Dan Kamin performs comedy shows worldwide and is a frequent guest artist with symphony orchestras. He created the physical comedy sequences for the films Chaplin and Benny and Joon, and trained Robert Downey, Jr. and Johnny Depp for their acclaimed performances. He also provided a commentary track for the upcoming Criterion DVD/Blu-Ray release of Chaplin's The Great Dictator.
Kamin has deciphered the magic that was Chaplin—the poetry and
eloquence of the movement ...There are hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of books and other materials concerning the life and films of
Chaplin. Kamin takes a new approach...excellent.
*Library Journal*
Anyone who cares about Charlie Chaplin should dive into this
excellent book. Kamin is both passionate and articulate, and offers
thoughtful new interpretations of his work.
*Leonard Maltin*
The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in Motion, is no mere book.
It’s an autopsy. [Kamin] slices and dices the Tramp, picks his
brain, looks into his heart and performs the most conclusive
examination yet into why this guy, who would’ve been 120 had he not
expired on Christmas Day 1977, is still so funny….Kamin is the
go-to guy for all things Chaplin and slapstick — the man who
trained Robert Downey Jr. for his Oscar-nominated starring role in
Chaplin in 1992. He then created Johnny Depp’s physical comedy
sequences for Benny and Joon in 1993. Depp was nominated for a
Golden Globe….if anybody has unlocked the secrets of physical
comedy, it’s Kamin, who even created the Martian movement for Tim
Burton’s Mars Attacks!
*Springfield News-Sun*
A well-known Chaplin aficionado and authority, Kamin is also—unlike
almost everyone else who writes about him—a talented performer who
has studied and absorbed the physicality of the Great Man. (You can
see samples of him at work on YouTube.) He helped develop Johnny
Depp’s pantomime routines for Benny & Joon, and even coached Robert
Downey, Jr. on how to walk like Charlie for his performance in
Chaplin. This profusely illustrated book expands upon and
supersedes his earlier work, Charlie Chaplin’s One-Man Show, and
attempts to analyze the nature, and genius, of Chaplin’s work. Yet
Kamin writes clearly and sensibly: “Isolating scenes makes it easy
to see how Chaplin uses the various elements of dance—or, more
accurately, the laws of Newtonian physics along with some of the
aesthetic principles of dance movement—to conjure comedy from the
mundane actions of everyday life. Of course, viewers don’t have to
recognize the sophisticated underpinnings of his physical comedy to
appreciate it, which makes his achievement all the more impressive.
Chaplin’s highly stylized movement comes to seem so natural that we
stop noticing it is stylized. Instead, like a good movie
soundtrack, it becomes unobtrusive. Yet dance—in this larger
sense—is central to the meaning of Chaplin’s films, helping him to
define his character and strongly affecting what subject matter he
is drawn to. It intertwines with the films’ content.”
*Leonard Maltin's Movie Fan*
What makes Kamin’s book so insightful is his hard and well studied
knowledge of his subject. Kamin is an expert on the art of mime and
it is from the perspective of Chaplin the mime from his early music
hall days of Fred Karno’s troupe to his final films that Kamin
studies from this perspective. Added to this Dan Kamin trained
Robert Downey Jr. on how to move and ‘be’ Chaplin for Richard
Attenborough’s 1992 biopic.
This book by Scarecrow Press and originally published in 2008 is
brilliantly illustrated with selected stills from his films,
sometimes several frames from the same film illustrating Chaplin’s
movements and comic timing complementing the text. In summary this
splendid book would convince anyone not converted to Chaplin why he
was heralded as he was and what gives him such a raised status.
*Filmwerk*
This is . . . a book that will be treasured by Chaplin fans.
*RALPH: The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy, and the
Humanities*
Dan Kamin’s tome, The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in
Motion, is something different altogether. It is a
examination of Chaplin’s art, focusing on what made his films so
compelling to audiences of the time and what continues to make his
work captivating to new generations experiencing his silent films
in the modern era. This is not merely a film study. It is a
study of Chaplin’s performances and the way he used the motions of
his body to create timeless comedy. The author is uniquely
qualified to analyze and break down Chaplin’s body movements, as
Dan Kamin is a professional comedian and mime who developed the
physical comedy sequences for the films Chaplin (1992) and Benny
and Joon (1993) and who trained both Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny
Depp for their roles. Through Mr. Kamin’s in-depth analysis of
Chaplin’s body movements, The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry
in Motion had an effect on me that no other book on Chaplin and his
films has produced–it made me look at the comedian’s work in a new
way.... Mr. Kamin’s book provides new insight into Chaplin’s
compelling performances.... I found The Comedy of Charlie
Chaplin: Artistry in Motion to be the best examination of Charlie
Chaplin’s art in book form. It receives my highest
recommendation.
*It Came From The Bottom Shelf!*
Kamin has devoted his life to understanding and internalizing
physical comedy in general and Chaplin in particular, and it shows.
His grasp of Chaplin is peerless, and he is also skilled with
words.
*Journal of American Culture*
Dan Kamin's new book, The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in
Motion, is something different altogether. It is an examination of
Chaplin's art, focusing on what made his films so compelling to
audiences of the time and what continues to make his work
captivating to new generations experiencing his silent films in the
modern era. The author is uniquely qualified to analyze and break
down Chaplin's body movements, as Dan Kamin is a professional
comedian and mime...
The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin will also be of great interest to
soused cinema enthusiasts, because Mr. Kamin delves deeper than
previous authors into Chaplin's soused slapstick. Fans of "booze
movies" and lovers of film comedy should consider Dan Kamin's book
an essential read. It receives my highest recommendation.
*Soused Cinema Library Blog*
Dan Kamin’s The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin is indispensable. Its
detailed, penetrating analysis of the how and why of Chaplin's body
language reveals the craft behind the art of the greatest clown of
them all.
*Scott Eyman, book editor of The Palm Beach Post, co-author of
Robert Wagner?s Pieces of My Heart: A Life*
Dan's insights are amazing. He's probably the foremost authority on
Chaplin...there was really no scene [in Chaplin] that he didn't
help me with.
*Robert Downey Jr.*
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