Taschen Details The Charlie Chaplin Archives

In 2008 the folks at Taschen unveiled two essential coffee table books for cinephiles around the world: The Stanley Kubrick Archives and The Ingmar Bergman Archives. Since then, Taschen has produced The Pedro Almodovar Archives and The James Bond Archives. The books feature hundreds of photographs and in depth looks at the films and filmmakers.

This July, Taschen will release The Charlie Chaplin Archives, and they’ve recently revealed both the cover art for the book, along with a number of details regarding the material presented within.

I cannot wait to own this alongside the Kubrick and Bergman volumes. While incredibly large, heavy and hard to find a shelf strong enough to support them, they are quite possibly the most beautiful books that I own.

With unrestricted access to his archives, this book offers insight into the process behind the Chaplin genius, from the impromptu spontaneity of his early shorts to the meticulous retakes and reworking of scenes and gags in his classic movies. With 900 images, including stills, memos, storyboards and on-set photos, as well as interviews with Chaplin and his closest collaborators, we see how Chaplin turned his caricature of the Tramp into a living character. The Tramp is the ultimate underdog, an everyman trying to survive economic depression, two World Wars, and the Cold War. Whatever crises life threw at him, the Tramp, and Chaplin, shrugged it off, straightened his shoulders, and walked off into a brighter future.

• The entire Chaplin life history in words and pictures
• 900 images including many previously unseen stills, on-set photos, memos, documents, storyboards, posters, and designs, plus scripts and images for unmade films
• An oral history, told from the point of view of Chaplin himself, drawing upon his extensive writings, many of which have never been reprinted before.
• Supplementary interviews with some of his closest collaborators.
• Material from over 150 books of press clippings in Chaplin’s archives, which range from his early days in music halls to his death
• Chaplin’s short films, from Making a Living (1914) to The Pilgrim (1923), as well as all of his feature-length movies, from The Kid (1921) to A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
• (In first print editions) a filmstrip from the classic City Lights (1931), cut from a print in Chaplin’s archives