Chaplin as Editor

Watch this scene from the 1919 film, Sunnyside. We will discuss Chaplin’s editing techniques after the clip.

Video 2.5: Clip from Sunnyside.

We can see Chaplin’s editing efforts and his capacity to create comedic tension, which you can see by moving the guy’s hair into the fire, and focusing our attention on other things. The medium shot is used to make sure we see what is going on, while the man’s eyes are covered.

Chaplin moves from a full shot, to a medium shot, and then to an Irish shot, or close up. This is montage, editing to direct the viewer to see certain things in certain ways. Part of the comedy is Chaplin sharpening his razor, and the man thinking his throat is about to be slashed by a sharp hairsplitting razor, because he can feel something crossing this throat. Chaplin sets up the physical joke, and then executes it.

Given visual information like this, what we don’t need is a lot of dialogue. We get everything we need through the motion. Chaplin’s theory about this was that the ability to render emotion through motion was essentially the language of cinema. He worried about what talking pictures would do to that language. 

The series of gags relate to the man not being able to see what is going on. A bear trap has been introduced into a situation where a man’s hair has been put in the fire and he thinks his throat is going to be slashed, and you can only image what is going to happen next. Chaplin creates expectations for the viewer by setting up the next gag. One can only think, what is going to happen to this man next?

Chaplin would use many of these same sequences later when he played the barber in The Great Dictator (1939). The use of repetition and comedic action are eminently translatable and universally appealing.