David Robinson (film critic)

Last updated

David Robinson (born 6 August 1930 in Lincoln) is an English film critic and author. He is a former film critic for both the Financial Times and The Times and wrote the official biography of Charlie Chaplin.

Contents

Life

Robinson began to write for Sight and Sound and the Monthly Film Bulletin during the 1950s, becoming assistant editor of Sight and Sound and editor of the Monthly Film Bulletin from 1957 to 1958. He was film critic of the Financial Times from 1958 to 1973, before taking up the same post at The Times in 1973. He remained the paper's main film reviewer until around 1990 and a regular contributor until around 1996.

From 1997 to 2015, he was director of the Giornate del cinema muto silent film festival, which takes place in Pordenone, northern Italy, every October. Robinson is also a supporter of the UK-based silent-film society Bristol Silents and the annual Slapstick comedy festival, also based in Bristol and usually held in January (the 2021 festival took place online in March). He played a part in the creation of the award-winning Museum of the Moving Image on London's South Bank which opened in 1988 and closed in 1999.

In 1973, he was head of the jury at the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival. [1] In 1995 he was a member of the jury at the 19th Moscow International Film Festival. [2]

He lives in Bath, Somerset.

In 2019 he appeared in Chris Wade's documentary Charlie Chaplin: The Making of a Genius.

Works

Robinson's books include Hollywood in the Twenties (1968) and The History of World Cinema (1973) which was expanded and revised as World Cinema: A Short History (World Cinema 1895-1980 on the cover, 1981). Robinson is the official biographer of Charlie Chaplin and his book, Chaplin: His Life and Art , was first published in 1985 (in a revised form in 1992 and 2001). An illustrated biography entitled Charlie Chaplin: The Art of Comedy was published by Thames & Hudson in 1996, as part of their ‘New Horizons’ series. [3] [note 1] He has also written a book on Buster Keaton.

For the centenary of cinema in 1995, Robinson wrote The Chronicle of Cinema 1895-1995, a 127-page introduction to film history. This was serialised in the form of five supplementary magazines accompanying Sight and Sound from September 1994 to January 1995.

Notes

  1. The book has been published in French entitled Charlot : Entre rire et larme (1995), as 245th volume in the collection “Découvertes Gallimard”. The American edition Charlie Chaplin: Comic Genius, from “Abrams Discoveries” series, also released in 1996.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Chaplin</span> English comic actor and filmmaker (1889–1977)

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.

<i>The Great Dictator</i> 1940 American film by Charlie Chaplin

The Great Dictator is a 1940 American anti-war, political satire, and black comedy film written, directed, produced, scored by, and starring British comedian Charlie Chaplin, following the tradition of many of his other films. Having been the only Hollywood filmmaker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, Chaplin made this his first true sound film.

<i>City Lights</i> 1931 American silent film

City Lights is a 1931 American synchronized sound romantic comedy-drama film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The story follows the misadventures of Chaplin's Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl and develops a turbulent friendship with an alcoholic millionaire.

<i>The Gold Rush</i> 1925 Charles Chaplin film

The Gold Rush is a 1925 American silent comedy film written, produced, and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film also stars Chaplin in his Little Tramp persona, Georgia Hale, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman and Malcolm Waite.

<i>Modern Times</i> (film) 1936 comedy film by Charles Chaplin

Modern Times is a 1936 American part-talkie comedy film produced, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. In Chaplin's last performance as the iconic Little Tramp, his character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film also stars Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford and Chester Conklin.

<i>The Circus</i> (1928 film) 1928 film by Charlie Chaplin

The Circus is a 1928 silent romantic comedy film written, produced, and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film stars Chaplin, Al Ernest Garcia, Merna Kennedy, Harry Crocker, George Davis and Henry Bergman. The ringmaster of an impoverished circus hires Chaplin's Little Tramp as a clown, but discovers that he can only be funny unintentionally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcel Carné</span> 1906-1996 French film director

Marcel Albert Carné was a French film director. A key figure in the poetic realism movement, Carné's best known films include Port of Shadows (1938), Le Jour Se Lève (1939), Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942) and Children of Paradise (1945); the latter has been cited as one of the great films of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silent comedy</span> Genre of silent film

Silent comedy is a style of film, related to but distinct from mime, invented to bring comedy into the medium of film in the silent film era (1900s–1920s) before a synchronized soundtrack which could include talking was technologically available for the majority of films. Silent comedy is still practiced, albeit much less frequently, and it has influenced comedy in modern media as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Brownlow</span> English filmmaker and film historian

Kevin Brownlow is a British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, author, and film editor. He is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent documenting and restoring film. Brownlow has rescued many silent films and their history. His initiative in interviewing many largely forgotten, elderly film pioneers in the 1960s and 1970s preserved a legacy of early mass-entertainment cinema. He received an Academy Honorary Award at the 2nd Annual Governors Awards given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 13 November 2010. This was the first occasion on which an Academy Honorary Award was given to a film preservationist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual gag</span> Humor through visualization rather than sound or words

In comedy, a visual gag or sight gag is anything which conveys its humour visually, often without words being used at all. The gag may involve a physical impossibility or an unexpected occurrence. The humor is caused by alternative interpretations of the goings-on. Visual gags are used in magic, plays, and acting on television or movies.

John Russell Taylor is an English critic and author. He is the author of critical studies of British theatre; of critical biographies of such figures in film as Alfred Hitchcock, Alec Guinness, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh, and Ingrid Bergman; of Strangers in Paradise: The Hollywood Emigres 1933–1950 (1983); and several books on art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of Russia</span>

The cinema of Russia, popularity known as Mollywood, refers to the film industry in Russia, engaged in production of motion pictures in Russian language. The popular term Mollywood is a portmanteau of "Moscow" and "Hollywood".

<i>The Pilgrim</i> (1923 film) 1923 film by Charlie Chaplin

The Pilgrim is a 1923 American silent film made by Charlie Chaplin for the First National Film Company, starring Chaplin and Edna Purviance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vadim Abdrashitov</span> Russian film director (1945–2023)

Vadim Yusupovich Abdrashitov was a Russian film director. He was internationally renowned as one of Russian cinema's most notable independent directors, with awards from the Berlin and Venice Film Festivals, and was a People's Artist of Russia.

David Kehr is an American museum curator and film critic. For many years a critic at the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune, he later wrote a weekly column for The New York Times on DVD releases. He later became a curator within the department of film at the Museum of Modern Art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Chaplin filmography</span>

(Sir) Charlie Chaplin (KBE) (1889–1977) was an English internationally renowned Academy Award-winning actor, comedian, filmmaker and composer who was best known for his career in Hollywood motion pictures from his debut in 1914 until 1952, he however subsequently appeared in two films in his native England. During his early years in the era of silent film, he rose to prominence as a worldwide cinematic idol renowned for his tramp persona. In the 1910s and 1920s, he was considered the most famous person on the planet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Étaix</span> French clown, comedian and filmmaker

Pierre Étaix was a French clown, comedian and filmmaker. Étaix made a series of short- and feature-length films, many of them co-written by influential screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. He won an Academy Award for best live action short film in 1963. Due to a legal dispute with a distribution company, his films were unavailable from the 1970s until 2009.

In addition to published work on cinema, this article also includes Denis Gifford's film credits.

<i>Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin</i> 2003 American film

Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin is a 2003 American biographical documentary film written and directed by film critic Richard Schickel. The film explores the personal and professional life of the British actor, comedian and filmmaker, Charlie Chaplin, as well as his legacy and influence. It is narrated by Sydney Pollack along with many Hollywood personalities appearing in the film talking about Chaplin, including Robert Downey Jr., Norman Lloyd, Bill Irwin, Woody Allen, Johnny Depp, Richard Attenborough, Martin Scorsese, Miloš Forman, Marcel Marceau, David Raksin, Claire Bloom, David Thomson, Andrew Sarris, Jeanine Basinger and Chaplin's children Geraldine, Michael and Sydney Chaplin. The documentary also benefits from insight from key Chaplin biographers David Robinson and Jeffrey Vance.

John Gillett MBE (1925–1995) was a British film critic and researcher whose career at the British Film Institute spanned over 44 years. He was also a programmer for the National Film Theatre on the works of Buster Keaton, early Russian cinema and Japanese cinema, to name a few. He wrote film reviews for The Monthly Film Bulletin. With Ian Christie, he edited Futurism/Formalism/FEKS: 'Eccentrism' and Soviet Cinema 1918-1936. He was also an editor of Yasujiro Ozu: A Critical Anthology, with David Wilson.

References

  1. "Berlinale 1973: Juries". berlinale.de. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
  2. "19th Moscow International Film Festival (1995)". MIFF. Archived from the original on 22 March 2013. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
  3. Robinson, David (1996). Charlie Chaplin: The Art of Comedy (New Horizons). ISBN   9780500300633 . Retrieved 3 February 2018.