December 9, 2003
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu
Filmmaker and Time magazine film critic Richard Schickel presents his film Charlie—The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin at UCSB Campbell Hall
Summary Facts:
- Screening of Charlie—The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin with filmmaker Richard Schickel
- Schickel is a filmmaker, author and film critic for Time magazine
- The film is a comprehensive and captivating look at film genius Charlie Chaplin
- Monday, January 12
- 7:30 pm / UCSB Campbell Hall
- General public: $10 / UCSB students: $8
- Tickets & Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535
Director and film critic Richard Schickel will present his film Charlie—The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin—called “a must for lovers of cinema” by Variety—on Monday, January 12 at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall and answer questions after the screening.
Charlie—The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin (2003) which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2003, has played at more than 40 festivals around the world. The film brings Chaplin to life with a brilliant cavalcade of clips, rare footage, and interviews with family members, film critics and admirers like Johnny Depp, Marcel Marceau and Martin Scorsese. It is narrated by director Sydney Pollack. The Times (London) called Charlie “an enormously rewarding, multi-faceted portrait of a cinematic genius.”
In an interview in the Los Angeles Times Richard Schickel recalls daughter Josephine Chaplin telling him, “We want him to be seen kind of warts and all. We are no longer interested, if we ever were, in presenting this portrait of a serene and perfect individual who happened to be a genius.” Schickel has said how liberating making this documentary was, insisting, “We could do whatever we wanted. I think it makes the film more moving. You get a sense of the various mistakes he made with his marriages, his politics.”
Richard Schickel, one of the nation’s most influential film critics, has been reviewing movies for Time magazine since 1972. Before that, he was the film critic for Life. In addition to his work as a critic, he has written numerous books, especially studies and biographies of film greats, from D.W. Griffith to Marlon Brando. In April 2003 he published Good Morning, Mr. Zip Zip Zip: Movies, Memory, and World War II, a well-received memoir about growing up in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin suburb during World War II and falling in love with films.
Schickel pursues a second career as a producer-writer-director of television programs, beginning with The Men Who Made Movies, an eight-part PBS series that served as the basis for a book of the same title. His filmography includes Life Goes to the Movies, a three-hour history of American movies in the sound era; Into the Morning: Willa Cather’s American, a biography of the writer for PBS; and biographical portraits of director Vincente Minnelli (PBS), Gary Cooper, Myrna Loy and Barbara Stanwyck (all for TNT), and a documentary on the making of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven for ABC.
Schickel was born in Milwaukee, educated at the University of Wisconsin and lives in Los Angeles. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the winner of the British Film Institute Book Prize.
This event is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and the UCSB Center for Film, Television and New Media. Tickets are $10 for the general public and $8 for UCSB students and available in advance, and at the door, starting at 6:30 pm, if still available.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.