Watch Chaplin's The Gold Rush and compare and contrast it with Keaton's The General. Think about everything you've learned thus far in terms of reading film. Discuss mise-en-scene, open/closed framing, kinesis, narrative, etc. Refer to your textbook if you need assistance with the vocabulary. Use at least one quote from the articles I gave you in your response.
Both films are available here:
The Gold Rush
The General
Due: Friday 9/28
Both Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush and Buster Keaton's The General are works of cinematic genius. They are both alike and different in their cinematic makeup.
ReplyDeleteThe General is about a young man named Johnnie Gray who desperately wants to be part of the southern army, but because of his occupation and stature, he is denied. During a train ride, a group of Northern spies hijacked the train with the girl he likes (Annabelle Lee) on board, and he goes on by himself to try and get the train and his girl back. The Gold Rush is about a man, who is referred to as the Lone Prospector, who goes to Alaska to try and strike it rich. He ends up meeting many different characters, including Big Jim McKay and the lovely Georgia.
One similarity that struck as a very obvious one was that both narratives have a big role that is played by women. The General has Annabelle, who gets captured by the Northern spies and who Buster Keaton has to risk his life while inside the General's house to save, and The Gold Rush has Georgia, who Chaplin pursues after meeting her in the dance hall. The settings of the films, or at least the time they take place in, are also very similar. The General took place in during the Civil War era (1860's), hence the Northern and Southern troops, and The Gold Rush was set during the time of the Alaskan Gold Rush (1890's). The mise-en-scéne, or the overall piecing together of the films, were similar in comparison also. Both of the films started off with the main character having to deal with some sort of problem, then they go and confront that problem and in the process meet a girl, then they become heroes and get the girl by the end of the movie. The kinesis of the two films were very alike. Unlike a lot of films during this time, the camera moved (swayed from side to side or up and down instead of having to cut and move). The characters, though, did most of the moving. It was as though the characters were always moving in both films. There was always some type of action. Because both films were silent, they heavily depended on the use of non-diegetic elements to play certain roles, such as the intertitles that showed the dialogue or the meaning of something in a shot, or the music that helped establish a certain mood since there was no talking (fast paced music for chase scenes and sad music for heart-warming scenes, etc.). The films were also very heavily based on gags and comedic relief, The General having a little more humor than The Gold Rush. Gerald Mast said that "Despite the moral issues which the film raises...its popularity derives from the power of comedy sequences" and Roger Ebert said "Although they're filled with gags, you can rarely catch Keaton writing a scene around a gag; instead, the laughs emerge from the situation.." Both are crediting the comedic genius of Keaton and Chaplin.
Although the films were made by two entirely different people, they were made in the same time period, which results in similar cinematic make-up. The Gold Rush and The General are two movies that introduce both comedy and emotional and social issues within them; two works of cinematic excellence.
Chaplin's The Gold Rush and Keaton's The General are two silent movies from the 1920s. This was a powerful time period for cinema, as seen in both of these films. Although each film was made by completely different people, I found that they were extremely similar in style and technique.
ReplyDeleteBoth films used comedic relief to address serious topics. For example, The Gold Rush is about a poor man, in search of gold in the 1800s, that goes through several struggles, but eventually ends up with fortune, as well as love. During the late 1800s many people actually put their lives on hold and spent years searching for gold, only to be unlucky or catch diseases. Chaplin takes this topic that many people can relate to as unfortunate and makes it humorous. "Balancing the comedic scenes is one of the most effective and powerful sequences of pathos and poignancy in the entire Chaplin canon," writes Gerald Mast. He is absolutely correct. Charlie Chaplin's use of mise-en-scene makes the film seem even more real to the audience. In Keaton's The General, he takes a serious topic, the Civil War, and allows the audience to laugh about it and stay entertained. I do believe that Keaton's film portrayed mise-en-scene more accurately though. Everything in The General seemed real, because well, it was. Roger Ebert writes, "The General is an epic of silent comedy, one of the most expensive films of its time, including an accurate historical recreation of a Civil War episode, hundreds of extras, dangerous stunt sequences, and an actual locomotive falling from a burning bridge into a gorge far below." Keaton did not use a fake set or models of trains to creat this film. Everything appears real and fresh. Where in Chaplin's films, the viewer can tell that the mountains lining the background and such are fake. Each character in the films are successful in the end, leaving the audience happy and ending their suspense. Both films use music to draw in the audience. The music creates suspense and livens the scene.
Overall, both films, Chaplin's The Gold Rush and Keaton's The General use comic relief to touch upon somewhat serious topics and keep the audience entertained for the full length of the movie.
Keaton's The General and Chaplin's The Gold Rush are both works of cinematic genius. Both Keaton and Chaplin play very similar characters in their respective works. However, there are various differences in their acting style, the movie itself and how their character acts throughout their movies.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, both Keaton and Chaplin have a great sense of humor, which are very different from each other. Chaplin is much more of a slapstick sort of humor, while Keaton is very funny, but manages to stay serious throughout the film. This leads for two very different, but very interesting and hilarious films.
Another difference in these movies is the background and sets throughout. The General was one of the most expensive films shot by far because practically everything was real. All the trains, people, fighting scenes and more were filmed on set, and everything was real. In contrast, The Gold Rush was mostly sets and it is very obvious the background is fake.
Overall, both Keaton's The General and Chaplin's The Gold Rush were both very entertaining and funny, but differ in the ways the movies worked and were made.
Buster Keaton's 'The General' and Charlie Chaplin's 'The Gold Rush' were both films made for comedic value to entertain the audience. Because they were both made in the same time period, they contain similarities and differences in their make-up.
ReplyDeleteIn the General, Buster Keaton plays the lead role as 'Johnny Gray,' a southerner who tries to enlist in the army to impress his love, Annabelle Lee (Marian Mack), but is rejected multiple times because of his occupation; but then Johnny follows northerners who kidnapped Annabelle and triumphs in the end. In 'The Gold Rush' Charlie Chaplin plays a lone prospector who goes to alaska in hopes of mining unforetold riches in gold. He's soon soreley disappointed in his his lack of riches, and goes to a bar where he meets this girl, Georgia (Georgia Hale), and is enchanted.
Besides the plot, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin entertain the audience with events that use verisimilitude in their likelihood of occurring, such as his little handcar falling into a river because the northerners removed a portion of the track in The General; and in 'The Gold Rush' where Chaplin incidentally knocks a clock on his opponent in a fistfight, or ties a dog leash to his waist in leu of a belt. These visual sight gags are known as "slapstick" and were necessary to make an audience laugh to to the lack of sound. Differences between the two films includes that in 'The Gold Rush,' Charlie's comedy seems to come from actions that he seems to bring upon himself, whilst those that occur to Keaton are mostly just circumstance and attempt at sabotage from the northerners that he is ignorant of; as well as the fact that in The General all events are very realistic and show verisimilitude, whereas in The Gold Rush a whole cabin lifting from the ground to slide around the ground like a table hockey puck. Added to this, the mise-en-scene shows the significance of not only the major characters Johnny and the Lone Prospector, but the significance of the role of the women, which in this time period was very unusual. A difference between these two films though includes the non-diegetic music. In the Gold Rush, music plays through out to make the audience aware of the mood in the film at the time because of the lack of dialogue to clue the audience in. In The General there was music used, but it did not always correspond with the scene. In fact to e it appeared that occasionally the music was completely out of place with the moment it was playing in the film.
Ultimately, though both films were made in the same time period, and were made for a similar purpose of entertainment, they contain their differences as well as similarities because of their different directors.
Two movies: "The General" starring Buster Keaton and "The Gold Rush" starring Charlie Chaplin employ fantastic and entertaining comedic stunts and effects, and keep the viewer on their toes as they are watching. Both being silent films, they have many common similarities that they share, as well as differences in style, mis-en-scene, narrative, and perspective. Their shared content and differing approaches to comedy give the movies their individuality and significance.
ReplyDelete"The General" is about a conductor, who desired to be a soldier, but his dream becomes nearly impossible due to his occupation. However, after rescuing the girl he loves and thwarting the plans of the enemy, he becomes a war hero. "The Gold Rush" is about a young, un-athletic prospector, who dreams of striking it rich in Alaska, but weather, food, and love stand in the way of his goal. By the end of the film, he has fame, fortune, and the girl of his dreams.
Comparing the two films narratives, they had the same basic idea of how the stories are told. Much like "The Gold Rush", "The General" according to Julian Petley, follows a basic story formula that is popular in silent comedies: " a young 'failure' finally displays prowess and wins the girl " (Excerpt from Julian Petley's "The General" Review). Music and screen gestures accompanied by the occasional slide of words/dialogue are also a common feature in both films.. However, "The Gold Rush" used words more in a storytelling way, whereas "The General" used it more specifically for when a character spoke. Also, I'm quite interested as too why "The General" employed a Sepia tint to their film while "The Gold Rush" stuck with plain Grayscale. Perhaps each gave the films a different mood/tone. I enjoyed the simpleness yet distinctive personalities of each character. Keaton's character was more outgoing and sarcastic, while Chaplin's character was more careful and gentlemen-like. Both characters add charisma to each story in unique ways.
Arguably, "The General" didn't employ as much mise-en-scene as well as "The Gold Rush", especially since a big portion of the movie took place in a dance hall. However, "The General" was much more suspenseful for a longer duration, whereas "The Gold Rush" really only employed suspense during the scene where the cabin was on the edge of a cliff.
Overall, both movies were extremely entertaining, and worth watching. I could see a lot of techniques in the movies that film makers utilize today in modern day films.
The two silent films, The General, released in 1927, and The Gold Rush, made around the same time, have very important aspects of mise-en-scene and other cinematic elements that are very similar to each other, and in other ways different.
ReplyDeleteAll of the action shots in The General have happened in real life with no fakes involved. The hardest shot created in he film, was the shot of the REAL train engine breaking a REAL bridge, and falling down into a REAL gorge. The mise-en-scene creates a very realistic film because of all of it happening in real life. In The Gold Rush, many of the shots, like the snowy landscapes, and the snow itself are man made props, but since they were made, it was easier to create many non-realistic scenes, like the cabin in snowy Alaska " making a run for it" ( because of the wind) all the way to a high up cliff. Now obviously, the filmmakers would have not put their actors in a dangerous situation as falling off a cliff so that is why they made man ads props. But even without the dangerous action, Chaplin's way of creating scenes are through his props.
In both films, title sequence is used as narrative throughout, since they are silent films.
Buster Keaton's "The General" and Charles Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" are both amazing films of the years of early Hollywood. These films were, in their respective ways, similar in their narratives and plots, but very different in the other cinematic elements. In fact, the only things these films really share are narrative style similarities and similar uses of non-diegetic materials.
ReplyDeleteOne of the ways that these two early films were similar was the structure of their narratives. One narrative, a story about a man named Johnnie who goes on an adventure to get back his stollen train, and the other a story about the Tramp who goes to Alaska to try to make money but ends up trying to earn the love of a girl named Georgia. Both narratives share a similar theme in their narratives; a man goes off to achieve his goals, who is an outcast or screw up, ends up achieving his goals in the end and gets the girl as a bonus. In "The General" Johnnie is able to get his train back and becomes one off the army's leading military men, and ends up getting Annabelle also. In "The Gold Rush" the Tramp is able to get gold in the end, becoming a multi-millionaire and getting Georgia to be his girl. Both of these films share a similar narrative where each main character "finally displays prowess and wins the girl." These films also share similar plot, in the fact that they have similar non-diegetic elements. Non-diegetic elements such as screen inserts of text are used in each film because they help the viewer understand the film more clearly. Since each film is in fact silent, the screen inserts are used to help the viewer understand the setting of the scene and know what characters are saying to each other when we really need to know to understand the narrative.
These two films also share several differences. One difference is in the framing of the scenes in each film. In "The General", mostly all the scenes are displayed in the outdoors on trains. This would be an example of open-framing because Johnnie is able to make any choice that he wants since he is out in the open in restrained, and he uses this free choice to go chase after the people who stole his train. In "The Gold Rush" however, the main characters aren't given such choices usually. Most of the time the Tramp resides in a small cramped cabin with not much else where to go. During one scene, the Tramp and Big Jim are stuck in the cabin in the mountains with Black Larsen. This scene would be an example of the common use of closed-frame because the characters don't have a choice but to stay inside due to the huge snow storm that is barricading them in the cabin. The closed framing here is used to exercise the fact that they do not have a choice and are forced to stay in the cabin due to the severe weather conditions. Another key difference is the kinesis of the films. In Keaton's film, he uses both the kinesis in the camera and in the characters. Throughout a lot of the movie, mostly on the scenes with the trains, the camera is moving. Although it may not seem like it, the camera is moving along side the trains at the same speed, showing a stability on the screen even though the camera lens is moving, allowing us to concentrate on the moving of the characters. We are able to know the train is moving still with these shots, but we don't typically think of the camera moving along side the train, while the characters move around on the train that is in motion. However in the "The Gold Rush", Chaplin uses kinesis differently, typically having a static camera with the characters moving around within the framing of the screen, allowing on,y one type of framing, and a lot of the time we are dealing with a one room shot, so we don't always get a concept of offscreen space with the onscreen space in several closed-frame shots.
One last major difference between the two films is the verisimilitude. The General is very successful in achieving a very verisimilar film, because everything in that film was in fact real. Every stunt performed, every bridge burned, every battle sequence enacted and even every train destroyed in the process of filming this movie was in its entirety real. This helps create a very realistic story, because everything happened in it was real. This helped to create an amazing verisimilitude for the film. In the other film, Chaplin does not quite achieve the exact same effect. This film is not as verimilar as the other film, even though a lot of the scenes do look real, not everything is real like in "The General". Like the scene with the house dangling off a cliff, it wAnt very believable that they were actually dangling off a cliff in this make shift cabin, but more likely it was in a studio with a model off the house falling all the way down the cliff. Not everything was completely believable, and even though it was very verisimilar, it just wasn't as verisimilar as Keaton's movie.
ReplyDeleteSo, the two movies "The General" and "The Gold Rush" we're very similar in their narrative styles and somewhat in their plots, but we're very different when it comes to thing like their framing, kinesis, and verisimilitude. Both films either way were outstanding in their presentation and all these cinematic elements make these films by these early Hollywood film artists likeable and understandable by almost everyone.
This is the second half of my response.sorry I posted so late, I had to retype everything after my computer reset on me and didn't post what I had all ready written :P
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ReplyDeleteCharlie Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" and Buster Keaton's in "The General" are both amazing films from the mid- 1920s, that are able to convey an interesting story without the use of spoken words and sound effects.
ReplyDeleteThe protagonists of the two movies are very similar characters, a young male attempting to survive the trouble he's gotten himself into. And obviously for both, there is a girl included in the adventure in order to create a small love story out of the main story. Both films have similar styles of story telling, a style that is present with most films from its time.
The two films might be part of the same era, but they also differ in several ways. One noticeable difference is the scenery and mise en scène. In "The General, most the action took place on the train, which was constantly moving, giving us the feeling of an open frame. When the protagonist, Johnnie Gray jumps off of the train to move a piece of wood or when the train must be abandoned, we begin to understand that he also has the ability to wander off into the world. Part of this feeling may come from the fact that the action was shot on location. In "The Gold Rush", the characters are not in constant motion on a moving object, and they stay within the shot. Especially in the snow storm scene when the three men are trapped in the house together, and there is no possible place for them to go (closed frame) (Probably due to the fact that action was filmed on a set). Though they are both comedy, "The General" seems to have more realistic humor with the characters. In an article by Joseph Milicia, it is said that "the comedy is especially striking because it grows out of a serious melodramatic pursuit" "The Gold Rush is somewhat non-realistic, particularly is the scene where the house is tipping on the edge of the cliff.
Both The General and The Gold Rush were great examples of humorous, plot filled silent films which, for years, captured the eyes and hearts of those who viewed them. However, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, while they had some distinct similarities in general plot an the presentation of humor, were very different in their overall format. First, both films deal with issues related to American history - the Civil War and the hunt for gold in Alaska. Both were very serious matters offset by the input of silent film jokes and especially gestures. The Civil War and the gold rush are both situations where people lost their lives perusing what they believed in and trying to achieve a goal. In The General, through the civil war, the plot was focused on defeat of the north and defending honor and maintaining self-respect. All Johnny wanted was to be in the army to impress his girlfriend and her brother/parents. However, they didn't understand that he was more needed as an engineer than a soldier. The story, most of which takes place live-action on a train, relays a strong message as well as tells an interesting story, while the motif of romance is still embedded. The General appealed to me more overall due to its on-location filming. Instead of being confined to the likes of a set, Keaton uses the real world and hundreds of real extras to add effect. For example, in the scene where there is a final confrontation between North and South, the river increases the tension and overall makes the scene more satisfying. The style of Keaton also makes the film very enjoyable. "Buster Keaton was not the Great Stone Face so much as a man who kept his composure in the center of chaos," Ebert said. While he didn't have much emotion, that was half the excitement and hilarity because you could tell that he cared about everything that was happening, because both involved his only loves, his girlfriend and his engine. His approach was clever and indisputable. Moving on to Chaplin, while The Gold Rush is highly esteemed both by Chaplin and critics, the plot isn't necessarily as clean with the cinematic action path (rising action, climax, falling action). Chaplin's characters are often portrayed as outsiders in a society of outsiders, "too kind, too sensitive to human needs, and too spirited for that isolated, materialistic world." This allows us to feel pity for the Tramp, which is the general goal of the character. However, too much of this takes away from the overall essence of the film. In addition, the use of sets as opposed to real-world filming decreases the verisimilar qualities which all films should possess.
ReplyDeleteThe two films “The Gold Rush” and “The General” are two silent films that were made in the same time period, so there will be some similarities, but there were also some differences as well between the two. A similarity is that both films are very humorous, but they are so in different ways. The Gold Rush is more of a hysterical type of comedy where The General was really funny, but somehow in a much more serious way. Buster Keaton, while being funny, was still serious throughout the film, giving a sense of seriousness. A difference I noticed about the mise-en-scene is that the backgrounds are very different. The Gold Rush has a very unrealistic looking background, and the viewer can tell the background is just a serious of different sets. The General was more realistic in the sense that everything was filmed on location, and every train and setting in the movie was real somewhere in the world. Although these films were both comedies, I did enjoy one over the other, but I can’t say which, that would make me seem bias.
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