David Robinson (born 6 August 1930 inLincoln) is anEnglishfilm critic andauthor. He is a former film critic for both theFinancial Times andThe Times and wrote the official biography ofCharlie Chaplin.
Robinson began to write forSight and Sound and theMonthly Film Bulletin during the 1950s, becoming assistant editor ofSight and Sound and editor of theMonthly Film Bulletin from 1957 to 1958. He was film critic of theFinancial Times from 1958 to 1973, before taking up the same post atThe Times in 1973. He remained the paper's main film reviewer until around 1990 and a regular contributor until around 1996.
From 1997 to 2015, he was director of theGiornate del cinema muto silent film festival, which takes place inPordenone, northern Italy, every October. Robinson is also a supporter of the UK-based silent-film societyBristol Silents and the annual Slapstick comedy festival, also based inBristol and usually held in January (the 2021 festival took place online in March). He played a part in the creation of the award-winningMuseum of the Moving Image on London'sSouth Bank which opened in 1988 and closed in 1999.
In 1973, he was head of the jury at the23rd Berlin International Film Festival.[1] In 1995 he was a member of the jury at the19th Moscow International Film Festival.[2]
He lives inBath, Somerset.
In 2019 he appeared in Chris Wade's documentaryCharlie Chaplin: The Making of a Genius.
Robinson's books includeHollywood in the Twenties (1968) andThe History of World Cinema (1973) which was expanded and revised asWorld Cinema: A Short History (World Cinema 1895-1980 on the cover, 1981). Robinson is the official biographer ofCharlie Chaplin and his book,Chaplin: His Life and Art, was first published in 1985 (in a revised form in 1992 and 2001). An illustrated biography entitledCharlie Chaplin: The Art of Comedy was published byThames & Hudson in 1996, as part of their 'New Horizons' series.[3][note 1] He has also written a book onBuster Keaton.
For the centenary of cinema in 1995, Robinson wroteThe Chronicle of Cinema 1895-1995, a 127-page introduction to film history. This was serialised in the form of five supplementary magazines accompanyingSight and Sound from September 1994 to January 1995.
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