Enter into the world of Charlie Chaplin's silent film

Devětsil was a Czech left-wing art association, which existed between the years 1920 and 1930. It was founded by a group socialist artists and writers.

Devětsil was characteristic with their imagination of the modern world and the connection of poetry and rationality. Their poetic approach intended to bring all kinds of art together - from film, poetry, theatre, music, architecture, painting, dance, photography, and the production of written literature to dance and cabaret.

Inspired by American movies

American films and the star of American cinematography were a great source of inspiration for Devětsil. The perception of the movie stars of the era was significantly physical. The focus was on the well built body of the actor, director and producer Douglas Fairbanks, and on the sad eyes of Charlie Chaplin’s absent-minded trembling melancholy clown.

“Sportsman Fairbanks was fascinatingfor his perfect performance of athletic stunts in genre films often set in exotic environments. Also Chaplin's films were based on careful choreography of movements, gestures and facial expressions, in whatever way they worked in a story composed of seemingly random events. Projection v Ponrepo cinema will present Chaplin in his key film,” the ‘Devětsil 1920 – 1931’ the exhibition‘s organizers said.

Kid

The silent film ‘Kid’ belongs to the golden archive of world cinematography. It was produced in the year 1921 by Charlie Chaplin, who was the director, screenwriter, producer and starring actor of the film. It was not only his first full-length film, but it also differed from all of his previous short slapstick in its theme and style.

The film narrates the story of a hobo who is taking care of an orphan he met. It was the most successful film of Chaplin's career so far, and after ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, it was financially the second most successful film of the year 1921.

Interesting facts about the film

During the filming, Chaplin met Lillita Louise MacMurray, alias Lita Gray, a young woman of Mexican origin, who played an angel in a dreamlike sequence of the film. She became Chaplin’s second wife three years later. They divorced in 1927, but not before she gave Chaplin two sons, Charlie and Sidney.

Chaplin wrote a book about his travels through European cities called ‘My Trip Abroad’ to promote the movie.

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