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I was determined to continue making silent films ... I was a pantomimist and in that medium I was unique and, without false modesty, a master. |
By the time The Circus was released, Hollywood had witnessed the introduction of sound films. Chaplin was cynical about this new medium and the technical shortcomings it presented, believing that "talkies" lacked the artistry of silent films.[179] He was also hesitant to change the formula that had brought him such success,[180] and feared that giving the Tramp a voice would limit his international appeal.[181] He, therefore, rejected the new Hollywood craze and began work on a new silent film. Chaplin was nonetheless anxious about this decision and remained so throughout the film's production.[181] |
When filming began at the end of 1928, Chaplin had been working on the story for almost a year.[182] City Lights followed the Tramp's love for a blind flower girl (played by Virginia Cherrill) and his efforts to raise money for her sight-saving operation. It was a challenging production that lasted 21 months,[183] with Chaplin later confessing that he "had worked himself into a neurotic state of wanting perfection".[184] One advantage Chaplin found in sound technology was the opportunity to record a musical score for the film, which he composed himself.[184][185] |
Chaplin finished editing City Lights in December 1930, by which time silent films were an anachronism.[186] A preview before an unsuspecting public audience was not a success,[187] but a showing for the press produced positive reviews. One journalist wrote, "Nobody in the world but Charlie Chaplin could have done it. He is the only person that has that peculiar something called 'audience appeal' in sufficient quality to defy the popular penchant for movies that talk."[188] Given its general release in January 1931, City Lights proved to be a popular and financial success – eventually grossing over $3 million.[189] The British Film Institute cites it as Chaplin's finest accomplishment, and the critic James Agee hails the closing scene as "the greatest piece of acting and the highest moment in movies".[190][191] City Lights became Chaplin's personal favourite of his films and remained so throughout his life.[192] |
City Lights had been a success, but Chaplin was unsure if he could make another picture without dialogue. He remained convinced that sound would not work in his films, but was also "obsessed by a depressing fear of being old-fashioned."[193] In this state of uncertainty, early in 1931, the comedian decided to take a holiday and ended up travelling for 16 months.[194][m] He spent months travelling Western Europe, including extended stays in France and Switzerland, and spontaneously decided to visit Japan.[196] The day after he arrived in Japan, Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated by ultra-nationalists in the May 15 Incident. The group's original plan had been to provoke a war with the United States by assassinating Chaplin at a welcome reception organised by the prime minister, but the plan had been foiled due to delayed public announcement of the event's date.[197] |
In his autobiography, Chaplin recalled that on his return to Los Angeles, "I was confused and without plan, restless and conscious of an extreme loneliness". He briefly considered retiring and moving to China.[199] Chaplin's loneliness was relieved when he met 21-year-old actress Paulette Goddard in July 1932, and the pair began a relationship.[200] He was not ready to commit to a film, however, and focused on writing a serial about his travels (published in Woman's Home Companion).[201] The trip had been a stimulating experience for Chaplin, including meetings with several prominent thinkers, and he became increasingly interested in world affairs.[202] The state of labour in America troubled him, and he feared that capitalism and machinery in the workplace would increase unemployment levels. It was these concerns that stimulated Chaplin to develop his new film.[203] |
Modern Times was announced by Chaplin as "a satire on certain phases of our industrial life."[204] Featuring the Tramp and Goddard as they endure the Great Depression, it took ten and a half months to film.[205] Chaplin intended to use spoken dialogue but changed his mind during rehearsals. Like its predecessor, Modern Times employed sound effects but almost no speaking.[206] Chaplin's performance of a gibberish song did, however, give the Tramp a voice for the only time on film.[207] After recording the music, Chaplin released Modern Times in February 1936.[208] It was his first feature in 15 years to adopt political references and social realism,[209] a factor that attracted considerable press coverage despite Chaplin's attempts to downplay the issue.[210] The film earned less at the box-office than his previous features and received mixed reviews, as some viewers disliked the politicising.[211] Today, Modern Times is seen by the British Film Institute as one of Chaplin's "great features,"[190] while David Robinson says it shows the filmmaker at "his unrivalled peak as a creator of visual comedy."[212] |
Following the release of Modern Times, Chaplin left with Goddard for a trip to the Far East.[213] The couple had refused to comment on the nature of their relationship, and it was not known whether they were married or not.[214] Some time later, Chaplin revealed that they married in Canton during this trip.[215] By 1938, the couple had drifted apart, as both focused heavily on their work, although Goddard was again his leading lady in his next feature film, The Great Dictator. She eventually divorced Chaplin in Mexico in 1942, citing incompatibility and separation for more than a year.[216] |
The 1940s saw Chaplin face a series of controversies, both in his work and in his personal life, which changed his fortunes and severely affected his popularity in the United States. The first of these was his growing boldness in expressing his political beliefs. Deeply disturbed by the surge of militaristic nationalism in 1930s world politics,[217] Chaplin found that he could not keep these issues out of his work.[218] Parallels between himself and Adolf Hitler had been widely noted: the pair were born four days apart, both had risen from poverty to world prominence, and Hitler wore the same toothbrush moustache as Chaplin. It was this physical resemblance that supplied the plot for Chaplin's next film, The Great Dictator, which directly satirised Hitler and attacked fascism.[219] |
Chaplin spent two years developing the script,[220] and began filming in September 1939 – six days after Britain declared war on Germany.[221] He had submitted to using spoken dialogue, partly out of acceptance that he had no other choice, but also because he recognised it as a better method for delivering a political message.[222] Making a comedy about Hitler was seen as highly controversial, but Chaplin's financial independence allowed him to take the risk.[223] "I was determined to go ahead," he later wrote, "for Hitler must be laughed at."[224][n] Chaplin replaced the Tramp (while wearing similar attire) with "A Jewish Barber", a reference to the Nazi party's belief that he was Jewish.[o][226] In a dual performance, he also played the dictator "Adenoid Hynkel", who parodied Hitler.[227] |
The Great Dictator spent a year in production and was released in October 1940.[228] The film generated a vast amount of publicity, with a critic for The New York Times calling it "the most eagerly awaited picture of the year", and it was one of the biggest money-makers of the era.[229] The ending was unpopular, however, and generated controversy.[230] Chaplin concluded the film with a five-minute speech in which he abandoned his barber character, looked directly into the camera, and pleaded against war and fascism.[231] Charles J. Maland has identified this overt preaching as triggering a decline in Chaplin's popularity, and writes, "Henceforth, no movie fan would ever be able to separate the dimension of politics from [his] star image".[232][p] The Great Dictator received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor.[234] |
In the mid-1940s, Chaplin was involved in a series of trials that occupied most of his time and significantly affected his public image.[235] The troubles stemmed from his affair with an aspirant actress named Joan Barry, with whom he was involved intermittently between June 1941 and the autumn of 1942.[236] Barry, who displayed obsessive behaviour and was twice arrested after they separated,[q] reappeared the following year and announced that she was pregnant with Chaplin's child. As Chaplin denied the claim, Barry filed a paternity suit against him.[237] |
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, who had long been suspicious of Chaplin's political leanings, used the opportunity to generate negative publicity about him. As part of a smear campaign to damage Chaplin's image,[238] the FBI named him in four indictments related to the Barry case. Most serious of these was an alleged violation of the Mann Act, which prohibits the transportation of women across state boundaries for sexual purposes.[r] The historian Otto Friedrich has called this an "absurd prosecution" of an "ancient statute",[241] yet if Chaplin was found guilty, he faced 23 years in jail.[242] Three charges lacked sufficient evidence to proceed to court, but the Mann Act trial began on 21 March 1944.[243] Chaplin was acquitted two weeks later, on 4 April.[244][239] The case was frequently headline news, with Newsweek calling it the "biggest public relations scandal since the Fatty Arbuckle murder trial in 1921."[245] |
Barry's child, Carol Ann, was born in October 1943, and the paternity suit went to court in December 1944. After two arduous trials, in which the prosecuting lawyer accused him of "moral turpitude",[246] Chaplin was declared to be the father. Evidence from blood tests which indicated otherwise were not admissible,[s] and the judge ordered Chaplin to pay child support until Carol Ann turned 21. Media coverage of the paternity suit was influenced by the FBI, as information was fed to the prominent gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and Chaplin was portrayed in an overwhelmingly critical light.[248] |
The controversy surrounding Chaplin increased when, two weeks after the paternity suit was filed, it was announced that he had married his newest protégée, 18-year-old Oona O'Neill – daughter of the American playwright Eugene O'Neill.[249] Chaplin, then 54, had been introduced to her by a film agent seven months earlier.[t] In his autobiography, Chaplin described meeting O'Neill as "the happiest event of my life", and claimed to have found "perfect love".[252] Chaplin's son, Charles Jr., reported that Oona "worshipped" his father.[253] The couple remained married until Chaplin's death, and had eight children over 18 years: Geraldine Leigh (b. July 1944), Michael John (b. March 1946), Josephine Hannah (b. March 1949), Victoria (b. May 1951), Eugene Anthony (b. August 1953), Jane Cecil (b. May 1957), Annette Emily (b. December 1959), and Christopher James (b. July 1962).[254] |
Chaplin claimed that the Barry trials had "crippled [his] creativeness", and it was some time before he began working again.[255] In April 1946, he finally began filming a project that had been in development since 1942.[256] Monsieur Verdoux was a black comedy, the story of a French bank clerk, Verdoux (Chaplin), who loses his job and begins marrying and murdering wealthy widows to support his family. Chaplin's inspiration for the project came from Orson Welles, who wanted him to star in a film about the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru. Chaplin decided that the concept would "make a wonderful comedy",[257] and paid Welles $5,000 for the idea.[258] |
Chaplin again vocalised his political views in Monsieur Verdoux, criticising capitalism and arguing that the world encourages mass killing through wars and weapons of mass destruction.[259] Because of this, the film met with controversy when it was released in April 1947;[260] Chaplin was booed at the premiere, and there were calls for a boycott.[261] Monsieur Verdoux was the first Chaplin release that failed both critically and commercially in the United States.[262] It was more successful abroad,[263] and Chaplin's screenplay was nominated at the Academy Awards.[264] He was proud of the film, writing in his autobiography, "Monsieur Verdoux is the cleverest and most brilliant film I have yet made."[265] |
The negative reaction to Monsieur Verdoux was largely the result of changes in Chaplin's public image.[266] Along with damage of the Joan Barry scandal, he was publicly accused of being a communist.[267] His political activity had heightened during World War II, when he campaigned for the opening of a Second Front to help the Soviet Union and supported various Soviet–American friendship groups.[268] He was also friendly with several suspected communists, and attended functions given by Soviet diplomats in Los Angeles.[269] In the political climate of 1940s America, such activities meant Chaplin was considered, as Larcher writes, "dangerously progressive and amoral."[270] The FBI wanted him out of the country,[271] and launched an official investigation in early 1947.[272][u] |
Chaplin denied being a communist, instead calling himself a "peacemonger",[274] but felt the government's effort to suppress the ideology was an unacceptable infringement of civil liberties.[275] Unwilling to be quiet about the issue, he openly protested against the trials of Communist Party members and the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee.[276] Chaplin received a subpoena to appear before HUAC but was not called to testify.[277] As his activities were widely reported in the press, and Cold War fears grew, questions were raised over his failure to take American citizenship.[278] Calls were made for him to be deported; in one extreme and widely published example, Representative John E. Rankin, who helped establish HUAC, told Congress in June 1947: "[Chaplin's] very life in Hollywood is detrimental to the moral fabric of America. [If he is deported] ... his loathsome pictures can be kept from before the eyes of the American youth. He should be deported and gotten rid of at once."[279] |
Although Chaplin remained politically active in the years following the failure of Monsieur Verdoux,[v] his next film, about a forgotten music hall comedian and a young ballerina in Edwardian London, was devoid of political themes. Limelight was heavily autobiographical, alluding not only to Chaplin's childhood and the lives of his parents, but also to his loss of popularity in the United States.[281] The cast included various members of his family, including his five oldest children and his half-brother, Wheeler Dryden.[282] |
Filming began in November 1951, by which time Chaplin had spent three years working on the story.[283][w] He aimed for a more serious tone than any of his previous films, regularly using the word "melancholy" when explaining his plans to his co-star Claire Bloom.[285] Limelight featured a cameo appearance from Buster Keaton, whom Chaplin cast as his stage partner in a pantomime scene. This marked the only time the comedians worked together.[286] |
Chaplin decided to hold the world premiere of Limelight in London, since it was the setting of the film.[287] As he left Los Angeles, he expressed a premonition that he would not be returning.[288] At New York, he boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth with his family on 18 September 1952.[289] The next day, United States Attorney General James P. McGranery revoked Chaplin's re-entry permit and stated that he would have to submit to an interview concerning his political views and moral behaviour to re-enter the US.[289] Although McGranery told the press that he had "a pretty good case against Chaplin", Maland has concluded, on the basis of the FBI files that were released in the 1980s, that the US government had no real evidence to prevent Chaplin's re-entry. It is likely that he would have gained entry if he had applied for it.[290] However, when Chaplin received a cablegram informing him of the news, he privately decided to cut his ties with the United States: |
Whether I re-entered that unhappy country or not was of little consequence to me. I would like to have told them that the sooner I was rid of that hate-beleaguered atmosphere the better, that I was fed up of America's insults and moral pomposity...[291] |
Because all of his property remained in America, Chaplin refrained from saying anything negative about the incident to the press.[292] The scandal attracted vast attention,[293] but Chaplin and his film were warmly received in Europe.[289] In America, the hostility towards him continued, and, although it received some positive reviews, Limelight was subjected to a wide-scale boycott.[294] Reflecting on this, Maland writes that Chaplin's fall, from an "unprecedented" level of popularity, "may be the most dramatic in the history of stardom in America".[295] |
I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America's yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States. |
Chaplin did not attempt to return to the United States after his re-entry permit was revoked, and instead sent his wife to settle his affairs.[x] The couple decided to settle in Switzerland and, in January 1953, the family moved into their permanent home: Manoir de Ban, a 14-hectare (35-acre) estate[298] overlooking Lake Geneva in Corsier-sur-Vevey.[299][y] Chaplin put his Beverly Hills house and studio up for sale in March, and surrendered his re-entry permit in April. The next year, his wife renounced her US citizenship and became a British citizen.[301] Chaplin severed the last of his professional ties with the United States in 1955, when he sold the remainder of his stock in United Artists, which had been in financial difficulty since the early 1940s.[302] |
Chaplin remained a controversial figure throughout the 1950s, especially after he was awarded the International Peace Prize by the communist-led World Peace Council, and after his meetings with Zhou Enlai and Nikita Khrushchev.[303] He began developing his first European film, A King in New York, in 1954.[304] Casting himself as an exiled king who seeks asylum in the United States, Chaplin included several of his recent experiences in the screenplay. His son, Michael, was cast as a boy whose parents are targeted by the FBI, while Chaplin's character faces accusations of communism.[305] The political satire parodied HUAC and attacked elements of 1950s culture – including consumerism, plastic surgery, and wide-screen cinema.[306] In a review, the playwright John Osborne called it Chaplin's "most bitter" and "most openly personal" film.[307] In a 1957 interview, when asked to clarify his political views, Chaplin stated "As for politics, I am an anarchist. I hate government and rules – and fetters ... People must be free."[308] |
Chaplin founded a new production company, Attica, and used Shepperton Studios for the shooting.[304] Filming in England proved a difficult experience, as he was used to his own Hollywood studio and familiar crew, and no longer had limitless production time. According to Robinson, this had an effect on the quality of the film.[309] A King in New York was released in September 1957, and received mixed reviews.[310] Chaplin banned American journalists from its Paris première and decided not to release the film in the United States. This severely limited its revenue, although it achieved moderate commercial success in Europe.[311] A King in New York was not shown in America until 1973.[312][313] |
In the last two decades of his career, Chaplin concentrated on re-editing and scoring his old films for re-release, along with securing their ownership and distribution rights.[314] In an interview he granted in 1959, the year of his 70th birthday, Chaplin stated that there was still "room for the Little Man in the atomic age".[315] The first of these re-releases was The Chaplin Revue (1959), which included new versions of A Dog's Life, Shoulder Arms, and The Pilgrim.[315] |
In America, the political atmosphere began to change and attention was once again directed to Chaplin's films instead of his views.[314] In July 1962, The New York Times published an editorial stating that "we do not believe the Republic would be in danger if yesterday's unforgotten little tramp were allowed to amble down the gangplank of a steamer or plane in an American port".[316] The same month, Chaplin was invested with the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the universities of Oxford and Durham.[317] In November 1963, the Plaza Theater in New York started a year-long series of Chaplin's films, including Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight, which gained excellent reviews from American critics.[318] September 1964 saw the release of Chaplin's memoirs, My Autobiography, which he had been working on since 1957.[319] The 500-page book became a worldwide best-seller. It focused on his early years and personal life, and was criticised for lacking information on his film career.[320] |
Shortly after the publication of his memoirs, Chaplin began work on A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), a romantic comedy based on a script he had written for Paulette Goddard in the 1930s.[321] Set on an ocean liner, it starred Marlon Brando as an American ambassador and Sophia Loren as a stowaway found in his cabin.[321] The film differed from Chaplin's earlier productions in several aspects. It was his first to use Technicolor and the widescreen format, while he concentrated on directing and appeared on-screen only in a cameo role as a seasick steward.[322] He also signed a deal with Universal Pictures and appointed his assistant, Jerome Epstein, as the producer.[323] Chaplin was paid $600,000 director's fee as well as a percentage of the gross receipts.[324] A Countess from Hong Kong premiered in January 1967, to unfavourable reviews, and was a box-office failure.[325][326] Chaplin was deeply hurt by the negative reaction to the film, which turned out to be his last.[325] |
Chaplin suffered a series of minor strokes in the late 1960s, which marked the beginning of a slow decline in his health.[327] Despite the setbacks, he was soon writing a new film script, The Freak, a story of a winged girl found in South America, which he intended as a starring vehicle for his daughter, Victoria.[327] His fragile health prevented the project from being realised.[328] In the early 1970s, Chaplin concentrated on re-releasing his old films, including The Kid and The Circus.[329] In 1971, he was made a Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour at the Cannes Film Festival.[330] The following year, he was honoured with a special award by the Venice Film Festival.[331] |
In 1972, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences offered Chaplin an Honorary Award, which Robinson sees as a sign that America "wanted to make amends". Chaplin was initially hesitant about accepting but decided to return to the US for the first time in 20 years.[330] The visit attracted a large amount of press coverage and, at the Academy Awards gala, he was given a 12-minute standing ovation, the longest in the Academy's history.[332][333] Visibly emotional, Chaplin accepted his award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century".[334] |
Although Chaplin still had plans for future film projects, by the mid-1970s he was very frail.[335] He experienced several further strokes, which made it difficult for him to communicate, and he had to use a wheelchair.[336][337] His final projects were compiling a pictorial autobiography, My Life in Pictures (1974) and scoring A Woman of Paris for re-release in 1976.[338] He also appeared in a documentary about his life, The Gentleman Tramp (1975), directed by Richard Patterson.[339] In the 1975 New Year Honours, Chaplin was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II,[338][z][341] though he was too weak to kneel and received the honour in his wheelchair.[342] |
By October 1977, Chaplin's health had declined to the point that he needed constant care.[343] In the early morning of 25 December 1977, Chaplin died at home after suffering a stroke in his sleep.[337] He was 88 years old. The funeral, on 27 December, was a small and private Anglican ceremony, according to his wishes.[344][aa] Chaplin was interred in the Corsier-sur-Vevey cemetery.[343] Among the film industry's tributes, director René Clair wrote, "He was a monument of the cinema, of all countries and all times ... the most beautiful gift the cinema made to us."[346] Actor Bob Hope declared, "We were lucky to have lived in his time."[347] |
On 1 March 1978, Chaplin's coffin was dug up and stolen from its grave by two unemployed immigrants, Roman Wardas, from Poland, and Gantcho Ganev, from Bulgaria. The body was held for ransom in an attempt to extort money from Oona Chaplin. The pair were caught in a large police operation in May, and Chaplin's coffin was found buried in a field in the nearby village of Noville. It was re-interred in the Corsier cemetery surrounded by reinforced concrete.[348][349] |
Chaplin believed his first influence to be his mother, who entertained him as a child by sitting at the window and mimicking passers-by: "it was through watching her that I learned not only how to express emotions with my hands and face, but also how to observe and study people."[350] Chaplin's early years in music hall allowed him to see stage comedians at work; he also attended the Christmas pantomimes at Drury Lane, where he studied the art of clowning through performers like Dan Leno.[351] Chaplin's years with the Fred Karno company had a formative effect on him as an actor and filmmaker. Simon Louvish writes that the company was his "training ground",[352] and it was here that Chaplin learned to vary the pace of his comedy.[353] The concept of mixing pathos with slapstick was learnt from Karno,[ab] who also used elements of absurdity that became familiar in Chaplin's gags.[353][354] From the film industry, Chaplin drew upon the work of the French comedian Max Linder, whose films he greatly admired.[355] In developing the Tramp costume and persona, he was likely inspired by the American vaudeville scene, where tramp characters were common.[356] |
Chaplin never spoke more than cursorily about his filmmaking methods, claiming such a thing would be tantamount to a magician spoiling his own illusion.[357] Little was known about his working process throughout his lifetime,[358] but research from film historians – particularly the findings of Kevin Brownlow and David Gill that were presented in the three-part documentary Unknown Chaplin (1983) – has since revealed his unique working method.[359] |
Until he began making spoken dialogue films with The Great Dictator, Chaplin never shot from a completed script.[360] Many of his early films began with only a vague premise – for example "Charlie enters a health spa" or "Charlie works in a pawn shop."[361] He then had sets constructed and worked with his stock company to improvise gags and "business" using them, almost always working the ideas out on film.[359] As ideas were accepted and discarded, a narrative structure would emerge, frequently requiring Chaplin to reshoot an already-completed scene that might have otherwise contradicted the story.[362] From A Woman of Paris onward Chaplin began the filming process with a prepared plot,[363] but Robinson writes that every film up to Modern Times "went through many metamorphoses and permutations before the story took its final form."[364] |
Producing films in this manner meant Chaplin took longer to complete his pictures than almost any other filmmaker at the time.[365] If he was out of ideas, he often took a break from the shoot, which could last for days, while keeping the studio ready for when inspiration returned.[366] Delaying the process further was Chaplin's rigorous perfectionism.[367] According to his friend Ivor Montagu, "nothing but perfection would be right" for the filmmaker.[368] Because he personally funded his films, Chaplin was at liberty to strive for this goal and shoot as many takes as he wished.[369] The number was often excessive, for instance 53 takes for every finished take in The Kid.[370] For The Immigrant, a 20-minute short, Chaplin shot 40,000 feet of film—enough for a feature-length.[371] |
No other filmmaker ever so completely dominated every aspect of the work, did every job. If he could have done so, Chaplin would have played every role and (as his son Sydney humorously but perceptively observed) sewn every costume. |
Describing his working method as "sheer perseverance to the point of madness",[372] Chaplin would be completely consumed by the production of a picture.[373] Robinson writes that even in Chaplin's later years, his work continued "to take precedence over everything and everyone else."[374] The combination of story improvisation and relentless perfectionism – which resulted in days of effort and thousands of feet of film being wasted, all at enormous expense – often proved taxing for Chaplin who, in frustration, would lash out at his actors and crew.[375] |
Chaplin exercised complete control over his pictures,[357] to the extent that he would act out the other roles for his cast, expecting them to imitate him exactly.[376] He personally edited all of his films, trawling through the large amounts of footage to create the exact picture he wanted.[377] As a result of his complete independence, he was identified by the film historian Andrew Sarris as one of the first auteur filmmakers.[378] Chaplin did receive help, notably from his long-time cinematographer Roland Totheroh, brother Sydney Chaplin, and various assistant directors such as Harry Crocker and Charles Reisner.[379] |
While Chaplin's comedic style is broadly defined as slapstick,[380] it is considered restrained and intelligent,[381] with the film historian Philip Kemp describing his work as a mix of "deft, balletic physical comedy and thoughtful, situation-based gags".[382] Chaplin diverged from conventional slapstick by slowing the pace and exhausting each scene of its comic potential, with more focus on developing the viewer's relationship to the characters.[66][383] Unlike conventional slapstick comedies, Robinson states that the comic moments in Chaplin's films centre on the Tramp's attitude to the things happening to him: the humour does not come from the Tramp bumping into a tree, but from his lifting his hat to the tree in apology.[66] Dan Kamin writes that Chaplin's "quirky mannerisms" and "serious demeanour in the midst of slapstick action" are other key aspects of his comedy,[384] while the surreal transformation of objects and the employment of in-camera trickery are also common features.[385] |
Chaplin's silent films typically follow the Tramp's efforts to survive in a hostile world.[386] The character lives in poverty and is frequently treated badly, but remains kind and upbeat;[387] defying his social position, he strives to be seen as a gentleman.[388] As Chaplin said in 1925, "The whole point of the Little Fellow is that no matter how down on his ass he is, no matter how well the jackals succeed in tearing him apart, he's still a man of dignity."[389] The Tramp defies authority figures[390] and "gives as good as he gets",[389] leading Robinson and Louvish to see him as a representative for the underprivileged – an "everyman turned heroic saviour".[391] Hansmeyer notes that several of Chaplin's films end with "the homeless and lonely Tramp [walking] optimistically ... into the sunset ... to continue his journey".[392] |
It is paradoxical that tragedy stimulates the spirit of ridicule ... ridicule, I suppose, is an attitude of defiance; we must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the forces of nature – or go insane. |
The infusion of pathos is a well-known aspect of Chaplin's work,[394] and Larcher notes his reputation for "[inducing] laughter and tears".[395] Sentimentality in his films comes from a variety of sources, with Louvish pinpointing "personal failure, society's strictures, economic disaster, and the elements."[396] Chaplin sometimes drew on tragic events when creating his films, as in the case of The Gold Rush (1925), which was inspired by the fate of the Donner Party.[393] Constance B. Kuriyama has identified serious underlying themes in the early comedies, such as greed (The Gold Rush) and loss (The Kid).[397] Chaplin also touched on controversial issues: immigration (The Immigrant, 1917); illegitimacy (The Kid, 1921); and drug use (Easy Street, 1917).[383] He often explored these topics ironically, making comedy out of suffering.[398] |
Social commentary was a feature of Chaplin's films from early in his career, as he portrayed the underdog in a sympathetic light and highlighted the difficulties of the poor.[399] Later, as he developed a keen interest in economics and felt obliged to publicise his views,[400] Chaplin began incorporating overtly political messages into his films.[401] Modern Times (1936) depicted factory workers in dismal conditions, The Great Dictator (1940) parodied Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and ended in a speech against nationalism, Monsieur Verdoux (1947) criticised war and capitalism, and A King in New York (1957) attacked McCarthyism.[402] |
Several of Chaplin's films incorporate autobiographical elements, and the psychologist Sigmund Freud believed that Chaplin "always plays only himself as he was in his dismal youth".[403] The Kid is thought to reflect Chaplin's childhood trauma of being sent into an orphanage,[403] the main characters in Limelight (1952) contain elements from the lives of his parents,[404] and A King in New York references Chaplin's experiences of being shunned by the United States.[405] Many of his sets, especially in street scenes, bear a strong similarity to Kennington, where he grew up. Stephen M. Weissman has argued that Chaplin's problematic relationship with his mentally ill mother was often reflected in his female characters and the Tramp's desire to save them.[403] |
Regarding the structure of Chaplin's films, the scholar Gerald Mast sees them as consisting of sketches tied together by the same theme and setting, rather than having a tightly unified storyline.[406] Visually, his films are simple and economic,[407] with scenes portrayed as if set on a stage.[408] His approach to filming was described by the art director Eugène Lourié: "Chaplin did not think in 'artistic' images when he was shooting. He believed that action is the main thing. The camera is there to photograph the actors".[409] In his autobiography, Chaplin wrote, "Simplicity is best ... pompous effects slow up action, are boring and unpleasant ... The camera should not intrude."[410] This approach has prompted criticism, since the 1940s, for being "old fashioned",[411] while the film scholar Donald McCaffrey sees it as an indication that Chaplin never completely understood film as a medium.[412] Kamin, however, comments that Chaplin's comedic talent would not be enough to remain funny on screen if he did not have an "ability to conceive and direct scenes specifically for the film medium".[413] |
Subsets and Splits