Down from Olympus
| AM old enough to remember Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, back ‘in the days when the old engine "Myrtle" chugged away and the arcs flared in the operating box. To us, Chaplin was a genius, and to me he .became something more, for years later when he came in for some doubtful publicity I found myself more disturbed than I would have been by the moral lapse of a friend. Chaplin represented, I suppose, The Artist, and all that was implied in that word stood or fell by his actions, Now, when the gods come down to converse with men as Chaplin did from 3YA in "Forty Years in Films," one is surprised that they are so ordinary. Irrationally one expects them to be as great at every occupation as they are at the one which made you exalt them. In fact, Chaplin as an ordinary man speaking about films was quite adequate, but despite all his explanations about the music in his pictures being a counterpoint to the sordid, one felt in the end that the. mystery was locked in Chaplin himself, in his ability, as he said, to build his pictures around, thus extending, his own unique personality.
Westcliff
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530925.2.21.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 741, 25 September 1953, Page 10
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205Down from Olympus New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 741, 25 September 1953, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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