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tequilarainbows's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
jennadactyl13's review against another edition
4.0
This was a very illuminating and heartfelt memoir. It talks about the early years of Hollywood, why he held out making a talking picture for so long, even the red scare after the second world war. The first half of the book is filled with hope and the promise of a successful career. The second half is more the woes of stardom, how America turned against him, and it actually started to seem like he was dropping names here and there. He also jumps around a lot, going from creating a movie to the times he spent with someone from that time (sometimes spanning years) and then goes back to the movie without a break or anything. There were a lot of times when I was confused as to what year it was and constantly had to look up the years his films came out to figure it out.
Two things that I would have like to see more of is how one image or idea helped develop into an entire movie as well as his writing process, and a little more about the courtroom drama when his paternity was called into question. It seemed like a stressful and very important time in his life, and there's not a lot of detail in it.
See my movie reviews at goodflickas.wordpress.com
Two things that I would have like to see more of is how one image or idea helped develop into an entire movie as well as his writing process, and a little more about the courtroom drama when his paternity was called into question. It seemed like a stressful and very important time in his life, and there's not a lot of detail in it.
See my movie reviews at goodflickas.wordpress.com
danjvrobertson's review against another edition
5.0
One of the most interesting autobiographies I've ever read - although, I adore Charlie Chaplin, so I may be biased.
patrickmuto's review against another edition
4.0
Doesn't get into the details of his film very much, as the emphasis is often on his life as a celebrity. Nonetheless, it was very entertaining. Chaplin was a larger than life figure, and any fan of his films would want to read this.
sanrodsara's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.0
tom_f's review against another edition
4.0
Capsule review, with maybe some more thoughts later: as an honest account of one of the 20th Century’s most remarkable lives, and most essential artists, this is obviously fascinating, but Chaplin’s eloquence and confident geniality ensure that it is also broadly very good company. I was grateful to hear so much about his straitened upbringing in London, and in such vivid epistemic and imaginative detail. The pleasures of the book do begin to thin in inverse proportion to Chaplin’s fame, principally because he is also quite devoted to cataloguing all his various celebrity encounters (naturally his power, influence and various scandals and eventual exile are engrossing). While it’s certainly passingly interesting to get a coherent collage of snapshots of Churchill, Gandhi, Picasso, Sartre, Einstein, Eisenstein, Nehru, HG Wells, Orson Welles, GB Shaw, Zhou En-lai, Khrushchev, H Hoover, FDR, James Agee, Hart Crane, Anna Pavlova, Nijinsky, Schoenberg and many others (these just off the dome) this feels paradoxically much more like a solipsistic enterprise than all the colourful first-person narrative. Even a cursory read of Chaplin’s wikipedia entry (for the uninitiated) will illustrate just how remarkable this guy’s life was, even without an appreciation for his art (which is still excellent entertainment and very enriching, as a corpus). The book is both essential history and good fun, with more than an occasional touch of poignance and an enduring love of life and people.
ekster_alven's review against another edition
3.0
Beminnelijke man, een beetje gesteld op rijkdom en luxe wel.
flobeulah's review against another edition
5.0
he was a genius. this is just a little part of the proof.
scorpio53's review against another edition
4.0
A really enjoyable read, from Charlie's early life as a boy through his first job with Karno then onto his silent film making in the USA. I learnt many new and interesting things about Charlie & his famous friends as I read the book. I only thought of him as a silent movie star but in fact he beacme a director, a composer & also formed United Artists film studios along with Mary Pickford & Douglas Fairbanks.