A TRIBUTE TO CHAPLIN

Kakali Roy

My first introduction to a Chaplin film dates back to the late seventies, when I got the opportunity to watch ‘The Gold Rush’ at the Globe Theatre. At that time, I

was merely a kid. But it was undoubtedly a splendid experience. Even at that tender age, the little tramp stole my heart with his comical gestures and nuances. The film had a wonderful contribution of comedy pathos. It left me with the feeling of wanting to see it again. Written, directed and acted by Charles Chaplin, the film also had the mark of a distilled simplicity, a purity of style, and an impeccable craftsmanship. Watching his film, one can realize that he had been one of the very few artists of the twentieth century, who could combine laughter with symbolism. His films dealt with contemporary issues like the relationship between man and woman, parent and child, the dictator and the dictated, workman and the employer and many more. He debates in his films, for and against the problem and brings the film to a conclusion after having unraveled the knotty  problem sometimes to a successful conclusion. But judged as a whole, it is an enchanting journey through celluloid. Overcoming the early challenges and hiccups that have historically been part and parcel of any new artistic venture, he gradually earned a coveted place in the contemporary world of cinema with immense appreciation pour in form  all over the globe.

The early years his life had been quite eventful. His father, long estranged from his mother, was for a long time a very remote figure, viewed and admired from a distance. Born to a father who had been a successful vocalist as well as an actor and a mother who also had been  a stage actress and a singer, Chaplin, from his childhood was gifted with an acumen for acting. But quite unfortunately, with the early demise of his father, Charlie was thrown on his own resources,  before he reached the age of ten. During these years, Charlie had to undergo a virtual struggle for survival. It happened very often that the whole family had to skip their lunch or dinner, due to extreme poverty. Without any formal education, he had to do various odd jobs. Many a day, they had to spend sleepless nights on the street, devoid of any shelter. But all these could not deter his spirit. All his sufferings, enriched his experience and strengthened his spirit. In his autobiography  Chaplin had written, “By then, I had already become an expert in many professions”. Truly speaking, he had a varied experience by working in different professions. Starting from a grocery shop, he worked in a doctor’s chamber, stationery shop, printing press, saloon, fire brigade, circus and many more. His was a rags to riches story. While working in different professions he minutely observed the people around him, the experience of which later helped him in his films. Even in the hour of acute crisis he never gave up his determination and ambition.

It was his mother who gave him an extensive  training on miming, which later on turned out to be of great help in his acting career. He became a master of the pantomime. Chaplin started his acting career as a tap dancer. But, it is his accidental chance to act in a play named, “ Jim, romance of a cockney”, that became a turning point in his career as a comedian. At that time he was constantly traveling from one place to another with this troupe. This was also the first time he got true recognition of his hidden talent. Prior to his entry into the world of cinema, he received extensive training on stage. Along with this, he also took lessons in violin.

However, after a certain period of time he joined the Karno Theater Troupe with which he traveled large parts of Europe, and got acquainted with the different genre as well as forms of comedy. The year 1910 was a memorable year in his career, as he was selected for the American tour of the theatre troupe. He enthralled the American audience with his characterisation in a sketch entitled, ‘A night in an English Musical Hall’. After watching him on stage, a famous American critic at that time comented, “The little young man, who acted in the lead role, is no doubt a very seasoned actor”. He stayed there for two long years. Al through   was just twenty one and put up at a hotel room. His only companions were a cello and a violin. Chaplin developed a great passion for these two instruments and also spent time reading books.

It was during his second visit to America that Chaplin was offered on motion Picture contract by the Mack Senett and the Keystone Film company, which was the pioneer of comic films at that time. This was his first transition from the stage to the screen.

It was an age of silent films. The time span of these films mostly ranged from 10-15 minutes and there was no script as such. Based on a sketchy story line, the actors through  their comical gestures and expressions used to enact a ridiculous scene before the camera. These films mainly lacked the depth as well as the elements of a comedy, in real terms. Rather, it was a short of slapstick comedy, mainly aimed at providing some comic relief to the spectators. Chaplin started visiting these studies regularly and concentrated on various cinematic techniques prevalent at that time. Being the genius he was, he did not take much time in adopting as well as enriching the same for himself. Along with acting, he became a master script writer and director. The first film he acted in was “Making a living” and his second film was “Kid auto race at Venice”. It is in this film, he first adopted the image of the little tramp, wearing a funny light coat, a loose pantaloon, with a weird looking moustache, resembling a tooth brush. He maintained this image in many of his films. With the Keystone company, Chaplin acted in almost 35 films, amongst which seventeen films were acted and directed by himself. Within a year, Chaplin left his mark as a very popular actor in the realm of the world cinema.

   In the year 1918, Chaplin signed a contact with the National Films Company. First film with this company was “A dog’s life”, which brought him vast accolades. Being a symbolic representation, the film depicts the pathetic life of a casual tramp and his canine companion. It is their extreme interdependence and close companionship which makes the film worth watching. Leaving this apart, a rare combination of laughter and pathos also gives the film a separate identity. The film also appears to be a symbolic representation of the suffering as well as helplessness of the downtrodden, who are made to concede that they have no other option but to accept it as their destiny.

Subsequently, in 1917, he decided to become an independent producer and set up his own studios in the heart of the residential section of Hollywood. It was named “Charles Chaplin Film Corporation” which bears the testimony of his inborn talent.

In 1921, he came out with a six reel masterpiece, “The Kid” His directorial venture, engrossing script and acting prowess made the film a box office hit. The story centred around the life an orphan who was brought up by the protagonist, Charlie himself, in extreme misery. The first world war left many children orphaned, and there was no social security for this children as such. Chaplin made this film to show the world the pathetic lifestyle of these children. The constant hide and seek game amongst the orphan boy, his  companion and the police, keeps the audience engrossed and makes them roar in laugher. Chaplin basically had been a spokesman of the masses. He always took delight   in kinship with ordinary citizens and could go deep into the human nature with immeasurable subtlety. He was an actor who could make you laugh in a minute and bring a lump to your throat, the very next moment.

When Charles Chaplin sets a so-called delicious meal, with the shoes, in “The Gold Rush”, he performs an act which is not only funny but is also rich with overtones of symbolical meaning, conveyed through purely visual means. A scene like this could never have been conceived in literary terms. The unique feature of this film is that every time you see it-no matter how long after you saw it the last time, it seems both endearingly familiar and inexhaustibly fresh. We marvel, first of all, at the enormous effectiveness of the scene, where the little tramp eats the shoe on Thanks giving day, as a symbol of the state to which a man may be driven by extreme hunger. The scene opens of the cooking of the shoe, which the little fellow performs with all the expertise of a master chef. When the shoe served on a plate, the audience is thrilled to discover its undeniable resemblance to an actual meat dish. Even the lace of the shoe in turned into sphagetty, with the twist of the fork. Offered the part, Big Jim rejects it and help himself to the tender upper part. The extreme  satisfaction with which the little tramp enjoys the meal, speaks volumes of his unmatchable acting prowess. What the scene primarily induces is of course laughter, but on the other hand, watching this, our mind soars up a plane of high aesthetics delight. In this film, the snowbound hazards faced by these men hunting for gold are a constant and convincing visual presence. Even when a blizzard blows the cabin away and lands it on the edge of the precipice, the technical novelty of this scene induces in us the right mood to enjoy comical scenes that follow. The Gold Rush is like a piece of music of which you know ever bar, yet would prefer to listen to again, rather than to something new and unfamiliar.

The City Lights came out in 1931. Here also Chaplin preferred to the silent, though by that time, the talkies had already arrived with much fanfare. He strongly felt that there was no need of speech, when one could say so much with a lift of the eyebrow and a shrug of the shoulder. With its total weight on the visuals, silent comedy demanded precision of actions to a degree unknown in the era of sound. It was a part of a highly complex and specialized job. One can never forget the mysterious smile and the very special as well as meaningful glance of the leading actress, holding a rose in her hand, in the last close-up shot of this film. As a director, he had to do a lot up screening, prior to selecting the leading actress, for this film. Charlie and his girlfriend entangled themselves in a relationship born out of sympathy. Finally, despite all odds, they regarded love as their last refuge in the modern world. The emotional thread that runs through the film reaches a culmination, at the end.

Leaving a few scenes, the Modern Times is also a silent film, where Chaplin portrays the struggle for existence of the two main characters of this film, in the background of the factory. It was the time when America was passing through an acute economic depression. There was widespread unemployment, and the exploitation of the working class reached its zenith. Charlie, as a worker in the factory, suffered odd reflexes tightening nuts on a conveyer belt. There are two scenes, where sound has been allowd entry: the big Boss throwing invectives via a mammoth television screen, and Charlie singing a song in eloquent gibberish. We still rejoiced in the persistent image. The leading actress of this film was Miss Paulette Godard, who later on became his third wife. Charlie was shown to be completely at odds with the speedy machinery installed in the factory. The funniest scene of this film is perhaps, the one where we see a strange device being installed by the owner of the factory, to minimize the time span for lunch availed by the workers. The film shows a capitalistic structure of society where the interests of of labour and capital can seldom be reconciled. Man is reduced to a mere machine  and his existence is lost in the dungeons of a factory, where the right of the working class is absolutely at stake. In a sense, Chaplin here acts as a social satirist, up in arms against the mass exploitation and deprivation of the proletariat. Through the medium of celluloid, he voiced against this social injustice. But the film dose not end  with a note of dismay. Rather it gives the audience a hopeful note, and makes a promise for a better tomorrow.

With Monsieur Verdoux, Limelight and The Great Dictator, Chaplin entered into the world of talkies, but it was very much evident that his words never quite matched the eloquence of his pantomime. With the making of ‘The Great Dictator’, Charlie, the little tramp entered his niche forever and the Chaplin took over. This Chaplin spoke English with a British accent, satirized contemporary political tyrants, and spoke in eloquent condemnation of war and man’s hatred against man. With much dismay, one watched the spectacle of Chaplin turned into a short of quick-change villain - by turns, a rake, an evader of income tax, a plagiarist and almost any other ignominious role that a malicious and vindictive press could invent. There was also the spectacle, totally unfamiliar, of Chaplin anxious to defend his moral position and fight back his detractors.

In his film, ‘The Great Dictator’, Chaplin has satirised the character Hitler, whom he considered to be the greatest threat to civilization. The Nazi Holocoust had left a deep scar on his mind and he again used the medium of celluloid, to give to his anger against the fascist power.  It is basically a political as well as a person satire where the very concept of fascism has been subjected to ridicule. Side by side, the follies, eccentricities and hypocrisies of a dictator have been wonderfully portrayed. The film received immense appreciation from all over the world. In the post world war epoch, America was slowly emerging as a fascist state, due to the rising influence of the monopolistic capital on the Government. Production had suffered a major setback and the European market was solely losing it’s lion’s share. The devastation caused by the war had left an indelible mark on the economic as well as sociopolitical scenario in America. As a natural corollary, the communists came under direct attack from the capitalistic powers. Even the common peace loving citizens, who spoke in favor of the legitimate rights of the working class, were subjected to punishment. Chaplin, being a sympathizer of the proletariat, was not soared. But this could never dampen his spirit. In the backdrop of this political decadence. he venturered to make ‘Monsier Verdux’, which satirized this great political crisis. And this time satire was more pungent, with thorny edges. The protagonist boldly proclaims in a scene, ‘One murder makes a man, a criminal, and thousand, a hero’. The personal tragedy of ‘Monsier Verdoux’, is an indirect manifestation of a greater political and social crisis.

In April, 1919,Chaplin joined with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W.Griffith, to found the United Artists Corporation. Under the banner of the United Artists Corporation, Chaplin made eight feature films: Woman of Paris (1923), Gold Rush (1925), Circus (1928), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936),The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952) and A king in New York (1957). In 1966, he directed his last film ‘A Countess from Hong Kong’ for universal pictures, starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando.

Chaplin’s occasional dissertation on the aesthetics of film making strengthens our idea that Chaplin was an intuitive artist. He says on the use of camera: ''My own camera set up is based on facilitating choreography for the actor’s movement. When a camera is placed on the floor and moves about the player’s nostrils, it is the camera that is giving the performance, and not the actor''. Anyone who is little familiar with the aesthetics of cinema, knows very well that camera cannot give a performance. It is the director, who expresses himself through the particular use of the camera. The fact remains that Chaplin being his own director, was never conscious of the director as a separate identity. Chaplin’s phenomenal climb up the financial ladder was much due to his wide and immediate popular acceptance. He was also an expert in striking business deals with major movie magnates. In this process, his lack of formal education and his slum background could not be a deterrent factor, in so far as his entry into the highest intellectual circles was concerned. It is his un-paralleled genius and superb intelligence, which helped him through his career.

Chaplin’s versatility even extended to writing. He authored at least four important books: ‘My Trip Aboard’, ‘A Comedian Sees the World’, ‘My Autobiography’ and ‘My Life in Pictures’. A close reading of his autobiography will reveal various events of his professional life, stretching over 60 yrs, and spanning two centuries. The book also recounts his transition from music hall to theatre, from theatre to screen, and from silent movies to the talkies. The book is an oblique revelation, in a sense, because it does not probe enough. However, it gives us an insight into his mind and methods. At the end of the book, we find him at the peak of happiness and contentment-a happy marriage, a home, children getting the best of European education and a long leisure to cherish his golden career. Remembered world over as one the most significant of the directors who emerged in the silent era, Chaplin still continues to be the movie-goer’s favorite, even after almost 90 years. There lies his universal appeal as an artist. It is his political as well as social commitment and his concern for the common man which has immortalized his works.

On Christmas day in 1977, Charlie, the eternal tramp and cinema’s first genious, breathed his last,. With his demise, curtains came down upon an era which will always have a coveted place in the history of the world cinema.


The End