The Tramp, No. 6 - Modern Times (1936)

Oh multitudes of ironically ironic ironies! The final silent film made in the silent film era is called Modern Times. And that titular dichotomy is no accident.

Charlie Chaplin persisted in his refusal to kowtow to the overwhelmingly popular “fad” of talking pictures, with their vulgar verbiage, for if anything would destroy the Tramp (synonymous with Chaplin himself), it’s sesquipedalian loquaciousness. To release a silent picture in 1936 is a work of dog headed ludditism, but surely Chaplin knew that time was coming to an end for his Little Tramp. The Tramp’s so-called franchise was dated, not for a loss of popularity or quality or inspiration or proliferation (all these things it excelled at – quite possibly among the most triumphant film franchises ever), but by technology itself! Thus Modern Times doesn’t simply stand as a final farewell to the Tramp, but to an entire form of filmmaking he represented.

With technology (sound technology) making the Tramp obsolete, Chaplin chooses for the theme of his little guy’s final outing technology itself. Though have no doubt that with the Great Depression still in full swing, the Tramp’s position as the silent spokesman for an entire class of underprivileged makes him as potent as ever. But once again, as with City Lights, the march of time changes the nature of poverty right underneath the Tramp’s comically oversized shoes. No more bindles and apple cores, like some John Schwartzwelder script. Progress has come for our Little Tramp, and with it industrialization, atomization, and the dehumanization that implies.


Modern Times thus opens in a lovingly designed Art Deco factory floor, all oversized steel gears and degraded laborers performing repetitive tasks upon the assembly line. Oh, and the Tramp’s there too, working the assembly line like Donald Duck and Lucy Ricardo would do after him. As always with Chaplin’s films, the humor comes directly from the Tramp himself, an alien creature in a more recognizably human world, acting in ways humorously divergent from proper behavior. An abstract grotesque like the Tramp is a good way to engender yuks, but it’s pretty hard to critique an entire system of production with such a tool. (That’s what she said!)

Make no mistake, Chaplin intends a Grand Sweeping Statement with Modern Times, his most overtly political film yet – until he’d take on ze Nazis. It’s kinda hard to miss Chaplin’s point about the drudgery of the capitalist industrial complex when the movie opens by juxtaposing sheep with factory laborers. I suppose at one point that was a clever comparison, and not a fallback for internet trolls. And while some of Chaplin’s past efforts have begged us to consider his politics, it’s practically impossible not to now. Okay…Chaplin was a leftist. To ask the FBI, he was a Communist. He is undoubtedly critical of capitalism, for all the inhumane worker conditions and whatnot. Former filmic efforts have dramatized the plight of the poor, but at last, by directly addressing the system, Chaplin discovers satire, and can have an impact – not with sympathetic, humanist portrayals of the poor, but with specific criticisms of the Robbers Baron (or is that Robber Barons?).


All this places Modern Times squarely in a realm of propaganda…sort of. The image of the Tramp and his coworkers struggling against anti-human forms of machinery recalls many a Soviet effort. Metropolis, a similarly minded German Expressionist masterwork, presents similar imagery. There’s possibly a bit of Dziga Vertov in here too, but with the irony that Chaplin cannot celebrate his adopted nation’s (that’d be the U.S.) technical might, because he is somewhat ideologically opposed to it. I feel this is becoming an ugly summary.

One of Chaplin’s most potent filmic techniques for condemning technology (oh the ironies in that statement!) is quite perfect for his chosen format: the use of dialogue. Say wha?!?! In a silent film?!?! Oh yeah, Modern Times one ups City Lights as a pseudo-silent, building on that film’s synchronized soundtrack by adding in actual chatter...but with a point. The only comprehensible verbiage is spoken through machines, be it via telephone or recordings or oddly retro-futurist tell-o-visual-matic device machineries (i.e. TVs). Genuine human discussion is still rendered, when needed, through title cards. This is a clever means, very in keeping with City Lights, to disregard sound film, even if there’s no particular persuasiveness to this argument.

The Tramp’s time on the factory floor is, while politically loaded, comedic gold – a wholly realized combination of setting and gags and Chaplin’s celebrated pantomime. It climaxes as the Tramp is sucked down into the machine’s innards, made so insane by his repetitive job that he can no longer physically control himself (note the over-your-head message).


This image somewhat recalls Buster Keaton’s great moment of despair in The General, when he is carried away unawares on a train’s spinning rod. Man against machine was always Keaton’s favorite theme, with the whole world presented as a mathematical device pitted against the hero – who could only overcome through technical superiority. Keaton’s comedy is deadpan and relatively rigid, most unlike Chaplin’s fluid, often overacted cartoonish lunacy. Thus pitting Chaplin against a gewgaw yields a very different end result, one focused upon his outsized physical gyrations – Chaplin becomes a part of the machine, and retains those traits upon leaving the factory, while Keaton makes the machine a part of himself.

At this point, Modern Times would make for a fantastic short film, with the Tramp’s time in the factory almost exactly two reels long. The movie has peaked, with still an hour to go and nothing nearly so pointed to do with it.

Unemployed and out on the streets, the Tramp reverts to his usual hobo ways. Much of that sleek set design, so striking against the Tramp’s old-fashioned frame, gives way for a more blandly realistic look at industrial slums – like something from the Italian neo-realist school. There are social problems to explore, like picketing and riots – resulting in the Tramp leading a Communist parade. While this is potentially an honest mistake, one can kind of see where the FBI’s suspicions arose. The Tramp is tossed into prison, where a new set of comic set pieces can arise to no ultimate end (be it narrative or thematic), and so on.


The rest of Modern Times is a largely disparate collection of comic moments, some of them notably stronger than others – with only a rather light basting of industry and “modern” technology to connect them. (A frankly stronger version of the same notion can be found in Jacques Tati’s Play Time.) Narrative fragmentation is a common feature of Chaplin’s, er, features, owing to his sporadic and improvisatory means of working (also his peculiar perfectionism). Somehow this episodic construction feels more damning in Modern Times, which doesn’t have as strong of an emotional through-line as some of Chaplin’s more overtly melodramatic works. It’s simply assorted random settings:

- The department store
- The shack
- The dance hall
- The prison
- The docks
- The suburbs
- A brief return to the factory

There is a larger connective tissue than simply assorted misadventures. Any guesses as to what that will be? Yup, a Girl. Specifically, a Gamine, which is (I suppose) a rather more specific generic appellation – “gamine” meaning a female hobo, but somehow also meaning what Audrey Hepburn once was, which is a difficult thing to reconcile. As usual, Chaplin casts his…er, let’s say “girlfriend,” because it’s unclear whether he was ever actually married to Paulette Goddard, unless a legally questionable and possibly apocryphal ceremony in China counts. Anyway, Paulette Goddard plays the leading lady, and I must say, she is easily the best gal in a Chaplin picture!


Goddard’s Gamine is a feisty young woman, self-dependent as she steals bread for herself and her fellow hungry wharf rats. Her poverty rivals – nay, exceeds – that of the Tramp’s in any picture, possibly because it comes across as infinitely more realistic. The Gamine is a thoroughly believable person, and thankfully separate from the standard silent film tactic of wilting violet female leads. The Gamine is anything but naïve, and makes a remarkably strong impression in her introduction, an extended dramatic sequence of survival entirely removed from the Tramp’s tomfoolery. Though Chaplin the director does insert some rather cloying melodrama into this section, Goddard nicely sells it.

It helps that Goddard seems, visually, quite out of place in a silent feature – or really any film from its period. Her facial structure, hair and expressions all seem – to excuse the obvious word – modern. There is nothing of the twenties’ doe-eyed waifs in her appearance, no period signifiers of attractiveness – nor does Goddard overplay her beauty. Covered in oil and rags, with sneaky little sideways glances throughout, she rather acts against her beauty, which comes across through a rambunctious energy instead.

It is inevitable that she shall share a romance with the Tramp, though it’s surprising just how equal that romance is. Both are of the same class, put there by social conditions. They are on a surprisingly equal footing in every sense, so Modern Times completely skips any “getting to know you” period (which Chaplin’s films often don’t move beyond). Tramp and the Gamine are a couple from the outset. A lot of the set pieces that follow are then centered upon their domestic life, be it in poverty, in fantasy, or hidden in the department store.


This is Chaplin telling a domestic comedy, in a sense, though marriage is never broached (from what I can tell). That’s a surprising scenario for a silent comedy to take, simply because it feels out of place with the format’s usual regard for “boy meets girl” stories. Take it as a sign of maturity, or of changing times, but there’s a lot in Modern Times which feels out of place in silent cinema – sleek design, Goddard’s timeless appearance, suburban domesticity…cocaine (which would feel out of place in any movie prior to the 1960s, and results in the Tramp’s same basic untempered zaniness). Domesticity is the most interesting element, because there are daydream moments where the Tramp and the Gamine basically picture themselves on the set of a 1950s sitcom. How anachronistic! Obviously a spotlessly clean scene out of “Leave It to Beaver” was conceivable in the ‘30s, in order for Chaplin to parody it. Still, this mode of comedy is light-years separated from the dusty, earthy stunt work most associated with the era.


Yes, a lot of Modern Times is atypical, and while there is no doubt as to its classic status, it is difficult at times to square away with Chaplin’s main body of work (best exemplified by City Lights). Since this is meant as the Tramp’s final farewell, it pushes him to the apocalyptic limits – cocaine, the 1950s predicted, breadline riots, all material that is utterly alien to the Tramp, and perhaps an argument for his departure. How does Chaplin end such a statement?

Well, the climax comes first – in Chaplin’s work, often a bravura stunt sequence. Modern Times, true to its form, goes an idiosyncratic route instead…

THE TRAMP VOCALIZES!

Worry not, he doesn’t speak (which would violate Chaplin’s conception of the little guy), but he’s called upon to perform a song at the club he and the Gamine now work. As a fun little meta joke that wouldn’t be possible without a career of silence behind him, Chaplin milks the moments leading up to the Tramp’s singing for all they’re worth. And…the Tramp sings “The Nonsense Song,” filled with verbiage in the same sense that a James Joyce novel is filled with things that some would call words. Gibberish, in other words. Literally off the cuff, where the smeared lyrics are written. This retains the illusion of the Tramp’s verbal “otherness,” and creates a moment the character cold never improve upon.


The final shot provides closure for the entirety of the Tramp’s adventures. The classical ending sees the Tramp walking alone down the road – “The Lonely Man” from “The Incredible Hulk” optional. Only this time the Tramp is joined by the Gamine, his female counterpart – each abandoned by the ever-evolving nature of progress, but complete together. The Tramp has gotten the girl before, in The Gold Rush and assorted shorts, but this has a greater air of permanence. This is the Tramp still as the Tramp, not transformed by narrative circumstances into someone else.

As a postscript, Modern Times by no means signaled the end of Chaplin’s career, though it would be the last time he would appear as the Tramp. The distinction is somewhat academic, because in The Great Dictator Chaplin appears in two roles with arguable Tramp-like tendencies – as a Jewish barber, and as an ersatz Hitler. (Charlie Chaplin : Adolf Hitler :: Tina Fey : Sarah Palin) The Great Dictator, openly critical of Nazi Germany before it was cool, is a talkie, with a specific plot the Tramp simply does not fit into. For these reasons, it is not a part of the Tramp “continuity” – the Tramp’s essential pantomime is gone, even if Chaplin’s barber retains the Tramp’s visual appearance. Chaplin morphed his Tramp into new characters, evolved him beyond his very Trampiness. It isn’t a clean break, as The Great Dictator is still dependent upon memories of the Tramp, but it is fundamentally different.

The Tramp, No. 6 - Modern Times (1936)

Oh multitudes of ironically ironic ironies! The final silent film made in the silent film era is called Modern Times. And that titular dichotomy is no accident.

Charlie Chaplin persisted in his refusal to kowtow to the overwhelmingly popular “fad” of talking pictures, with their vulgar verbiage, for if anything would destroy the Tramp (synonymous with Chaplin himself), it’s sesquipedalian loquaciousness. To release a silent picture in 1936 is a work of dog headed ludditism, but surely Chaplin knew that time was coming to an end for his Little Tramp. The Tramp’s so-called franchise was dated, not for a loss of popularity or quality or inspiration or proliferation (all these things it excelled at – quite possibly among the most triumphant film franchises ever), but by technology itself! Thus Modern Times doesn’t simply stand as a final farewell to the Tramp, but to an entire form of filmmaking he represented.

With technology (sound technology) making the Tramp obsolete, Chaplin chooses for the theme of his little guy’s final outing technology itself. Though have no doubt that with the Great Depression still in full swing, the Tramp’s position as the silent spokesman for an entire class of underprivileged makes him as potent as ever. But once again, as with City Lights, the march of time changes the nature of poverty right underneath the Tramp’s comically oversized shoes. No more bindles and apple cores, like some John Schwartzwelder script. Progress has come for our Little Tramp, and with it industrialization, atomization, and the dehumanization that implies.


Modern Times thus opens in a lovingly designed Art Deco factory floor, all oversized steel gears and degraded laborers performing repetitive tasks upon the assembly line. Oh, and the Tramp’s there too, working the assembly line like Donald Duck and Lucy Ricardo would do after him. As always with Chaplin’s films, the humor comes directly from the Tramp himself, an alien creature in a more recognizably human world, acting in ways humorously divergent from proper behavior. An abstract grotesque like the Tramp is a good way to engender yuks, but it’s pretty hard to critique an entire system of production with such a tool. (That’s what she said!)

Make no mistake, Chaplin intends a Grand Sweeping Statement with Modern Times, his most overtly political film yet – until he’d take on ze Nazis. It’s kinda hard to miss Chaplin’s point about the drudgery of the capitalist industrial complex when the movie opens by juxtaposing sheep with factory laborers. I suppose at one point that was a clever comparison, and not a fallback for internet trolls. And while some of Chaplin’s past efforts have begged us to consider his politics, it’s practically impossible not to now. Okay…Chaplin was a leftist. To ask the FBI, he was a Communist. He is undoubtedly critical of capitalism, for all the inhumane worker conditions and whatnot. Former filmic efforts have dramatized the plight of the poor, but at last, by directly addressing the system, Chaplin discovers satire, and can have an impact – not with sympathetic, humanist portrayals of the poor, but with specific criticisms of the Robbers Baron (or is that Robber Barons?).


All this places Modern Times squarely in a realm of propaganda…sort of. The image of the Tramp and his coworkers struggling against anti-human forms of machinery recalls many a Soviet effort. Metropolis, a similarly minded German Expressionist masterwork, presents similar imagery. There’s possibly a bit of Dziga Vertov in here too, but with the irony that Chaplin cannot celebrate his adopted nation’s (that’d be the U.S.) technical might, because he is somewhat ideologically opposed to it. I feel this is becoming an ugly summary.

One of Chaplin’s most potent filmic techniques for condemning technology (oh the ironies in that statement!) is quite perfect for his chosen format: the use of dialogue. Say wha?!?! In a silent film?!?! Oh yeah, Modern Times one ups City Lights as a pseudo-silent, building on that film’s synchronized soundtrack by adding in actual chatter...but with a point. The only comprehensible verbiage is spoken through machines, be it via telephone or recordings or oddly retro-futurist tell-o-visual-matic device machineries (i.e. TVs). Genuine human discussion is still rendered, when needed, through title cards. This is a clever means, very in keeping with City Lights, to disregard sound film, even if there’s no particular persuasiveness to this argument.

The Tramp’s time on the factory floor is, while politically loaded, comedic gold – a wholly realized combination of setting and gags and Chaplin’s celebrated pantomime. It climaxes as the Tramp is sucked down into the machine’s innards, made so insane by his repetitive job that he can no longer physically control himself (note the over-your-head message).


This image somewhat recalls Buster Keaton’s great moment of despair in The General, when he is carried away unawares on a train’s spinning rod. Man against machine was always Keaton’s favorite theme, with the whole world presented as a mathematical device pitted against the hero – who could only overcome through technical superiority. Keaton’s comedy is deadpan and relatively rigid, most unlike Chaplin’s fluid, often overacted cartoonish lunacy. Thus pitting Chaplin against a gewgaw yields a very different end result, one focused upon his outsized physical gyrations – Chaplin becomes a part of the machine, and retains those traits upon leaving the factory, while Keaton makes the machine a part of himself.

At this point, Modern Times would make for a fantastic short film, with the Tramp’s time in the factory almost exactly two reels long. The movie has peaked, with still an hour to go and nothing nearly so pointed to do with it.

Unemployed and out on the streets, the Tramp reverts to his usual hobo ways. Much of that sleek set design, so striking against the Tramp’s old-fashioned frame, gives way for a more blandly realistic look at industrial slums – like something from the Italian neo-realist school. There are social problems to explore, like picketing and riots – resulting in the Tramp leading a Communist parade. While this is potentially an honest mistake, one can kind of see where the FBI’s suspicions arose. The Tramp is tossed into prison, where a new set of comic set pieces can arise to no ultimate end (be it narrative or thematic), and so on.


The rest of Modern Times is a largely disparate collection of comic moments, some of them notably stronger than others – with only a rather light basting of industry and “modern” technology to connect them. (A frankly stronger version of the same notion can be found in Jacques Tati’s Play Time.) Narrative fragmentation is a common feature of Chaplin’s, er, features, owing to his sporadic and improvisatory means of working (also his peculiar perfectionism). Somehow this episodic construction feels more damning in Modern Times, which doesn’t have as strong of an emotional through-line as some of Chaplin’s more overtly melodramatic works. It’s simply assorted random settings:

- The department store
- The shack
- The dance hall
- The prison
- The docks
- The suburbs
- A brief return to the factory

There is a larger connective tissue than simply assorted misadventures. Any guesses as to what that will be? Yup, a Girl. Specifically, a Gamine, which is (I suppose) a rather more specific generic appellation – “gamine” meaning a female hobo, but somehow also meaning what Audrey Hepburn once was, which is a difficult thing to reconcile. As usual, Chaplin casts his…er, let’s say “girlfriend,” because it’s unclear whether he was ever actually married to Paulette Goddard, unless a legally questionable and possibly apocryphal ceremony in China counts. Anyway, Paulette Goddard plays the leading lady, and I must say, she is easily the best gal in a Chaplin picture!


Goddard’s Gamine is a feisty young woman, self-dependent as she steals bread for herself and her fellow hungry wharf rats. Her poverty rivals – nay, exceeds – that of the Tramp’s in any picture, possibly because it comes across as infinitely more realistic. The Gamine is a thoroughly believable person, and thankfully separate from the standard silent film tactic of wilting violet female leads. The Gamine is anything but naïve, and makes a remarkably strong impression in her introduction, an extended dramatic sequence of survival entirely removed from the Tramp’s tomfoolery. Though Chaplin the director does insert some rather cloying melodrama into this section, Goddard nicely sells it.

It helps that Goddard seems, visually, quite out of place in a silent feature – or really any film from its period. Her facial structure, hair and expressions all seem – to excuse the obvious word – modern. There is nothing of the twenties’ doe-eyed waifs in her appearance, no period signifiers of attractiveness – nor does Goddard overplay her beauty. Covered in oil and rags, with sneaky little sideways glances throughout, she rather acts against her beauty, which comes across through a rambunctious energy instead.

It is inevitable that she shall share a romance with the Tramp, though it’s surprising just how equal that romance is. Both are of the same class, put there by social conditions. They are on a surprisingly equal footing in every sense, so Modern Times completely skips any “getting to know you” period (which Chaplin’s films often don’t move beyond). Tramp and the Gamine are a couple from the outset. A lot of the set pieces that follow are then centered upon their domestic life, be it in poverty, in fantasy, or hidden in the department store.


This is Chaplin telling a domestic comedy, in a sense, though marriage is never broached (from what I can tell). That’s a surprising scenario for a silent comedy to take, simply because it feels out of place with the format’s usual regard for “boy meets girl” stories. Take it as a sign of maturity, or of changing times, but there’s a lot in Modern Times which feels out of place in silent cinema – sleek design, Goddard’s timeless appearance, suburban domesticity…cocaine (which would feel out of place in any movie prior to the 1960s, and results in the Tramp’s same basic untempered zaniness). Domesticity is the most interesting element, because there are daydream moments where the Tramp and the Gamine basically picture themselves on the set of a 1950s sitcom. How anachronistic! Obviously a spotlessly clean scene out of “Leave It to Beaver” was conceivable in the ‘30s, in order for Chaplin to parody it. Still, this mode of comedy is light-years separated from the dusty, earthy stunt work most associated with the era.


Yes, a lot of Modern Times is atypical, and while there is no doubt as to its classic status, it is difficult at times to square away with Chaplin’s main body of work (best exemplified by City Lights). Since this is meant as the Tramp’s final farewell, it pushes him to the apocalyptic limits – cocaine, the 1950s predicted, breadline riots, all material that is utterly alien to the Tramp, and perhaps an argument for his departure. How does Chaplin end such a statement?

Well, the climax comes first – in Chaplin’s work, often a bravura stunt sequence. Modern Times, true to its form, goes an idiosyncratic route instead…

THE TRAMP VOCALIZES!

Worry not, he doesn’t speak (which would violate Chaplin’s conception of the little guy), but he’s called upon to perform a song at the club he and the Gamine now work. As a fun little meta joke that wouldn’t be possible without a career of silence behind him, Chaplin milks the moments leading up to the Tramp’s singing for all they’re worth. And…the Tramp sings “The Nonsense Song,” filled with verbiage in the same sense that a James Joyce novel is filled with things that some would call words. Gibberish, in other words. Literally off the cuff, where the smeared lyrics are written. This retains the illusion of the Tramp’s verbal “otherness,” and creates a moment the character cold never improve upon.


The final shot provides closure for the entirety of the Tramp’s adventures. The classical ending sees the Tramp walking alone down the road – “The Lonely Man” from “The Incredible Hulk” optional. Only this time the Tramp is joined by the Gamine, his female counterpart – each abandoned by the ever-evolving nature of progress, but complete together. The Tramp has gotten the girl before, in The Gold Rush and assorted shorts, but this has a greater air of permanence. This is the Tramp still as the Tramp, not transformed by narrative circumstances into someone else.

As a postscript, Modern Times by no means signaled the end of Chaplin’s career, though it would be the last time he would appear as the Tramp. The distinction is somewhat academic, because in The Great Dictator Chaplin appears in two roles with arguable Tramp-like tendencies – as a Jewish barber, and as an ersatz Hitler. (Charlie Chaplin : Adolf Hitler :: Tina Fey : Sarah Palin) The Great Dictator, openly critical of Nazi Germany before it was cool, is a talkie, with a specific plot the Tramp simply does not fit into. For these reasons, it is not a part of the Tramp “continuity” – the Tramp’s essential pantomime is gone, even if Chaplin’s barber retains the Tramp’s visual appearance. Chaplin morphed his Tramp into new characters, evolved him beyond his very Trampiness. It isn’t a clean break, as The Great Dictator is still dependent upon memories of the Tramp, but it is fundamentally different.

The Tramp, No. 3 - The Gold Rush (1925)

To recap (mostly for myself), by 1921 and The Kid, Charlie Chaplin enjoyed the following freedoms: Autonomy as lead actor, writer, director, producer, editor, choreographer, composer, et cetera, free to make movies unhindered by financial necessity or the whims of a distributor, subservient solely to his muse. The only way Chaplin’s self-dictated Little Tramp series could get even more privileged would be if Chaplin started his very own movie studio.

Well, he’d already done just that…in 1919, Chaplin created United Artists (with D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford) to escape the standard studio system.

We are well into the 1920s now, the height of the silent film era…and Chaplin significantly slows down his output, with the assurance he would remain a draw regardless. It has been opined [citation needed] that Chaplin wouldn’t create new comedies for his Tramp character unless inspiration hit. One could say, with The Kid building upon assorted shorts, that the Tramp had done all he could in his usual setting of urban poverty. The Gold Rush hails a setting switch.


This wouldn’t come out until 1925, four years after The Kid, with nothing in between to rival it (just a few minor shorts such as The Idle Class, Pay Day and The Pilgrim). By modern terms, four years isn’t that long to wait for a sequel, but compare this to Chaplin’s initial turnaround, between Kid Auto Races at Venice and Mabel’s Strange Predicament: Two days! Two days to four years, a quantitative change which indicates the effect of switching over to feature filmmaking. As vindication of this slow-down, The Gold Rush wrangled up an unfathomable gross of $4,250,000, plus one extra dollar. Four million dollars, in 1926 money (the highest grossing of all silent comedies!) – not only did Chaplin remain a draw in considerable absence, he became a rarity, more valuable in measured doses.

The Gold Rush's genesis lies in sudden inspiration, since Chaplin wasn’t simply developing Tramp vehicles willy-nilly, but waiting for the perfect concept. Chaplin read up on the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush, about the hardships prospectors faced in the icy north. For whatever obscure reason, this historical reality of mass poverty and starvation, this material spoke out to Chaplin and said “I would make for an hilarious comedy.”

It’s true that Chaplin’s comedies derive much of their power from non-comic scenarios. Look to the The Kid’s black comedy of child abandonment, then picture an entire movie based around funny death. Slapping the Tramp into 1897 lets Chaplin mine for comedy just as the Tramp simultaneously mines for gold. Some of The Gold Rush’s funniest moments come early, through the simply contrast of the Tramp ambling awkwardly past icy precipices and unseen brown bears.

Actually, The Gold Rush is no mere pastiche of a more ostensibly serious gold rush movie. It is the era’s premiere, nay possibly only worthwhile look into the setting. The Trail of ’98 and Klondike Annie would only come later, for the spirit of copycatting is as old as time itself. Chaplin, in assembling his picture, did painstaking historical research, creating an accurate look back into the nostalgic “Gay Nineties” (tee hee hee!, I know), which just happens to feature the Tramp. Hell, some of Chaplin’s (the director’s) heaviest lifting occurs in sequences not even having to do with the Tramp! Consider his staged recreation of the Chikoot Trail –


- compared to the real deal –


For a comedy film, this is nearing Cecile B. DeMille levels of spectacle, what with the hundreds of faceless extras, meticulously recreated ginormous sets, and an utter lack of special effects to cheapen the effort – “spectacle” is the most successful form of silent film drama. Since Chaplin, with his storied love of pathos, is increasingly inclined to create serio-comic dramedies, it’s welcome that he embraces this mode of seriousness.

Actually, there is an element of The Gold Rush which recalls some of the less maudlin works of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd – fellow comedians more wholly devoted to comedy-as-thriller, comedy-as-stunt-show. There is a palpable danger in the wintry Klondike, well beyond the mere tragedy of the gutter – Chaplin’s favored setting. The Gold Rush is an adventure film, in its way, repeatedly placing the Tramp in harm’s way, then devising comic solutions to rescue him. This being Chaplin, and not Keaton, there is a noted de-emphasis upon stunt work; danger comes from different areas, of greater interest to Chaplin.


For instance, much of The Gold Rush sees the Tramp ensconced away in a single, one-room cabin during the worst of winter. His solitary mate: Big Jim (Mack Swain, professionally enormous man). Ignoring a brief run-in with a murderous fugitive (Tom Murray), the duo mostly holes up to face hunger and want and loneliness – certainly subject matter dear to Chaplin’s heart. Despite whatever hazards the setting itself might toss out – blizzards, bears, cliffs, ice flows, avalanches – cabin fever is Chaplin’s meat. Chaplin himself (or the Tramp, at least) is also meat, to go by Big Jim’s famished hallucinations of a man-sized chicken.

Keaton, given the same setting, would have no doubt emphasized the storm – Steamboat Bill, Jr. provides a good example of that. He would have also played up the mechanical fact of mining, be it panning for gold, or digging shafts, or chipping away at cliff side. It’s surprising then to note that the Tramp never mines on screen, just as the Dude never bowls. One might consider this an oversight on Chaplin’s part, except he clearly retains an interest in depravation for its own sake – In place of a raucous mining set piece, instead the Tramp boils his boots, and eats the laces like spaghetti. (A classic example of Chaplin humor, more gentle than hilarious.) There is greater humanism in joking about hunger, especially with Chaplin’s street urchin childhood, not his millionaire superstar 1920s fame.

It’s easy enough to question how Chaplin could draw out a feature film (meaning now 96 minutes) with the Tramp merely sequestered in a cabin. He cannot. Before the film is even halfway over, Chaplin relocates the Tramp to a gold rush town, to basically forego prospecting lunacy for the rest of the running time. This is, for me, a mistake, as it removes that danger element which makes The Gold Rush so involving. The Tramp, being a timid soul, instead becomes the Alaskan equivalent of a street bum (Levi Johnston?), attempting to survive via odd jobs and whatnot. Snow shoveling, largely, a chance for momentary physical hijinks. This is much closer to a generic Tramp movie, with the setting barely even mattering. Sigh, at least they’re not going with one of those archaic “Tramp falls for the Girl” stories.


Oh curse it all, they are! Meet Georgia (Georgia Hale – no points for that name), the saloon girl. The Tramp falls instantly in love with her and…well, quite frankly, I can barely even recall much of what occupies the vast majority of The Gold Rush – at least, not in the specifics. An occasionally lopsided tale of frontier romance plays out. The Tramp plays each moment of romantic success by smiling warmly towards the camera, or otherwise telegraphing his joy. I suppose it makes me a heartless curmudgeon that I am mostly apathetic towards this. Chaplin’s appeals to genuine emotion, while no doubt hugely effective, always seem somehow distant in my mind. I am more moved by Buster Keaton’s completely emotionless stone face than all the heart-grabbing, spontaneous joy the Tramp evokes. (Yeah, yeah, my devotion to the other great silent comedian becomes my great undoing in trying to engage this series.)


So be it. It still behooves me to at least point out the classic moments. Chief is Thanksgiving dinner, where the Tramp (now inundated with food) performs a little soft shoe routine involving a couple of dancing bread rolls. Just as Duck Soup’s immortal mirror routine didn’t originate with the Marx Brothers, so can Chaplin’s famous loaf dance be traced back further, to The Rough House with Fatty Arbuckle and – oh no, here it comes! – Buster Keaton. Okay, okay, calm down, Chaplin is good, he elevates a forgotten gag to the level of revered pantomime, I am a Grinch.

This whole middle section is, in retrospect, greatly irksome, when the same exact tomfoolery wouldn’t be out of place in a more typical Tramp short. Why? That Klondike setting. There’s so much potential, with the whole great outdoors, and thousands of men all desperately facing the elements to discover minimal financial reward. Why why why take that promise, deliver a few good starvation gags, then revert into the same standard love story as always?! What’d odd is The Gold Rush feels, somehow, less coherently singular than the lesser The Kid – which made its pseudo-fatherhood story the crux. The Gold Rush has moments of greatness, almost all pertaining directly to the fact of, well, a gold rush. The cabin scenes beforehand – totally wonderful. Thankfully, there’s a bit more where that came from.


Pausing for a moment…Chaplin films, more so than other silent comedies, dwell upon their happy endings, to a fault. Whether the Tramp gets the Girl or not, attains wealth or not, there is a carefully controlled emotion (i.e. pathos) to go out on. (Meanwhile, Keaton would sometimes end his onscreen romances with tombstones, to avoid all treacle.) Given a gold rush, the natural conclusion is to see the Tramp attain riches…and Georgia on his side, for good measure. And it just so happens that Big Jim had discovered a mighty gold claim before ever even meeting the Tramp. Only now he’s come down with the amnesia, as obedient to plot as ever, and the cowardly Tramp is called upon to return to the feared Arctic and find Jim’s lode.

So the two head back to the cabin, and it’s astounding to see the Tramp actually, in some vague way, earning his triumph for once. Compare it to A Dog’s Life, where he simple finds stolen riches, the end. Here, the Klondike demands some degree of effort, and even if we never see the Tramp directly seeking gold (despite that being his reason for being in Alaska to begin with!). At least he does something to earn his top hat and monocle at the end.

But first, this happens…


That occurred during an overnight snowstorm, with Jim and the Tramp (sounds like a morning drive-time DJ combo) asleep unaware in their beloved death cabin. And thanks to immortal drunkenness, when the cabin tilts, it’s written off as a hangover. So start many, many minutes of sublime comic suspense, a literal cliffhanger of balancing this precarious building. Now this is the sort of physical adventure I’d hoped for throughout, even if it retains that Chaplinesque air of pantomime, never inching into Keatonian daredevilry. That means when the Tramp wanders out into the drop-off – which is inevitable, given the scenario – his dangling is shown not through insane stunt work, but with a stop motion, miniature Tramp. The effect is rather noticeable today, but it doesn’t harm the sequence – the thrill comes from how things are choreographed, not just executed. And with this climax, The Gold Rush completely redeems itself.


I’ll largely pass over the epilogue in silence, where the Tramp, Robber Baron, has his final romantic reconciliation with Georgia. As an ending, it means to emphasize the value of love over money, and I’m not touching that one.

Postscript: In 1942, Chaplin re-released The Gold Rush as a talkie (…sort of). It features a musical track, with Chaplin himself narrating the film as a substitute for the usual title cards. There are some further changes, to projection speed and the romantic subplot. As tinkering goes, it’s not nearly as infuriating as George Lucas’ Special Editions, but it seems fed by the same sort of myopia. The additional aural elements overemphasize the maudlin pathos of the endeavor, which is appropriate enough in the Georgia sequences, but not really needed with Big Jim. With silence, one is freer to read a preferred mood (the great joy, and great challenge, of silent cinema, which demands much more of the audience). I personally prefer the silent version (which is, oddly enough, completely silent, thanks to the 1942 version’s impact – I just put on some Ennio Morricone instead). Though for the average viewer, the sound version is certainly more accessible. I’d almost call it a perfect gateway to silent films.

The Tramp, No. 4 - The Circus (1928)

The Circus was Charlie Chaplin’s release for the back half of the ‘20s. Happily toiling for his very own United Artists, features starring the Tramp were now all Chaplin was putting out, and he hadn’t done anything since 1925’s The Gold Rush. This is not even remotely problematic, for though The Circus underperformed relative to The Gold Rush (finishing 7th for the decade financially, as opposed to 5th), its more modest scope and ambitions fit that.

The Circus is the result of a long-term thought, dating back a decade: What if the Tramp went to a circus? This is a simple idea, deceptively so, more in line with the mentality which produced the shorts of the ‘10s – change up the location, and in each film explore the new comic possibilities it presents. The Circus feels, with no insult intended, like an old Chaplin short stretched out to three times its length. There are barely any plot complications one couldn’t find in some of Chaplin’s superior shorts – in fact, both The Tramp and The Vagabond provide the dramatic backbone which The Circus then elaborates upon.

Here is the plot, in total: The Tramp (Chaplin, duh) goes to the circus. He gains employment, falls in love with a nameless Girl (Merna Kennedy), and ultimately leaves dejected upon learning her heart belongs to a more traditionally manly suitor (here, Harry Crocker). For reference, it’s pretty close to the plot of Big Top Pee-Wee as well.


The meat of this story is obviously the romance, same as it is not only in the majority of Chaplin’s filmography, but in that of practically every silent era comedian. A love interest makes for a great MacGuffin for all the ridiculous stunt sequences filmmakers cooked up in the ‘20s. And with the circus setting, nicely hermetic and self-contained, a love story does not distract from the setting’s promise in the way it does in The Gold Rush. Any zaniness the Tramp gets up to under the big top can be traced back to his desires to impress the Girl – that is, when he’s not engaging in tomfoolery in order to eat, because hunger remains the driving force in the Tramp’s universe, which really makes one worry about living conditions in the 1920s. (Gags such as stealing away the apple from a William Tell performance would, in today’s climate, be obesity jokes. Here, it’s a joke on paucity, not abundance – an interesting distinction.)


The broad strokes of The Circus are absolutely nothing unique in the Tramp’s playbook, and for that reason it gains the same advantages as the shorts. One advantage is that the story is preset, formulaic in the way which benefits comedy, because it creates anticipation, can then subvert it, all in an intimately familiar framework. Like a short, The Circus excels around that basic story, because the cloying love scenes between the Tramp and the Girl are nothing new whatsoever, and I’ve said my peace on this side of Chaplin’s game. So it’s a good thing that the circus is a rich setting, wholly capable of sustaining a short film’s formula for feature length, with a varied series of individual comic sequences:

- First, a cop chases the Tramp through the fairgrounds, which is another way of saying “Silent Comedy 101.” This particular cop chase stands out through the clever use of a Mirror Maze, long before The Lady from Shanghai or Enter the Dragon did so more seriously. Moving outside, Chaplin also gets the opportunity to fashion an animatronics-inspired pantomime routine, all the better to fit in with the Noah’s Ark robots on display actively violating God’s laws and the Uncanny Valley.

- The chase continues into the big top, along the way passing over Gravitrons and other such spinning amusements. Unintentionally taking the circus’ center ring, the Tramp upstages the traditional (and purposefully unfunny) clowns – surely a bit of self-congratulatory meta commentary on Chaplin’s part, and indeed the start of a thread. The gist of it is that the audience (the circus’ audience that is; people at home may be of more wildly divergent opinions) find the Tramp hee-la-ri-ous, and thus our hero is employed.


A few more random scenarios:

- The Tramp performs as the magician – and screws it up royally. An attempt to pull a rabbit from his top hat (which he traded his traditional derby out for) results in the mass escape of bunnies, piglets and doves. Furthermore, the Tramp exposes the trick’s entire secret – the Alliance isn’t going to be too pleased with this.


- The Tramp is locked in the cage with a sleeping lion. He tries to escape without waking the great beast, resulting in a silent symphony of noises nearly made, then avoided – slamming doors, falling pots, barking dogs, even a tiger at one stage just in case lions aren’t your particular big cat of choice. (This moment has its ancestor in “Don Quixote,” which is an automatic way to curry my favor. Mmm, curry…)

- Climactically, the Tramp performs on the high wire trapeze – to impress the Girl, natch. Anticipating future developments in Hong Kong cinema, the Tramp hooks himself up with a safety wire, to prevent falling…and Chaplin is among the few situational comedians who can actually make the inclusion of a safety device the cause of greater danger. (There isn’t, overall, the same sort of devotion to danger here as in The Gold Rush, but those unexpected moments are most impressive indeed – Hell, I’d wager Chaplin’s tightrope performance is even the closest he’s come to approximating the more death-defying stunts of Keaton or Lloyd.) And all this is before the scene inundates with monkeys, because like with “Don Quixote,” monkeys automatically make anything better.


So it goes for The Circus’ major set pieces, individual encapsulations of joy which best represent their movie.

Then there’s the question of Chaplin’s meta commentary – and relax, there’s nothing particularly up-its-own-butt with medium awareness here (we leave that to Keaton’s utterly indispensible masterpiece Sherlock, Jr.). Recall the ringmaster (Al Ernest Garcia) hired the Tramp because he was funny. Naturally, the Tramp is made a clown, though he’s never put into the traditional clown makeup, possibly because everyone realizes that the Tramp’s classic appearance is in fact Chaplin’s makeup. Or something – it made more sense in my brain. The only issue is that the Tramp, as a clown trying to be funny, isn’t. Not that the other clowns are funny either (creepy, yes, but you already knew that), but a self-aware Tramp cannot reach even their level of schmaltzy, trite slapstick. To give Chaplin the credit, he (and not his Tramp) remains funny – a guy trying to be funny and failing, portrayed by a guy trying to be funny and succeeding, it’s all pretty good.


…The Tramp cannot be intentionally funny – His whole persona was built upon a poor man with awkward physical delusions of class, hence his cane and derby and ill-fitting pants. (A question arises: How do we get our mirth from the Tramp? Do we laugh with or at him? For all his human desires, he feels wholly unreal, down to the almost ceremonial body language which no longer carries anything identifiably “funny” about it.) To rectify this problem, the ringmaster realizes that the Tramp is funny in non-comic performances – leading chiefly to his magic act (the trapeze scenario is more something of the Tramp’s own devising). There is a potential farce to be had in this notion, to continually reinvent a performer’s act without his own knowing – a farce Chaplin is rather disinterested in, as it butts heads with the growing romantic subplot (which I won’t examine). But it boils down to this: The Tramp brings the circus untold success.


The Circus was originally intended for a 1927 release – a mere two years after The Gold Rush. This was on the dawn of the sound era, and legend has it that some of Chaplin’s more moving trapeze scenes were filmed immediately following the release of The Jazz Singer (the first big deal sound picture). It then becomes easy to read the circus as a microcosm of Chaplin’s greater Hollywood career – Its initial rabble of grotesque, undisciplined clowns clearly a parallel for Keystone Studios. And when the classic ending from The Tramp replays –the Tramp walks alone down a deserted road – it comes when he and the circus part ways, the fallout of his doomed romance. Could it be Chaplin was declaring his hostility towards sound cinema, a movement he proved obstinately opposed to?

Well, there’s a great deal of personal darkness informing The Circus, for as disposable and light as it is (certainly after all the abject starvation of The Gold Rush or the emotional apocalypse of The Kid). That its release was delayed for a year speaks volumes – of Chaplin’s struggles with the IRS, who were on a training run for Capone, demanding back taxes from fat cat celebrities.

Chaplin wound up owing the Federal Government…uh…I actually don’t know, so let’s just say a million dollars. (That’s a rounded estimation, but the most common number cited in any Chaplin biography.) Around the same time, he owed something similar to Lisa Grey, his second wife he was in the middle of divorcing. For you see, Grey was at one time a sixteen-year-old, which is what attracted Chaplin to her, but now she was a doddering old hen at nineteen! Chaplin the humorist was truly his era’s Woody Allen, for he persisted in his public demand for nubile young flesh, reportedly whoring himself around with underage girls repea– What am I, the “TMZ” for 1927?! (For what it’s worth, Nabokov’s “Lolita” was inspired by all this mess. What a legacy!)


Okay, the main point is Chaplin’s life was incredibly crappy while The Circus was being made, well in contrast with his Tramp character – and that’s to say nothing of the film studio burning down, or Chaplin’s mother dying. In light of my repeatedly-stated preference for Buster Keaton (Keaton’s The General is perhaps my favorite film of all time), it’s easy to think harshly of the Chaplin in this era. Basically, he seems desperate for attention. There’s mugging going on, with little grins and sideways glances at the camera. For over the past decade, he’d been the unquestioned comic star of the universe, who could do no (artistic) wrong, and it’s likely brilliance doesn’t best thrive while being actively hailed. I fear I’m largely repeating an old Roger Ebert argument here, and obviously stating it worse.

What I’m saying is that there’s a disconnect between the Tramp and Chaplin, one living hand-to-mouth, the other making movies only when it damn well suits him. Chaplin still expects our opinion of the Tramp to be our opinion of him, the hard-working underdog with millions of dollars and multiple barely legal love slaves. Thus, to regain our trust, the Tramp ends The Circus as aimless as he began, sans success or love or even an apple. (Oh, and he steals from a small child, which I trust was “relatable” to the average American in 1928.)

What little effect assorted scandals had upon Chaplin’s art or public reputation, all things considered! Many of his greatest masterpieces are yet to come, as proof that certain child-impregnating artists (see also Roman Polanski) can somehow remain forever divorced (as it were) from their scandalous real lives. The fictional Tramp, if separated from Chaplin, still has value.

The Tramp, No. 5 - City Lights (1931)

“A comedy romance in pantomime.”

City Lights: The world’s second greatest movie, so says the British Film Institute circa 1952 (second to Bicycle Thieves, which is more foreign and therefore better). Orson Welles’ favorite movie. Nearly so for Kubrick. More recently, AFI’s top romantic comedy, thirty-eighth best comedy, but somehow better than that overall at eleventh. IMDb’s highest-ranked silent film.

City Lights is very well Charlie Chaplin’s ultimate creation, even if he would personally point to something else (The Gold Rush) as his masterpiece – owing no doubt to the happier circumstances of its creation. City Lights is the essential Chaplin, the essential Little Tramp, because it unites all of Chaplin’s chief concerns into a single whole – his pathos, slapstick, pantomime, obsession with class as seen by a dignified vagabond. If the earlier, 1910s Tramp shorts created a formula (Tramp seeks Girl, usually fails), and longer features then explored that fundamental relationship through other entities such as a dog (A Dog’s Life) or a child (The Kid), then City Lights comes full circle, and wholly examines the Tramp and the Girl relationship at feature length, with the maturity of time. Unlike The Gold Rush (where the Girl’s presence is barely tolerable, for me) and The Circus (where she is a painless, necessary evil), in City Lights she is fundamental, essential for Chaplin to cement his combination of comedy and drama.


It is highly worth noting that City Lights is a silent movie, as have been all of Chaplin’s films so far. But it’s 1931 now, four years following The Jazz Singer, and the film industry has switched over to talkies with a dedication that should make today’s lunatic 3-D zealots blush. From 1929 onwards, one could nearly count on but two hands the silent movies released with that intent – it was no time to be a luddite, or nostalgic for an outdated format. Chaplin is a large part of this minor holdout, as he had the cachet to be free even from overarching entertainment meta-narratives – Buñuel, Murnau and Ozu are among the few other late-adopters.

The decision to retain silence is central to City Lights, which wouldn’t hold nearly its potency were it a product of but a few years earlier. Chaplin’s Tramp was, in Chaplin’s mind, purely a silent pantomime character, a wholly exaggerated, unreal figure whose very essence would be lost with speech – and keep in mind talkies of 1931 were largely word-obsessed harangues, never-ending diatribes delivered rapidly and unintelligibly before a static, disinterested camera. Truly a lot of cinema’s beauty was lost with the technological transition to chattiness, chiefly its air of spectacle, now that movies were limited to a soundstage. The very fundamental nature of filmmaking changed, to the extent where breathless exposition became a crutch, and it’s still difficult to find a movie which truly makes the utmost of its visual nature.

For Chaplin, his perfectionist approach to filming wouldn’t work with sound, which necessitates a script preplanned to the nth degree prior to shooting – totally at odds with Chaplin’s love (shared by most other silent film practitioners) for relative improvisation. A Chaplin joint would be sketched out in only the broadest terms prior to shooting, then largely made up on the spot – valuable for a clown like Chaplin, where the “voodoo of location” informs the performance greatly. In cinematic comedy, only recently is some degree of improvisation creeping back, but in a Judd Apatow form which isn’t really comparable. Hence, Chaplin-wise, sequences often follow with a sort of semi-logic, resulting in simple (but not simplistic) plots which are perfectly happy to give way to isolated comic set pieces. Hence the four-year gap between Chaplin films, and their astoundingly consistent quality.


City Lights is not, however, a pure silent film – not technically. It employs a synchronized soundtrack. Chaplin’s orchestrated music is married forever to the visuals onscreen – which is pretty similar to silent-era musical accompaniment, which Chaplin dictated for live performers, but couldn’t control as readily. (See the 1942 reissue of The Gold Rush for a similar approach.) On top of that, Chaplin incorporates “sound effects” into City Lights, and numerous gag routines simply would not work in pure silence: The Tramp, at a hoi polloi shindig of well-heeled snobs, swallows a whistle. He hiccups, it rings, and as a capper, the Tramp becomes Pied Piper to a motley crew of itinerant hound dogs. (A boxing bell serves a similar purpose later on.) Even as recently as 1927, such a scene wouldn’t even be legible. This is an example of Chaplin taking advantage of new technology as he saw fit – approximating something closer to live stage vaudeville – without being beholden to it. (This approach predicts the silent film homages of Jacques Tati.) It’s worth noting that the “sound effects” are really just pieces of music, like the noises reverse-engineered into Fantasia. Most of what appears visually makes no diagetic sound.

Nearly all of City Lights’ dialogue is conveyed the old-fashioned way: through title cards. The sole counterexample occurs at the very start, where a public speech is rendered aurally in “Peanuts”-style “wah-wah-wah-wah-wah” verbal nonsense – a succinct little parody of sound cinema, one I am wholly sympathetic to.

It’s a testament to Chaplin’s popularity and his control over the medium that City Lights was wholly embraced in the midst of a technological revolution. It stands as a treatise of what silence can do that chatter chatter chatter cannot, and thus becomes almost a textbook example of Chaplin. The setting, as per the title, is the city, notably the same basic gutter the Tramp often finds himself in when a more specific locale is unavailable. Such is possibly needed, to best comment upon the old Tramp archetype. There is one notable change, however: It’s now the Great Depression, with social and technological evolution wildly altering the Tramp’s familiar world. His own destitution now reads more clearly, as poverty was a greater daily fact than during the heady days of the ‘20s (at least, it seems more historically appropriate now in 2011).


Chaplin dwells upon class more strongly than usual, countering the Tramp (with his false airs towards sophistication) with a Millionaire (Harry Myers) whose recent financial failures push him in the opposite direction, towards the Tramp’s sphere. If I am still a little opposed to Chaplin’s unconditional hagiography of bums (seeing as he is a multi-millionaire), at least the historical context makes it more acceptable. But the Tramp is really a tool for framing more naturalistic characters, so it helps when all the characters exist in the same economic universe as he.


Romance is central to City Lights, and here it goes: Tonight’s Girl (Virginia Cherrill, only barely capable by Chaplin’s exacting, holier-than-thou standards, leading to occasional unsuccessful recasting and reshoots)…er, tonight’s Girl is a blind flower saleswoman. She is impoverished, at the same station as the Tramp, but beautiful, and therefore out of his league – or at least the Tramp leaps silently to this conclusion. He begins to court her, but with the lightly comic conceit that he must convince her all the while that he is wealthy.

Aiding the Tramp unintentionally in this rouse is the drunken, suicidal Millionaire, who, once the Tramp saves his inebriated life, enjoys a close friendship with him – but only when the Millionaire is wasted. Once sobriety rises its ugly, hangover-ridden head, the plutocrat cannot recognize the Tramp. Still, the Tramp has occasional access to items of wealth, allowing for a more maudlin variation on Tony Curtis’ yacht seduction in Some Like it Hot.


Notice immediately how neither the Girl nor the Millionaire is able to visually recognize the Tramp – which is important, because in silent cinema (unlike talkies), appearance is all there is. Especially with the Girl, Chaplin stages scenes according to the senses, with the only sense we can experience being the one sense the Girl is not afforded. Through her blindness, the Girl becomes a means to discuss (silent) cinema as a total, using a wholly cinematic (i.e. non-conversational) means to do so.


City Lights isn’t huge on plot – it mostly ping pongs the Tramp between the Girl and the Millionaire, with the Millionaire’s occasional inability to recognize the Tramp getting in his way of fooling the Girl into misidentifying him – whoo, my head hurts! Within this framework, as in most Chaplin efforts, there is plenty of room for gag sequences which would play perfectly well on their own as shorts. Mainly, the Tramp takes on an assortment of odd jobs, all done for the Girl’s benefit, and not out of need due to his own poverty – the Tramp’s personal destitution, though rather inescapable because of his archetypal nature, is little more than an ornamental detail.

The Tramp’s jobs range according to Chaplin’s random whims, owing to the broad, generic possibilities of the city setting. Notably, he becomes a pooper scooper and an amateur boxer. The former affords the single most tasteful elephant feces joke cinema has to offer. Tom Green, Chaplin ain’t. The latter creates a boxing sequence which stands as one of Chaplin’s single most celebrated routines, worthy of solo examination…

The Tramp attempts to fix a fight against another boxer, and split the winnings (instead of his skull). Circumstances conspire, as is their wont, so the Tramp instead faces a genuine threat in the ring (it’s Champ vs. Tramp), with only his (the Tramp’s) own arhythmic semi-comic gyrations to protect him. But the Tramp survives for quite a long while, simply by keeping the referee between himself and the boxer. There is some very careful choreography between the three men, and therefore the scene mostly plays out in a single wide shot, to highlight that fact. It seems most of Chaplin’s feature films showcase one show-stopping sequence such as this – The Kid’s vision of Heaven, The Gold Rush’s teetering cabin, The Circus’ trapeze act. Most of the time, this penultimate sequence promises guaranteed enjoyment, even if the overall film doesn’t perfectly work.


It is my curmudgeonly flaw that much of City Lights irks me ever so slightly, in the way all of Chaplin’s oeuvre does. The Girl needs money for that most melodramatic of reasons – she’s sick. The Kid, in its dramatic moments, similarly tugged at the heartstrings in a way which just feels cheap and unearned. Naturally, Chaplin’s narrative assumes the Girl and her family will not be able to pay the doctor’s bill (to say nothing of the late-due rent, just to add to the sorrow orgy). Therefore it’s up to the Tramp to raise the cash, for completely selfless reasons…which is totally selfish of Chaplin. We cheer on the Tramp, and by proxy Chaplin, for this fictional act of charity…or we’re meant to. Along with the occasional camera glances Chaplin insists upon, it’s a little too self-conscious, especially when the Tramp is more an incredibly complex system of tics rather than a genuine human being (which is simultaneously the Tramp’s greatest asset, but the reason I cannot side with him nearly as strongly as the everymen of Keaton or Lloyd).

Later on, the Tramp’s amateur philanthropy is motivated by a quest to purchase $1,000 eyeball surgery. This is more sensible, less melodramatic, and it works with that whole cinematic metaphor, so it’s good.

Meanwhile, the Tramp can never raise cash. Every job instead leads to comic failure. It is an old comedy standby that the hero can never catch a break, that a sitcom protagonist is always denied riches in favor of the status quo. That’s totally appropriate for the loosey-goosey serialization of the Tramp’s anti-continuous franchise. But he’s not doing this for himself, but for the Girl. The universe conspiring to deny her a surgery is only funny if it’s a greater hardship for the Tramp – and it isn’t. His philanthropy (already questionable) gets in the way of laughs, while aiming for emotion. I am a hard nut, and a movie which abandons laffs for seriousness is, to me, fundamentally flawed. It’s insincere.

The greatest issue, though, is the simple, eternal fact of the Chaplin universe: the poor cannot succeed on their own. I don’t wish to open some debate, but it’s a strange, anti-Horatio Alger sort of argument for a humanist, populist filmmaker like Chaplin to put forth. When the Tramp does amass cash, it’s simply as a random, unearned gift from the drunken Millionaire – it’s always, always, ALWAYS a deus ex machina with Chaplin! This is actually a greater fairytale than a story about “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.” Wealth may only be obtained by random dumb luck. What the hell sort of a message is that?!


Besides, the Millionaire sobers up almost instantly after paying the Tramp (following a rather left-field burglar sequence), and thus thinks the Tramp is stealing. Thus the Tramp flees from the cops – that old standby. In some fundamental sense, the Tramp always steals, and though this is different, it feels equally problematic.

All that aside, the moment comes for the Girl’s sight surgery. The ending to City Lights is famously regarded as one of the most brilliant, moving moments in film. I have never been able to watch this scene without the baggage of that claim weighing down upon me. I’ve never felt the raw emotive power others describe – intellectually I kinda get it, so let’s just leave it in those terms…

Chaplin’s films are often defined by their endings, be they happy or sad. What City Lights does well, without revealing too much detail (because you really ought to see it for yourself, in spite of my personal apathy), is that it creates an open-ended resolution. What occurs has the potential for bliss or tragedy. The conclusion also ties up all of City Lights’ silent film metaphorics, in a way that is a great big question mark about the future of cinema. Given Chaplin’s own ambivalence towards talk, that feels like the best way to leave things off.