MAX LINDER, THE COMICAL GENIUS WHO INSPIRED CHAPLIN

This tribute exhibition dedicated to Max Linder (Saint-Loubès, 1883 – Paris, 1925) presents a selection of film excerpts, photographs, posters, archives, and props to understand the extraordinary artistic destiny of the man whom historians call “the first movie star” on an international scale.

Max Linder distinguishes himself from the other actors and directors of the comical cinema of the Belle Époque with an innovative writing style, which goes beyond the status of gag sketches, building a real narrative. He invented the figure of “Max”, an actor-director-character of the same name, a formula that would inspire Chaplin to create his own character.

Linder’s work is visionary and profoundly modern, powerful in the springs of the Industrial Revolution and the changes in society, as Chaplin would do after him. Max Linder also takes us into the world of early 20th century filmmaking, its studios, its printing factories – a world in which France was the leading film industry at the time.