which directors were the biggest jerks and hardest to work with?

which directors were the biggest jerks and hardest to work with? Dec 3, 2018 0:16:13 GMT

Quote

Post by marianne48 on Dec 3, 2018 0:16:13 GMT

Dec 2, 2018 5:05:30 GMT claudius said:

"The movie took more than two years to make, with more than half a year just to shoot it. One scene in which Cherrill's flower seller character offers Chaplin's Tramp character a flower and says one line took over 300 takes to shoot, apparently as Chaplin kept finding fault with the way she held the flower, etc., etc. etc. It must have been upsetting for her and the crew as well. (The filming of this scene is included in the excellent documentary Forgotten Chaplin)"

The 300 takes had nothing to do with any fault with Cherrill (although he did have problems with her). The problem was Chaplin couldn't find a convincing way for the blind girl to be convinced the Tramp was a millionaire. Eventually, he found the solution to have the Tramp go in-and-out of a limousine, the sound of the door convincing the girl that the owner is coming out.
And it is called UNKNOWN CHAPLIN, 35th Anniversary last January.

Thanks for providing the correct title of the documentary. I'd forgotten that it wasn't "Forgotten" (but then how could I possibly remember, when the DVD of the documentary has only been sitting in plain view on my bookshelf for the past decade or so?)

Too bad Chaplin apparently never heard of storyboarding, relying instead on doing the same scene over and over with cast and crew while he worked it out as he went along. Would it have been too much to rely on a small team of writers to help him with story ideas? He could've just taken the credit for their bright ideas and everyone could have continued to see him as a genius; that worked for Walt Disney.

After reading this thread, I looked for lists of the "Most difficult" directors, and I have to admit that Chaplin was small potatoes compared to some of these jerks.