565 The Great Dictator

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kinjitsu
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565 The Great Dictator

#1 Post by kinjitsu » Mon Feb 14, 2011 1:47 pm

The Great Dictator

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In his notorious masterpiece The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin offers both a cutting caricature of Adolf Hitler and a sly tweaking of his own comic persona. Chaplin (in his first pure talkie) brings his sublime physicality to two roles: the cruel yet clownish “Tomanian” dictator and the kindly Jewish barber who is mistaken for him. Featuring Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in stellar supporting turns, The Great Dictator, boldly going after the fascist leader before the U.S.’s official entry into World War II, is an audacious amalgam of politics and slapstick that culminates in Chaplin’s famously impassioned speech.

Disc Features

- New high-definition digital restoration (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- New audio commentary by Charlie Chaplin historians Dan Kamin and Hooman Mehran
- The Tramp and the Dictator (2001), Kevin Brownlow and Michael Kloft’s documentary paralleling the lives of Chaplin and Hitler, including interviews with author Ray Bradbury, director Sidney Lumet, screenwriter Budd Schulberg, and others
- Two new visual essays, one by Chaplin archivist Cecilia Cenciarelli and one by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance
- On-set, color production footage shot by Chaplin’s half-brother, Sydney
- Deleted barbershop sequence from Chaplin’s 1919 film Sunnyside
- Theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Wood, Chaplin’s 1940 New York Times defense of his movie, a reprint from critic Jean Narboni on the film’s final speech, and Al Hirschfeld’s original press book illustrations

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aox
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#2 Post by aox » Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:21 pm

kinjitsu wrote:- Deleted scene from Chaplin’s 1919 film Sunnyside
Any thoughts to why this is on this set? Sunnyside isn't even on this release (unlike The Rink which was on Modern Times). Why not save the deleted scene for the eventual release of Sunnyside or in the box of eventual shorts?

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domino harvey
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#3 Post by domino harvey » Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:22 pm

I think it's on the Warners set too because there's a scene with a barber

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matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#4 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:26 pm

I wasn't certain I was going to get this one- of the Chaplins I've seen, it's tied with the '42 Gold Rush for my least favorite- but that's a pretty convincing set of extras. I hope Criterion keeps feeling like they have to compete with the old MK2 box set, it seems to push them to put in some extra effort.

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knives
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#5 Post by knives » Mon Feb 14, 2011 7:08 pm

The colour sequences are a must see, but assuming like me you're not fond of the movie just rent the old Warner disc which basically has the same extras.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#6 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Feb 14, 2011 7:15 pm

From what I can tell, it has neither the commentary nor the two visual essays, which are probably my two favorite kinds of extras- I've been brought around on movies I was ho-hum about by both, and I'd be happy to have it happen again.

atcolomb
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#7 Post by atcolomb » Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:37 pm

I like the film only when Chaplin plays the dictator and with the scenes involving Jack Oakie who does a excellent take on Mussolni but the scenes of Chaplin playing the barber drags the movie down for me.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#8 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:43 pm

Funny, I thought Oakie (whom I really liked in Thieves' Highway) spent the whole movie doing a sub-par Chico, and dragged his sections down.

Izo
Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:59 pm

Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#9 Post by Izo » Sat Apr 09, 2011 3:24 pm

They updated the special features at some point:

- Barbershop sequence from Sydney Chaplin’s 1921 film King, Queen, Joker
- PLUS: Chaplin’s 1940 New York Times defense of his movie, a reprint from critic Jean Narboni on the film’s final speech, and Al Hirschfeld’s original press book illustrations

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criterionsnob
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#10 Post by criterionsnob » Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:01 pm


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ccfixx
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#11 Post by ccfixx » Fri May 13, 2011 12:53 pm


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domino harvey
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#12 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jul 20, 2011 5:29 pm

The story about Chaplin forcing Joan Collins to look at a series of Holocaust images after she offhandedly praised Hitler in his presence has to be the best offhand anecdote any visual essay has ever provided.

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BSarge
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#13 Post by BSarge » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:53 pm

Does anyone know if Criterion's transfer is from the same HD master as the Park Circus edition. Blu-ray.com suggests it is, but the booklet states that this is a 'new' hd transfer. When Criterion states this, does it mean that they are sourcing original print materials themselves and doing a unique transfer, or can it mean that they are simply licensing an existing digital master and tweaking it to their specifications?

If anyone can help me out it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

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swo17
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#14 Post by swo17 » Thu Jan 19, 2012 3:57 pm

I don't know if it's the same as the Park Circus, but them saying it's a "new HD transfer" doesn't rule that possibility out.

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BSarge
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#15 Post by BSarge » Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:55 pm

Ok thanks. Id like to think if they were using a digital source they would specify this as for Darjeeling Limited which they state as coming from a digital intermediate.

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manicsounds
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#16 Post by manicsounds » Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:56 am

All the restored Chaplin films in various regions are coming from the same source material.

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BSarge
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#17 Post by BSarge » Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:34 pm

Ok do you know though whether Criterion sourced an actual print (as booklet states 35mm fine grain master positive and dupe negative) from a restored negative and scanned it themselves, or used an existing digital master?

scoundrel
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#18 Post by scoundrel » Sun Aug 12, 2012 1:58 pm

Gotta love it when Charlie Chaplin is used as a major plot point in a movie. Iron Sky, in this case, which has no business being as ridiculously fun and smart as it is.

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jindianajonz
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#19 Post by jindianajonz » Mon Jul 29, 2013 5:44 pm


karmajuice
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#20 Post by karmajuice » Fri Aug 30, 2013 6:16 pm

atcolomb wrote:I like the film only when Chaplin plays the dictator and with the scenes involving Jack Oakie who does a excellent take on Mussolni but the scenes of Chaplin playing the barber drags the movie down for me.
I actually thought quite the opposite. The dictator scenes rely on a satirical stance (not all that common in Chaplin's work), but it usually felt too silly and goofy to be incisive satire, and the gags in those sequences aren't as sophisticated as some of the barber scenes where he allows himself to break loose, like the musical shave or the set-piece with the coins.

The globe ballet is the highlight of the film, though.

AndrewBoone
Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2013 7:51 am

Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#21 Post by AndrewBoone » Fri Sep 13, 2013 8:10 am

atcolomb wrote:I like the film only when Chaplin plays the dictator and with the scenes involving Jack Oakie who does a excellent take on Mussolni but the scenes of Chaplin playing the barber drags the movie down for me.
I agree completely. Well, I still thought the scenes with Chaplin as the tramp had some value. I didn't dislike them or anything. But I definitely thought that the movie, and Chaplin himself, shined brightest when Chaplin was playing the Tomainian dictator. Henry Daniell is brilliant as the Goebbels spinoff, and Billy Gilbert is wonderful as the Goering spinoff. Jack Oakie is Mussolini's spinoff, however, is definitely highlight of the film for me aside from Chaplin himself. He captures a perfect balance between Mussolini's actual personality (and the dominance of his relationship with HItler) and the comedic aspects of the character that make his character so fun to watch. Reginald Gardiner is also great in this. The monologue at the end of the film is definitely heavy-handed, preachy, and lacking in any artistic value, but it is also sincere, heartfelt, and beautiful in its way.

I absolutely love this film.

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HerrSchreck
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#22 Post by HerrSchreck » Fri Sep 13, 2013 12:25 pm

Like most of Chaplin's post City Lights titles, there's a sense of something vaguely, ever so slightly embarassing running under the surface, and I agree that this film is compositionally flawed in the sense of tottering balance via volumes playing off of one another viz content between the barber vs dictator stories.

On the other hand I'm almost stunned that the film plays so well today-- the film came out in 1940 as almost a personal slap in the face from one of the most popular men on the planet to another of same . . . who just happened to rob his moustache (one of the strangest Hitler mysteries that will be forever unanswered-- why the Tramp Moustache?).

So since this was a contemporary ballbusting ribbing/plea-for-peace-which-would-of-course-fall-on-deaf-Hitler-ears from one giant to another designed to embarass Adolf (whom Chaplin must of thought had some undiscerned fascination with him or at least his look) and playing out before the eyes of the entire world . . . Chaplin's films of course were global events and he knew that, one merely look back a few years to the reception Chaplin got in Berlin on the City Lights tour. He was the toast of the whole world. He was heralded like a god; and so, getting back onto my point: owing to all of this, it's amazing that The Great Dictator is not more grandiose, preachy and embarassingy "I Shall Now Change The World" egotistical.

As the sound era progressed, and Chaplin struggled to find appropriate applications to keep the Tramp character alive, I think his utilzing the Hitler resemblance--the elephant that had been in the Chaplin/Hitler room since Hitler's rise to power--was well nigh an epiphany, probably completely irresistable anyway, and happened to be perfect in terms of timeliness. It didn't just fall in his lap-- it had been sitting there since at least 1933 and had now ripened to perfection. The fact that Hitler was a tramp in his youthful years, and hijacked the tramp moustache on his own path to global reknown just made it that much more sublime . . . the endless runination on possible Jewish roots in his ancestry never went to sleep owing to maids-work/affair-rumors in a wealthy Jewish household in Adolf's heritage.

So yeah, the film goes so high volume with the Dictator scenes with all of the caricature, and causes the pathos elsewhere to seem--again--just a little vaguely embarassing. It's a feeling I get, even in bits and pieces, in all of Chaplin's sound era films (Much of which, like Limelight, I dearly love). It's an issue that will inevitably plague someone who has previously attained such stratospheric heights of perfection in his prime, still practices his art as he ages, and walks the tightrope of public work with nowhere to go but down.

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knives
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#23 Post by knives » Fri Sep 13, 2013 8:27 pm

Actually the reason for the tramp mustache on Hitler is known. Essentially it was an appeal to make him more popular with the working man because a lot of poor people with bad razors would cut like that.

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HerrSchreck
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#24 Post by HerrSchreck » Fri Sep 13, 2013 9:05 pm

..."'Crickets,'" whispered the chorus of strangely tense crickets.

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jindianajonz
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Re: 565 The Great Dictator

#25 Post by jindianajonz » Fri Sep 13, 2013 10:51 pm

knives wrote:Actually the reason for the tramp mustache on Hitler is known. Essentially it was an appeal to make him more popular with the working man because a lot of poor people with bad razors would cut like that.
After spending the day browsing the /askhistorians subreddit, I got confused as to which forum I was on! Still, that's an interesting tidbit, thanks!

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