The Chaplin machine : slapstick, Fordism and the international communist avant-garde

Cover; Contents; Introduction: Americanism and Fordism -- and Chaplinism; 1. Constructing the Chaplin Machine: The Constructivist International Encounters the American Comedians; 2. Red Clowns to the Rescue: Biomechanics in Film, Factory and Circus; 3. No Rococo Palace for Buster Keaton: Architectures of Americanism; 4. The Rhythm of Socialist Construction: Soviet Sound Film and the Creation of an Industrial Economy; Conclusion: Life is Getting Jollier, Comrades!; Acknowledgements; Notes; Index.;The tragic-comedic story of the cinema, art and architecture of the early 20th Century, highlighting the unlikely intersections of East and West. According to Sergei Tretiakov, the revolutionary art of the Soviet Union stemmed from an unexpected place - the circus. Yet somehow, the revolutionary avant-garde have been imagined as a ponderous bunch, austere and theoretical rather than popular and comic. This book will attempt to restore comedy to its central position in the history. It discusses comedy and Americanism as expressed in the popular arts (largely, film, comic theatre and poster design) in the Soviet Union and to a lesser degree, Germany, France, Poland and Czechoslovakia in the interwar years. Interpretations of International Constructivism are by now familiar, either through their liberal or leftist interpretations, but in most cases the technophile avant-garde is represented as a severe, Leninist force, obsessed with Taylorism and Fordism, their innovations hence eventually serving a form of industrial domination - in this case, Stalinism. The book will provide a new reading of this stressing the centrality of physical comedy in the development of ideas about defamiliarisation, technical reproducibility and socialist art; this was an era when, to use Adorno's phrase, artists with communist sympathies tried to 'play a Chaplin trick' on the new processes of scientific management and the production line. We will follow the ways that ideas about comedy, specifically the highly athletic forms of slapstick comedy run through the ideas and projects of the 1920s and early 1930s. What did it mean for socialists to try to combine the ideas of Charlie Chaplin and Henry Ford, of Buster Keaton and F.W Taylor? To what extent did this bear any relation to actual industrial changes as they effected workers? Could it have meant a different conception of work and of leisure? And to what degree was this emphasis on comedy a later component of the often weirdly festive despotism of Stalinism? There was something uncanny about Charlie Chaplin. His fellow actors spoke of him as inhumanautomaton-like. His stiff, comic movements could be viewed as an attempt to parody the newly developed production lines of Henry Fords revolutionary factories. As wide-scale application of this technology spread to Soviet Russia, Chaplins slapstick comedic style also found a following among the artists carving out a new society under communism. In The Chaplin Machine , Owen Hatherley unearths the hidden history of Soviet film, art, and architecture. Turning upside down the common view that the communist avant-garde was austere and humorless, he reveals an unexpected comedic streak that found its inspiration in the slapstick of the American performers Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. What did it mean for socialists to combine the ideas of Chaplin and Ford? Were their experiments indicative of a new future conception of work and leisure? And to what degree was this emphasis on comedy a precursor to the strangely festive despotism of Stalin? By asking these questions, The Chaplin Machine challenges our understanding of twentieth-century art in America and abroad. Could Buster Keaton Have Starred In Battleship Potemkin? Did Trotsky Plan To Write The Great Soviet Comedy? And Why Did Lenin Love Circus Clowns? The Chaplin Machine Reveals The Lighter Side Of The Communist Avant-garde And, In Particular, Its Unlikely Passion For American Slapstick. Set Against The Backdrop Of The Great Russian Revolutionary Experiment, Owen Hatherley Tells The Tragic-comedic Story Of The Cinema, Art And Architecture Of The Early 20th Century And Spotlights The Unlikely Intersections Of East And West.--publisher. Machine Generated Contents Note: 1. Constructing The Chaplin Machine: The Constructivist International Encounters The American Comedians -- 2. Red Clowns To The Rescue: Biomechanics In Film, Factory And Circus -- 3. No Rococo Palace For Buster Keaton: Architectures Of Americanism -- 4. The Rhythm Of Socialist Construction: Soviet Sound Film And The Creation Of An Industrial Economy. Owen Hatherley.. Includes Bibliographical Reference And Index.

Could Buster Keaton have starred in Battleship Potemkin?

Did Trotsky plan to write the great Soviet comedy?

And why did Lenin love circus clowns?

The Chaplin Machine reveals the lighter side of the Communist avant-garde and its unlikely passion for American slapstick. Set against the backdrop of the great Russian revolutionary experiment, Owen Hatherley tells the tragic-comedic story of the cinema, art and architecture of the early 20th Century and spotlights the unlikely intersections of East and West.