Postmodernism: How to Make Movies by Charlie Chaplin

Is this perhaps one of the earliest example of the mockumentary? The rather obscure, How to Make Movies directed by Charlie Chaplin in 1918. The film was never released or finished, which explains the lack of a soundtrack and the rough editing. Sadly too, it’s not particularly funny, which may explain why he never completed it. Still, it’s an interesting piece of cinema. Despite his comical tendencies, Chaplin was always known as filmmaker who dared to challenge his audiences.

Interestingly, in Chaplin’s later, supposedly semi-biographical 1952 film Limelight you can just about whiff some faint odours of ‘metafiction’ in so much that it could be interpreted as a film about showbiz and Charlie Chaplin directed by Charlie Chaplin, with the main character played by Chaplin (Buster Keaton appears too!).