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Silent cinema still remains an undiscovered land for most viewers. Yes, Charlie Chaplin, and especially the tramp character he created, have remained in the collective consciousness to this day. Buster Keaton's name also rings familiar to the ears, perhaps Harold Lloyd's as well. Meanwhile, few people know Max Linder, the forefather of slapstick comedy. His film creation, named Max, became an inspiration for Chaplin himself. Who knows, maybe without Linder, there would never have been the Chaplin we know and love today.

Born Gabriel-Maximilien Leuvielle, Linder was a star of early silent cinema. This actor, born in 1883, began his career on the stage of the French theater. He made his film debut in the summer of 1905 (with Pathé). It was a special year for the world for many reasons, tsarist russia lost another war and Albert Einstein published his four groundbreaking papers, including the special theory of relativity (E=mc²).

In 1911 he began directing his own films. A year later, he was the highest-paid movie star in the world. During his short life, he created about 500 films, most of which unfortunately disappeared, evaporating like helium from a balloon. His onscreen persona "Max" was one of the first recognizable recurring characters in film. He has also been cited as the "first international movie star" and "the first film star anywhere". According to people who knew him, Max was a perfectionist. So much so that he often left clues as to what kind of music should be played during particular scenes.

World War I turned out to be significant in Linder's life. He was seriously injured and his war experiences resulted in serious depression. Despite this, shortly after the end of the war, he continued his film career. Invited to the United States in the early 1920s, Max made films for United Artists. He met Charlie Chaplin, who did not hide the fact that Linder was his great inspiration.

Depression, like grim reaper, slowly made itself felt again and turned out to be stronger than the will to live and the passion to create. Beside that, and great talent, Linder was also known for his very difficult character and for fits of rage and aggression. Also towards his own wife, Hélène Peters. He tried to relieve his pain by consuming large amounts of opium. In late October 1925, Max and Hélène reportedly attended a Paris screening of Quo Vadis (in which two characters, Petronius and his slave Eunice, as a reporter put it, "bleed themselves to death"), and died in a similar manner. They drank Veronal, injected morphine, and slashed their wrists. Peters died first, while Linder was unconscious throughout October 31, with doctors fighting to keep him alive. He died after midnight on November 1.

There is still some question, however, as to whether the deaths were really a result of a suicide pact, or whether Max murdered his much-younger wife or pressured her into killing herself. On 2 November 1925, The New York Times reported that Hélène Linder had told her mother by letter that, "He will kill me." The article also claims that "no one believes she herself opened her veins." Critic Vincent Canby acknowledged in 1988 that "Linder died with his young wife in what has sometimes been described as a suicide pact, and sometimes as a murder-suicide."

Max Linder, the troubled man, was and still is an idea for a film in itself - a brilliant artist, mad, lost, unhappy, full of passion and contradictions. His films are cheerful, charming and positively crazy. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but real.

You can find out for yourself this Saturday, February 22. We invite you to Silent Cinema for the screening of Seven Years Bad Luck, considered by some to be his best film. The film contains one of the earliest (though not the first) examples on film of the "human mirror" gag best known in the scene between Groucho and Harpo Marx in Duck Soup twelve years later. Live piano accompaniment by Mila Maia.