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‘So essentially human’: the appeal of Charles Chaplin's shoulder arms in Britain, 1918

‘So essentially human’: the appeal of Charles Chaplin's shoulder arms in Britain, 1918
‘So essentially human’: the appeal of Charles Chaplin's shoulder arms in Britain, 1918
Charles Chaplin's war comedy Shoulder Arms (1918) was shown as a trade screening in Britain within five days of the Armistice in November 1918. Close friends had warned Chaplin that this might be an inappropriate topic for a comedy, given the enormous loss of life suffered by European. In Britain, Chaplin had come under scrutiny for not enlisting. However, Chaplin and his comedy stood, at the end of the war, for the recreational function of cinema and also as a counter to arguments for cinema as a marker of the social and moral disintegration associated with the negative effects of modernity. This article outlines the British context for the reception of Shoulder Arms and argues that the function of Chaplin's persona and comedy technique, both in his previous films and in Shoulder Arms, contributed to the increasing acceptance of cinema as an integral element of everyday life, with a laudable social function.
1746-0654
297-313
Hammond, Michael
6285f8c5-aeca-4715-845b-dd05e3e0b777
Hammond, Michael
6285f8c5-aeca-4715-845b-dd05e3e0b777

Hammond, Michael (2010) ‘So essentially human’: the appeal of Charles Chaplin's shoulder arms in Britain, 1918. Early Popular Visual Culture, 8 (3), 297-313. (doi:10.1080/17460654.2010.498168).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Charles Chaplin's war comedy Shoulder Arms (1918) was shown as a trade screening in Britain within five days of the Armistice in November 1918. Close friends had warned Chaplin that this might be an inappropriate topic for a comedy, given the enormous loss of life suffered by European. In Britain, Chaplin had come under scrutiny for not enlisting. However, Chaplin and his comedy stood, at the end of the war, for the recreational function of cinema and also as a counter to arguments for cinema as a marker of the social and moral disintegration associated with the negative effects of modernity. This article outlines the British context for the reception of Shoulder Arms and argues that the function of Chaplin's persona and comedy technique, both in his previous films and in Shoulder Arms, contributed to the increasing acceptance of cinema as an integral element of everyday life, with a laudable social function.

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More information

Published date: 12 August 2010
Organisations: English

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 176077
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/176077
ISSN: 1746-0654
PURE UUID: 643438ee-e7e7-4129-8159-173a9ff33371

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Date deposited: 06 Nov 2012 14:45
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:38

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