Virtual Seminar: The Kid

Charlie Chaplin was already an international star when he decided to break out of the short-film format and make his first full-length feature. The Kid doesn’t merely show Chaplin at a turning point, when he proved that he was a serious film director—it remains an expressive masterwork of silent cinema. In it, he stars as his lovable Tramp character, this time raising an orphan (a remarkable young Jackie Coogan) he has rescued from the streets. Chaplin and Coogan make a miraculous pair in this nimble marriage of sentiment and slapstick.

Peter Flynn is a documentary filmmaker who teaches media production and film history at Emerson College in Boston.  His 2015 feature The Dying of the Light had its theatrical premiere at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, where (contrary to the theater’s expectations) it opened to good reviews and appalling box office. He is pleasantly surprised to be back (virtually) at the theater.