VTIFF celebrates the first anniversary of The Screening Room with a double-feature of two of the finest films by America’s greatest comic geniuses, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
The Gold Rush, one of Chaplin’s great masterpieces, forever cemented the iconic status of Chaplin and his Little Tramp character. The film, shot partly on location in the Sierra Nevadas, charts a prospector’s search for fortune in the Klondike and his discovery of romance (with the beautiful Georgia Hale). Featuring such timeless gags as the dance of the dinner rolls and the meal of boiled shoe leather, The Gold Rush is an indelible work of heartwarming hilarity.
In the mere 45 minutes of Sherlock Jr., the incomparable Buster Keaton manages to pack in more gags, laughs, and moments of cinematic awe than other directors manage in their careers. Arguably Keaton’s masterpiece, Sherlock Jr. is not just funny as hell, it’s also an early exploration in the alternate reality of cinema. Buster plays a projectionist who daydreams himself into life as a daring onscreen detective, and in an astonishing sequence, actually forces his way onto the screen and into the movie he is projecting.
Come celebrate these silent heroes—and The Screening Room’s first year—with movies. And cake, of course. Did we mention the cake?