock did with his remake of “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” as Howard Hawks did with “Ball of Fire” (improving it as “A Song Is Born”) and with “Rio Bravo” (as “El Dorado”).

But maybe the strangest of directorial reworkings is the one on view tonight at 7 P.M. at Anthology Film Archives: Charlie Chaplin’s 1942 sound version of his 1925 silent classic “The Gold Rush.” (It’s also an extra in Criterion’s DVD release of the film.) Like so many of Chaplin’s movies, the personal element is built into the story. Just as his 1923 drama “A Woman of Paris” (in which he does not star but has a cameo) suggests the decadent backrooms of Hollywood, “The Gold Rush,” a snowbound Yukon comedy, also hints at the movie-land boom town, filled with brutes and rowdies, in which the puckish striver of elegant gentility—Chaplin’s Little Tramp—arrives to seek his fortune only to suffer humiliation and heartbreak.

It has some of Chaplin’s most exquisite set pieces, but Chaplin always looked at these pieces somewhat condescendingly. In his autobiography, he called its succession of comic sallies “one two three, pantry cakey” compared with the carefully composed “situation comedy.” Speaking with Jean Cocteau in 1936 (as cited in David Robinson’s superb biography of Chaplin), he said,

The dance of the bread rolls. That’s what they all congratulate me on. It is a mere cog in the machine. A detail. If that was what they specially noticed, they must have been blind to the rest

In the sound version, Chaplin made sure that viewers would see the rest. In suppressing the title cards, he smoothed out the movie’s rhythms and gave its succession of scenes a more dovetailed flow. Chaplin’s voice-over—sometimes a commentary and sometimes an impersonation of characters’ lines—unified the movie’s tone, turned its third-person staging into a first-person reminiscence. The ironic poignancy of a man of feeling in a cynical land was given a voice; Chaplin, now fighting on the world stage of “The Great Dictator,” looked back at the Little Tramp (whom he now called the Little Fellow) with a wistful tenderness. Brutality now had an altogether different face, and romantic sensibility was hardly its only victim.

Anthology Film Archives follows that screening with Chaplin’s 1952 film “Limelight,” another film of personal retrospect and self-doubt. In that film, set half a century earlier, Chaplin plays Calvero, a London music-hall comedian. It’s Chaplin’s there-but-for-the-grace-of-God story, and the deus ex machina that Calvero lacked but that saved Chaplin is the cinema itself. He knew that he owed everything to the camera; his redemptive view of the movies made him hate what he considered the medium’s banalization, and in “A King in New York,” playing next Monday at BAM Cinématek, one of his most scathing and ruefully satirical scenes—in a movie filled with them—is reserved for Hollywood’s new ballyhoo.

The Kelly Donen Partnership

Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly worked together as partners on movies from 1945 to 1955 at MGM. Stanley had been a member of the Pal Joey cast on Broadway in 1940 as a 16 year old boy.  He later came to Hollywood and started apprenticing for Gene.  They made many movies together with Gene in front of the camera and Stanley behind it.  They even co-directed three films.  Stanley was a major part of Gene's success.

After their last film together, It's Always Fair Weather, in 1955, they never worked together again.  Stanley had already been on his own directing other movies and wanted to get out from behind Gene's shadow. Gene got all the credit and screen time when they were together and Stanley simply grew up and became resentful of Gene.  I don't blame Stanley at all.  It was his time to shine.  He, eventually, outshone Gene in the directors seat and had a brilliant career behind the camera working with Cary Grant, Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn in many movies.

He and Gene never worked together and rarely spoke or saw each other again until 1991, five years before Gene's death.

Donen, on Kelly in a 1992 interview talking about the split after It's Always Fair Weather: "I thought about quitting, and I almost did. Co-directing is a nightmare. Co-anything is a nightmare.... It's especially unpleasant and very difficult. To work with somebody particularly somebody who is so concerned with his image, was impossible." "I'm grateful to him, but I paid him back the debt, ten times over. And he got his money's worth out of me." Not only did Donen never work with Kelly again, but he never worked with Arthur Freed, MGM or Comden and Green. 

 Arthur Freed giving Stanley and Gene their first directors job.

 Gene with one of Stanley's wives.  He later married another one of Stanley's wives, Jeannie Coyne, who has also been Kelly's student in Pittsburgh and his dance assistant for many years.  There was personal as well as professional animosityl

 Donen in later years.

 Stanley and Gene playing around as directors from the silent era.

Stanley and Gene conferring on the set.

The only time he broke bread with Kelly again, was at a dinner after a Comden and Green tribute when they all went to Spagos in Hollywood. Kelly had paid tribute to Stanley during the tribute and invited he and his wife to dinner. Donen seemed upset at a joke Kelly told at dinner. This was not a reconciliation, but a polite get together. 

So sad that this great team split on bad terms.

What do Tom Cruise and Charlie Chaplin have in common?

United Artists was incorporated as a joint venture on February 5, 1919, by four of the leading figures in early Hollywood: Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith. Each held a 20% stake, with the remaining 20% held by lawyer William Gibbs McAdoo.^[4] The idea for the venture originated with Fairbanks, Chaplin, Pickford, and cowboy star William S. Hart a year earlier as they were traveling around the U.S. selling Liberty bonds to help the World War I effort. Already veterans of Hollywood, the four film stars began to talk of forming their own company to better control their own work as well as their futures.

They were spurred on by established Hollywood producers and distributors who were tightening their control over actor salaries and creative decisions, a process that evolved into the rigid studio system. With the addition of Griffith, planning began, but Hart bowed out before things had formalized. When he heard about their scheme, Richard A. Rowland, head of Metro Pictures, is said to have observed, "The inmates are taking over the asylum." The four partners, with advice from McAdoo (son-in-law and former Treasury Secretary of then-President Woodrow Wilson), formed their distribution company, with Hiram Abrams as its first managing director.

List of UA stockholders in 1920

The original terms called for Pickford, Fairbanks, Griffith and Chaplin to independently produce five pictures each year. But by the time the company got under way in 1920–1921, feature films were becoming more expensive and more polished, and running times had settled at around ninety minutes (or eight reels). It was believed that no one, no matter how popular, could produce and star in five quality feature films a year. By 1924, by which time Griffith had dropped out, the company was facing a crisis: either bring in others to help support a costly distribution system or concede defeat. The veteran producer Joseph Schenck was hired as president. Not only had he been producing pictures for a decade, but he brought along commitments for films starring his wife, Norma Talmadge, his sister-in-law, Constance Talmadge, and his brother-in-law, Buster Keaton. Contracts were signed with a number of independent producers, most notably Samuel Goldwyn, Alexander Korda and Howard Hughes. Schenck also formed a separate partnership with Pickford and Chaplin to buy and build theaters under the United Artists name. They also began international operations, first in Canada, then in Mexico, and by the end of the 1930s, United Artists was represented in over 40 countries.

D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin (seated) and Douglas Fairbanks at the signing of the contract establishing United Artists motion picture studio in 1919. Lawyers Albert Banzhaf (left) and Dennis F. O'Brien (right) stand in the background.

Still, even with a broadening of the company, UA struggled. The coming of sound ended the careers of Pickford and Fairbanks. Chaplin, rich enough to do what he pleased, worked only occasionally. Schenck resigned in 1933 to organize a new company with Darryl F. Zanuck, Twentieth Century Pictures, which soon provided four pictures a year to UA's schedule. He was replaced as president by sales manager Al Lichtman who himself resigned after only a few months. Pickford produced a few films, and at various times Goldwyn, Korda, Walt Disney, Walter Wanger, and David O. Selznick were made "producing partners" (i.e., sharing in the profits), but ownership still rested with the founders. As the years passed and the dynamics of the business changed, these "producing partners" drifted away, Goldwyn and Disney to RKO, Wanger toUniversal Pictures, Selznick to retirement. By the late 1940s, United Artists had virtually ceased to exist as either a producer or distributor. It sold off its Mexican releasing division to Crédito Cinematográfico Mexicano, a local company.

 Charlie Chaplin seated with Mary Picford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith.  These were the most power and richest stars of the Silent Era.  Also seated below.  D.W. Griffith produced Birth of a Nation.

The Tom Cruise era[edit source | editbeta]

On November 2, 2006, MGM announced that actor Tom Cruise and his long-time production partner Paula Wagner were resurrecting UA^[15][16] (this announcement came after the duo were released from a fourteen-year production relationship at Viacom-owned Paramount Pictures earlier that year). Cruise, Wagner and MGM Studios created United Artists Entertainment LLC and the producer/actor and his partner owned a 30% stake in the studio,^[17] with the approval by MGM's consortium of owners.

The deal gave them control over production and development of films. Wagner was named CEO of United Artists, which was allotted an annual slate of four films with different budget ranges, while Cruise served as a producer for the revamped studio as well as serving as the occasional star.

UA became the first motion picture studio granted a WGA waiver in January 2008 during the Writers' Strike.^[18]

On August 14, 2008, MGM announced Paula Wagner would leave United Artists to produce films independently.^[2] Her output as head of UA was two films, both starring Cruise, Lions for Lambs^[19] and Valkyrie, the latter of which, despite mixed reviews, was successful at the box office thanks to $117 million in foreign revenue.^[20] Wagner's departure led to speculation that an overhaul at United Artists was imminent.^[2]

Since then, United Artists has merely served as a co-producer with MGM for two releases: the 2009 remake of Fame and Hot Tub Time Machine. Throughout 2010, continued debt and credit issues for MGM Holdings, Inc., United Artists' parent company had left the future of MGM and UA in doubt until it was resolved near the end of the year.

A 2011 financial report revealed that MGM reacquired its 100% stake in United Artists.^[17] MGM might continue to make new films under the UA brand.^[17]

Gene Kelly: Who Were His Early Influences?

As a young boy in Pittsburgh, Gene Kelly was forced into dancing lessons by his mother.  She wanted all five of the kids to be exposed to and fluent in the arts.  They were known as the Five Kellys. His dad was a hard working man, but his mother was mentioned more often as a dominant figure in his life, especially when his father lost his job.  Gene dropped out of dancing a a young teenager after getting beaten up by some local boys calling him a sissy, but as he gained interest in woman and the fact that his dad was out of work gave Gene the impetus to ask his brother, Fred, for help.  Fred had been dancing for a while and making money at it.  Gene quickly learned the steps thanks to his earlier training, his fierce competitive spirit and athletic dynamism.

Within a short time, both he and Fred were making money for the family. They would watch other acts and copy down the steps to add to their portfolio.  Soon, their mother had the idea of opening a dance studio. Gene jumped on the idea and the whole family got into the act, so to speak.  Even his father helped keep the books.  The studio began to gain a good reputation and a second studio was opened in a nearby town, Johnstown, PA.  The studio was soon named after Gene and they began to put on annual revues and help visiting acts from the Vaudeville circuit.  Gene gained enormous experience as a dance doctor.  After 8 years of highly successful  choreography and training, he went to Broadway to find work as a choreographer. Nothing panned out at that time that would keep him there so he came home. Gene, not one for giving up, went back again a short time later, but this time to take any job in any show just to get his foot in the door. By his 3rd job, he was given the lead in Pal Joey and the rest is history.  He signed a contract with David O'Selznick and moved to Hollywood.

If you look back at Gene's life both his mother and brother were hugely influential.  Gene was also a college grad and could have gone into other business pursuits.  He also briefly attended law school, but the dance bug had him.  Family influences made all the difference. Gene's initial need to dance came about due to girls and that he wanted to help his family financially.  Only later, did he realize he had a knack for it and loved it. 

He didn't like ballroom dancing though.  It was taught at his schools, but it was not his forte.  Even later in life, he avoided it claiming an injury.  He told everyone who would listen that he wanted to work on a uniquely American style of dance.  He went on to forge this unique style with tap, ballet and jazz dance that became his signature.  From a boy who never really wanted to dance came the singular song and dance icon of the heyday of movie musicals.

The Kelly Family

 The Five Kellys

 Fred and Gene in their only joint screen appearance in the 1954 movie, Deep in My Heart.

Gene and Fred.  It was said Fred was the more talented dancer, but did not photograph as well.

City Lights: The Greatest Achievement for Chaplin

I have edited the movie, City lights, made in 1931, down to only the first and last scenes.  You must see the entire movie as it is heralded as his best work. It was made four years after talkies made their appearance on the movie scene and critics said Chaplin was crazy to make another silent movie.  He knew better and swore that the Tramp would never talk or the magic would be gone.  The movie was a smash hit.

The movie is basically about the Tramp meeting a blind girl, selling flowers on a street corner, who mistakes him for a rich man.  After the meeting, he spends 9 months working to raise enough money for her rent and to pay for an operation that will restore her sight. After her sight is restored, she sees him on the street and thinks he is just another bum.  In a scene that is, quite frankly, the finest bit of acting and conveyance of emotion ever put on screen, either in a silent film or talkie, she discovers that her savior is, in fact, the Tramp and not a rich man at all.

Click the link below to see this much shortened version of a full feature film.  The comedy between the beginning and ending scenes is some of the best ever filmed and must be seen to appreciate the genius that was Charlie Chaplin.  There were other funny and talented silent era comedians like Lloyd and Keaton, but none had the pathos of Chaplin where a laugh and a tear were so expertly combined.

City Lights Redux

Mashups Started with Chaplin

The 100-Year-Old Charlie Chaplin Mashups That Are Lost Forever

Mashups, intellectual property laws, bootlegs, copyright. While those are all valid concerns today, they're hardly anything new. Just ask Charlie Chaplin.

Peter Decherney's 2012 book Hollywood's Copyright Wars: From Edison to the Internet is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the history of intellectual property. Decherney covers everything from the rampant duping that early film companies did of competitor's movies (everybody did it) to the mechanical "DRM" of the early cinema (film sprocket holes were sometimes made to fit only a particular kind of projector). He also makes his way into present day battles over digital downloads, showing that there's really nothing new about the wars being waged over movie piracy.

But I found one of the most interesting stories in the book to be about Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin's career and the stories Decherney tells of it deals with so many different facets of IP law — issues like what it means to own one's likeness and the legality of mashups. Yes, despite their modern association with YouTube culture, mashups were definitely a thing a hundred years ago.

You see, Chaplin was incredibly popular in the 1910s, '20s and '30s, but he wasn't a very prolific filmmaker. He'd often take an entire year to make a film — a lifetime when you compared it to the output of his contemporaries. So naturally, people got creative and churned out knock-off Chaplin pictures mimicking his schtick — Harold Lloyd was quite famous for this early in his career — while other times people would remix his work to create entirely new films.

A while back I spoke with Decherney over the phone. He explained to me that Chaplin and his attorney, Nathan Burken, went after the people who were remixing his work, and others who were just making outright copies of the film for resale.

There were people who did dupe Chaplin films and resell them. And interestingly, there were people who took Chaplin films and re-edited them with other footage to create new films. None of those seem to exist [today], but we do have accounts of them. The accounts are kind of hard to reconcile. So, for example, there's one account that discusses Chaplin's film [the 1915 boxing film The Champion], and somehow that was mixed with undersea footage to create a new film, which I can't quite picture. Jaws Meets Rocky, or something.

But there was actually an audience for these films. And some of the courts at the time suggested that there was real confusion among audience members. But the exhibitors seemed to suggest that audiences knew the difference. And twice as many people would come to see a real Chaplin film as a film that was by an impersonator or a mashup. But there was a long time to wait in between Chaplin films. And audiences were happy to go see an impersonator or a mashup in between.

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As Leslie Horn pointed out recently, so much of our film history is simply lost — unrecoverable because the physical medium deteriorated and wasn't preserved for future generations. It's estimated that perhaps 90% of all films made before the introduction of the talkies (in the late 1920s) are lost forever.

Which obviously leads to questions about the preservation of our own media's second string. If the major movies of an era aren't even safe, where does that leave this glut of culture that's been remixed by recent generations? Will people know the joys of G.I. Joe Pork Chop Sandwiches a hundred years hence? How about House of Cosbys, another work challenged by both litigation and the simple ravages of time? Only time will tell. But when you read about the remixers of generations past, it doesn't leave one very optimistic.