Sherlock Jr And The Immigrant Comparative Essay

Sherlock, Jr (1924) and The Immigrant (1917) are two silent films that share a ground of similarities and differences when their genre, plot, theme, and cinematography are in view. Sherlock Jr, directed, produced, and acted by Buster Keaton, identifies with its audience through a paralleling story telling method, where the reality and the protagonist’s dream it combines to tell a wishful detective story with a romantic twist (Schenck & Keaton, 1924). In The Immigrant, we see Charles Chaplin portraying the life of an immigrant who makes it in America and soon after is accused of thievery (Jasper & Chaplin, 1917). The differences in these films weigh out the similarities in their portrayal of themes, the frameworks used in the narration of the plot, and varying camera angles used in the films’ cinematography. …show more content…
social commentary are evident in the film Sherlock, Jr. and The Immigrant. Social identity, in the Sherlock, Jr. is depicted through the protagonist’s self-reflexivity, where the Brechtian standards of film are used to convey the message and plot through a conservative play on reality and fantasy. The character of Charlie Chaplin played by Charles Chaplin, in the film The Immigrant, uses social commentary to create a contradiction between the idealized world vs. the real world. The entire plot of the movie reveals this ironic theme where the protagonist is faced with the reality of immigrants in a country that is founded on the values of liberation and freedom. These two differences evolve into a set of frameworks that the plot is organized