Charles Chaplin: Footlights with The World of Limelight

by David Robinson

Long before becoming one of the masterpieces of Charlie Chaplin's artistic maturity, and even before existing as a screenplay, Limelight was conceived by its author as a 34,000-word novella. After remaining virtually unknown for more than 60 years after its completion, Footlights is now published by Cineteca di Bologna in this volume for the very first time. Chaplin's vivid, idiosyncratic style, unadulterated by editors, moves freely from the baldly colloquial to moments of rich imagery and Dickensian description. For a setting, he looked back to London and the music halls of his first professional years, an enchanted period in which he had broken out of the deprivations of his childhood to discover, progressively, his unique gifts as entertainer and communicator. But this retrospect also recalled the painful insecurity of an uneducated, uncultured boy launched into the world of success. David Robinson, Chaplin's most eminent biographer, traces the long yet logical evolution of the story, from its unlikely origin in Chaplin's 1916 meeting with Nijinsky. The succeeding commentary recounts the making of the film, and traces the real-life sources of Chaplin's memories: the people and theaters of London's Soho, and the unique ballet tradition of the two great theaters of Leicester Square, the Empire and the Alhambra, commemorated in Limelight for the first and only time on film. The book is illustrated with a great wealth of previously unpublished documents and photographs from the Chaplin archives, historic pictures of the theatrical world of Chaplin's youth and images from the author's private collection.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

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David Robinson (born 1930) is a British film critic and author. He started writing for Sight and Sound and the Monthly Film Bulletin in the 1950s, becoming Assistant Editor of Sight and Sound and Editor of the Monthly Film Bulletin in 1957-1958. He was film critic of The Financial Times from 1958 to 1973, before taking up the same post at The Times in 1973. He remained the paper's main film reviewer until around 1990 and a regular contributor until around 1996.

Reviews

[raShit · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, Limelight is the best film in Charlie Chaplin's talking pictures. The book contains the film's pre-production and shooting process, the effects of the film after the screening, and the sources of inspiration from Chaplin's own life. In the book, you can also find the text of Limelight that looks like a long story rather than a screenplay. The most exciting part of the film is that it brings together two legends: Chaplin and Buster Keaton. The book describes how two legends come together.