Jackson, MS: THE IDLE CLASS, THE KID (1921)
Bruce Calvert
Spend 'An Evening with Charlie Chaplin'
By Sherry Lucas
slu...@clarionledger.com
Special to The Clarion-Ledger
Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance star in The Idle Class.
Details
What: An Evening With Charlie Chaplin by the Mississippi Symphony
Orchestra.
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson.
Tickets: $15-$30 adults, $10-$25 seniors 65-plus, $5 students 18 and
under and college students presenting valid ID at the box office; box
office opens at 6:30 p.m.
Phone: (601) 960-1565 for advance tickets, info.
Silent movie, live and lush soundtrack — the combination of Charlie
Chaplin's comedy and the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra's
accompaniment has cast a fun spell over near sell-out audiences.
Saturday night marks the third time out, and the best news is: Both
had/have gotten better at it.
An Evening With Charlie Chaplin opens the symphony's 2004-2005 Pops
Series, with Chaplin's original scores to his 1921 classics The Idle
Class and The Kid.
A masterpiece of the silent era, The Kid brought depth and
heart-ripping emotion to comedy with its story of an abandoned child
(Jackie Coogan, later to become The Addams Family's Uncle Fester)
adopted by Chaplin's famous character, The Tramp. It was the first
feature film Chaplin wrote, produced and directed. The Idle Class is a
comedy warmup to the main feature.
In 1921 — with The Jazz Singer and talkies still six years away —
silent films were all there were, usually with a lone piano player as
the only accompaniment while the movie played. The new technology of
talking motion pictures made soundtracks possible.
For Chaplin, it started with City Lights. "When Charlie Chaplin was
filming it in 1926, talkies hadn't come out yet. He finished it in
1927 (the same year The Jazz Singer changed the cinema landscape). He
was faced with a problem. Nobody wanted to see a silent film anymore,"
symphony conductor Crafton Beck said. Chaplin spent a year writing
music for it. "It was the first time Chaplin ever did it, and it was
very difficult for the conductor and the orchestra.
"Step by step, he went back to his earlier films. He was getting
better at it. By the time he got around to writing music for the 1921
films, it was easier for him," Beck said, "and easier for us."
The symphony accompanied Chaplin films City Lights and The Gold Rush
in the 2000-2001 and the 2001-2002 seasons, respectively.
For soundtracks today, conductors follow a click track that lines up
with a visual bleep on the screen to cue the music to the action. Beck
has no such luxury.
"The way we coordinate what we're doing with the movie is that Craft
Beck this week and last week and a month ago, memorizes the movie.
Literally, I've watched this damn movie 550 times," Beck said with a
laugh. "I learned The Kid inside and out, and learned the music inside
and out."
The synchronization, he said, "needs to be nearly perfect."
The payoff is as much a brush with art history as it is high
entertainment.
Caroline Hudson-Naef, 11, daughter of symphony operations and
personnel director Richard Hudson, who saw the two previous Chaplin
shows, said, "I thought it was really fun. The movies are very funny.
I think it's good to have something different. In some ways, I think
it's better than today's movies."
For Howard Cohen, who'll play clarinet, bass clarinet and alto sax for
the performance, it's even a brush with personal history. His mom
played for the silent movies in Clarksdale.
"She had a job every afternoon to play piano for the silent movies —
when the villain comes in, the piano's going crazy and banging away.
When the hero saves the heroine, it's beautiful music. It's a similar
thing in my mind — just with a full instrumental orchestra
accompaniment."
Only problem playing for the fun show is missing what's on the screen.
"We hear the reaction of the audience, it just drives us nuts," Cohen
said. "We miss out a lot down there in that pit, we really do."
What's not to be missed is Chaplin's innovative genius.
"That's what's so exciting," Beck said. "Chaplin suddenly realized
what he had at his disposal when a soundtrack happened. ... With a
soundtrack he had the means to stir emotions with sound — to the equal
level of moving people by what they saw. ... He created an art form.
"He was the first person to take a symphony orchestra and write love
music, chase music, comic music that enhanced the film so completely,
it totally transformed the movie experience."
--
Bruce Calvert