Film concert The Pilgrim (GCM 2023, score Charles Chaplin, arr. Timothy Brock, Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone cond. Ben Palmer)

Charles Chaplin: The Pilgrim (US 1923). The Finnish title of the movie in translation: "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing". Charlie is the escaped convict who dons a priest's habit. Forced to give a sermon, he selects David and Goliath as the topic.

GCM Serata finale / Closing Night I

  

Il pellegrino / Susi lammasten vaatteissa / Pyhiinvaeltaja / Ulv i fårakläder .

    US 1923. regia/dir, scen: Charles Chaplin. photog: Rollie [Roland] Totheroh. assoc. dir: Chuck [Charles F.] Reisner.
    cast: Charles Chaplin (l’evaso/Escaped convict), Edna Purviance (la ragazza/The Girl), Kitty Bradbury (sua madre, la padrona di casa di Charlot/Her mother, Charlie’s landlady), Mack Swain (diacono / Deacon), Loyal Underwood (anziano/Elder), Chuck [Charles] Reisner (ladro/Thief), Dinky Dean [Dean Reisner] (bambino terribile/Horrid child), Sydney Chaplin (suo padre/His father), May Wells (sua madre/His mother), Henry Bergman (sceriffo sul treno/Sheriff on train), Tom Murray (sceriffo locale/Local sheriff), Monta Bell (poliziotto/Policeman), Jack Wilson (pastore rimasto senz’abito / Clergyman who loses clothes), Frank Antunez, Joe Van Meter (banditi/Bandits), Raymond Lee (ragazzo in chiesa/Boy in congregation), Marion Davies (componente della congregazione / Member of congregation).
    prod: Charles Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin Film Co. dist: Associated First National Pictures.  riprese/filmed: 1.4.-15.7.1922. première: 26.2.1923 (Strand Theatre, New York). copia/copy: DCP, 46'; did. / titles: ENG. fonte/source: Roy Export SAS, Paris.

    Finnish premiere: 14 Oct 1929, re-release 25 Dec 1959 (The Chaplin Revue),  re-release 2 Nov 1979

  

Partitura/Score: Charles Chaplin; arrangiamento/arranged by: Timothy Brock; esecuzione dal vivo/performed live: Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone; direttore/conductor: Ben Palmer.

Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Eventi speciali: Serata finale, 14 Sat 2023.

  

David Robinson (GCM 2023): " To Chaplin’s relief The Pilgrim concluded his contract with First National distributors, with whom relations had become strained with their attempts to seize more than their contractual share of the phenomenal profits of The Kid. It was also to be his last short – although its three reels, like The Kid itself, already practically constitutes a short feature. "

  

" Until now Chaplin’s shorts had evolved on the set, without a scenario, in the course of shooting. The Pilgrim had more preplanning and production notes than any previous film, perhaps resulting from the arrival at the studio of Monta Bell, the former journalist who had assisted Chaplin on his book My Trip Abroad. From the start the essential storyline was established: an escaped convict switches his prison garb for the clothing of a clergyman who has disrobed to take a dip in the sea. Arriving thus clad in a little township which is awaiting the arrival of its new spiritual leader, the mistake is inevitable, and Charlie is obliged to adapt to his new role and invent his own idiosyncratic but stimulating ways of bringing Christian inspiration to his new flock. "

" During production, the story underwent revisions. At first the township was to have been a wild western place in Hell’s Hinges style, which the new reverend succeeds in reforming. Subsequently it evolved into a civilized little community, with no worse calamities than parochial tea parties with misbehaving children (involving the normally very civilized Master Dinky Dean, the charming son of Chaplin’s frequent collaborator, Charles Reisner). Charlie dutifully exerts his eccentric influence to bring his parishioners nearer to God. The perfect final payoff, on the Mexican border, when the U.S. law catches up with the former escapee, appears to have been an early decision. "

" The Pilgrim attracted considerable hostility from various elements of the Evangelical Church, not least the Daniel Morgan Klan of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who protested that it “held the Protestant Ministry up to ridicule”. Happily The Pilgrim survived such fierce hostility, and the risks of lynching. "

" Sadly, this was the last film in which Chaplin appeared with his long-time love and leading lady Edna Purviance (1896-1958). "

" In 1959, Chaplin reissued The Pilgrim, together with A Dog’s Life, Shoulder Arms, and How to Make Movies, with a new orchestral score of his own composition, under the collective title of The Chaplin Revue. At this Giornate serata, the score will be performed live. " – David Robinson

AA: Revisited The Pilgrim, Charles Chaplin's last short film. I saw it for the second time in a film concert, having also visited the premiere of Timothy Brock's arrangement at Teatro Comunale, Bologna, 5 July 2000.

The Pilgrim belongs to a special current in Chaplin's oeuvre, with affinities with the black comedy of Monsieur Verdoux. The theme of the criminal posing as a man of God also evokes The Night of the Hunter and The Left Hand of God (both from 1955).

The dark and violent side always existed in Chaplin's persona, since his film debut in the cruel farces of Keystone. But in The Pilgrim, there is a unique existential charge, expressed in the stark graphic vision of the fake minister in black against the desert landscape of Devil's Gulch, Texas.

...

Still the most profound comment on The Pilgrim is the final chapter, "Un homme hors du sacré", in André Bazin's essay "Introduction à une symbolique de Charlot" (published in D. O. C., 1948 and republished in Qu'est-ce que le cinéma? I. Ontologie et Langage, 1958). I would call Bazin's approach Durkheimian.

" Religieux ou non, le sacré est toujours présent dans la vie sociale, pas seulement dans le magistrat, le policeman, le prêtre, mais dans le rituel de la nourriture, des rapports professionnels, des transports en commun. C'est par lui que la société maintient sa cohérence comme par un champ magnetique. Inconsiemment, à chaque minute, nous nous alignons sur ses lignes de force. Mais Charlot est d'un autre métal. Non seulement il échappe à son emprise, mais la catégorie même du sacré n'existe pas pour lui, elle lui est inconcevable que la rose géranium à un aveugle de naissance. "