“The Circus”: Silent Film Featuring Live Organ by Aaron David Miller

Dive deeper with these resources that provide additional information about the performers, the history of the art form and the artistic process.

• Keyboard Skills
• Music, Society and Cultures
• Jazz Improvisation and Arranging
• Composition for Performers
• Cinema and Media Culture

Find ways to make thematic connections to these suggested topics:

“The Circus” — The Criterion Collection

“The Circus: a Chaplin masterpiece” — Film History (Archive) (Access via UMN Libraries)

Aaron David Miller website

Ring, Josh. “Fanfare for a New Century: The Concert Organ Works of Aaron David Miller.” The University of Iowa, 2021, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (28865028). (Access via UMN Libraries)

Charlie Chaplin website

Cartoon found archived in UMN Libraries: “Charlie Chaplin Begins Work in New Studio” — Los Angeles Times, 1918 (Access via UMN Libraries)

“The real Charlie; Libidinous little tramp or towering genius? David Thomson looks at the life of Charlie Chaplin, portrayed in a hitherto unseen collection of photographs” — The Independent (Access via UMN Libraries)

Ringer, Andrea Lynn. “Big Top Labor: Life and Labor in the Circus World.” The University of Memphis, 2018,  ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (10840531). (Access via UMN Libraries)

Video: “Charlie Chaplin - The Lion Cage - Full Scene (‘The Circus,’ 1928)”

“Classics 101: The Four Clowns - Chaplin” — Classic Flix

“Silent Slapstick Film as Ritualized Clowning: The Example of Charlie Chaplin” — Studies in American Humor (Access via UMN Libraries)

Start a conversation about the performance or encourage reflection, using these questions as inspiration.
 

Charles Chaplin was born in London on April 16, 1889. His father was a vocalist and actor, and his mother was an actress and opera singer. At 10 years old, Chaplin’s father died and his mother fell ill, leaving him and his brother to fend for themselves. Charlie, as he would come to be known, took to the stage — making his professional debut as a member of a juvenile group called “The Eight Lancashire Lads” — and rapidly won popular favor as an outstanding tap dancer. At age 12, he was in his first professional stage production of “Sherlock Holmes.” His success propelled him to the United States in 1910 to tour with Fred Karno’s vaudeville company, ultimately leading him to star in his first film reels with Mack Sennett and the Keystone Film Company in 1913, where he became an overnight sensation.

• What historical, societal and institutional factors contributed to Chaplin’s personal and artistic trajectory?
• What role do cultural organizations and artists play in making those factors visible?
• How is the work or career of an artist shaped or not shaped by their childhood?
   

“The Circus” suffered a disastrous production: a storm tore apart the film’s set, crucial scenes were marred with scratches, Chaplin’s wife divorced him and the IRS declared that Chaplin and his studio owed over $1.6 million in back taxes, suspending the studio's operations for eight months — culminating in Chaplin having a nervous breakdown. In “The Circus: A Chaplin Masterpiece,” Jeffrey Vance analyzes these events’ impact on Chaplin’s work, saying, “Inevitably, any critical study of ‘The Circus’ concludes that the film is intensely autobiographical. ‘The Circus’ stands as the filmmaker’s attempt to explore, confront and perhaps even release issues deeply personal to him at a given time in his life.” Chaplin shelved the film after its 1928 release, not screening it again until 1970, despite positive critical reception. 

• What is the relationship between personal suffering and art?
• To what extent is art always autobiographical? If not from personal experience, where do you imagine art comes from?
• Why do you imagine Chaplin re-released the film? 
   

Vance continues: “The central theme of ‘The Circus’ — the clown’s struggle with the comic muse — mirrors Chaplin's fear that his dissatisfying personal life was quashing his ability to create comedy.” In “Silent Slapstick Film as Ritualized Clowning: The Example of Charlie Chaplin,” James E. Caron describes how Chaplin’s clownish struggle draws on the global tradition of ritualized clowning:

“Viewing Chaplin’s silent slapstick clowning performances with an audience in a movie theater has the potential to create the sense of communitas that Victor Turner (1969) argues is part of ritual … Ritual clowning is a widespread comic phenomenon, appearing in particular in Native American and Polynesian societies. Related to festival activities (Abrahams and Bauman) and joking relationships (Kennedy, Radcliff-Brown), ritual clowning consists of inversionary behavior, symbolic reversals of the norms and conventions of a society.”

• What makes an artistic experience cathartic?
• Is there a connection between the emotions evoked by comedy and horror? 
• What role do clowns play in comedy and storytelling?
   

Renowned composer, improviser and organist Aaron David Miller will accompany Northrop’s screening of “The Circus” with a live, improvised organ score. Miller last appeared on Northrop’s stage during Buster Keaton’s “The Cameraman” and Manual Cinema’s “Ada/Ava” — receiving rave reviews for his silent film accompaniments.

• What are the unique advantages of improvisation as an artistic practice? How might you incorporate improvisation into your life outside of art? 
• How do silent films lend themselves to unique creative collaborations and reimaginings?