Celebrating the Tramp 100th anniversary in 2014, the Keystone Album is published for the first time in its entirety. A rare example in images of the beginning of Charlie Chaplin’s career as an actor, we only know a handful of still photos from his first short films. This album brings together photograms of 29 of the 36 first short films in which Charlie Chaplin played in 1914. As the pages turn, we witness the birth of the Tramp , who gradually takes over in front and behind the camera for both the script and the direction. The photograms printed from frames of the film render the immediacy of the scene.
The mysterious Keystone album, Witnessing the birth of the Tramp
The Keystone Album is a curiosity. This collection of 794 frame enlargements, a record of Chaplin’s first year in front of the camera, is both intriguing and fascinating. There is no title, no indication of its author, nor where it came from, nor its date, and until recently, almost nothing was known about it. Belonging to Charles Chaplin (1889–1977), it obviously deserves our attention, but above all, it is the wealth of images that makes it unique since there are very few photographs from the actor’s early career in cinema. Leafing through it, one has the vivid sensation of witnessing the birth of the character of the Tramp. The album, called the ‘Keystone Album’ after the American company that hired Chaplin in 1913, contains 794 frame enlargements (printed from frames from the rolls of films themselves) from twenty-nine of the thirty-six short films in which he appeared in 1914. The album raised a number of questions – where do these frame enlargements come from? How was it created? By whom? When? Why? – Questions to which Glenn Mitchell offers some answers in his essay , confirmed by the recent discovery in the Chaplin Archives of a typescript that should have been included in the album. By gathering these images together in an album and meticulously along with captions, the author gives us his own version of cinema’s early years. He provides us with a snapshot of the short, often frantically paced films. His presentation of motion pictures through still images echoes a simple form of narration like storyboards or comic strips. But a closer inspection raises certain questions about the author’s creative perspective. Had he been influenced by the Tramp of the feature-length films, the ‘real’ Tramp? The album clearly shows a certain ‘Chaplinocentrism’ – but is this Chaplin’s genius at work from the very beginning, or a ‘Chaplinised’ interpretation of the films?
by Sam Stourdzé and Carole Sandrin
BOOK
Charlie Chaplin, L’Album Keystone
Editions Xavier Barral
Texts by Glenn Mitchell, Sam Stourdzé, Carole Sandrin
300 x 395 mm
112 pages
Two versions : french and english.
ISBN : 978-2-36511055-6
Prix : env. 100 € TTC
EXHIBITION
Chaplin, entre guerres et paix (1914-1940)
Until January 4th, 2015
Musée de l’Elysée
Avenue de l’Elysée 18
1006 Lausanne
Switzerland
