Here is a link to NPR weekend report on the latest Chaplin book called 'The Essential Chaplin'. It is a collection of essays that have been edited by Richard Schickel. You can listen to the story that aired on Weekend Edition.
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
The NPR interview with Schickel is good, but host Scott Simon's short introduction to the piece is appallingly innaccurate - I almost drove off the road when I heard it. In just a few short lines he describes Chaplin as spending the bulk of his career "looking for work", that the film industry "forgot about him" after the silent era, and that for much of his life he was considered a "sad case". I think Simon must have accidentally looked up Buster Keaton's biography instead of Chaplin's! In any case, the interview itself went on to soundly contradict this uncharacteristically bad piece of research from the generally careful Simon.
I did not listen to it yet, but Scott Simon should be written to at NPR for being so innaccurate. I usually like his pieces, so sad to hear he 'missed' on this one. Thanks for the review! I will have to take a listen.
I actually did write in, respectfully pointing out the innaccuracies. Like I say, the interview itself is what people will remember, and it was quite good. Scott Simon is one of the best - it takes courage to broadcast in the age of the armies of the blogosphere!
I just listened to it and Simon did fine, except in the opening where he does sound like he is talking about Keaton, like you mentioned. At least Simon can still broadcast with all the funding cuts and cost for public broadcast these days.
4 comments:
The NPR interview with Schickel is good, but host Scott Simon's short introduction to the piece is appallingly innaccurate - I almost drove off the road when I heard it. In just a few short lines he describes Chaplin as spending the bulk of his career "looking for work", that the film industry "forgot about him" after the silent era, and that for much of his life he was considered a "sad case". I think Simon must have accidentally looked up Buster Keaton's biography instead of Chaplin's! In any case, the interview itself went on to soundly contradict this uncharacteristically bad piece of research from the generally careful Simon.
I did not listen to it yet, but Scott Simon should be written to at NPR for being so innaccurate. I usually like his pieces, so sad to hear he 'missed' on this one. Thanks for the review! I will have to take a listen.
I actually did write in, respectfully pointing out the innaccuracies. Like I say, the interview itself is what people will remember, and it was quite good. Scott Simon is one of the best - it takes courage to broadcast in the age of the armies of the blogosphere!
I just listened to it and Simon did fine, except in the opening where he does sound like he is talking about Keaton, like you mentioned. At least Simon can still broadcast with all the funding cuts and cost for public broadcast these days.
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