Chaplin said it was The Gold Rush by which he wanted to be remembered, but a lot of folks think City Lights is his best work.
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The viewer who can suppress a tear at the closing of this picture is the person without heart, without feeling, without soul. I can't think of another moment in all of film as poignant as the one that ends "City Lights."
And the rest of the movie ain't bad, either.
Charlie Chaplin wrote and directed this classic in 1931, several years into the talking era, yet because he prepared it as a silent film, there is not a word of spoken dialogue. Oh, there are sound effects and music, to be sure, but it wouldn't be for the better part of a decade and "The Great Dictator" in 1940 that Chaplin would let his principal characters be heard speaking on screen. He was the great silent-screen master, and he was determined to remain so no matter what the rest of the film world was doing, subtitling his film "A Comedy Romance in Pantomime." Not surprisingly, the pantomime works.
Let's start with what "City Lights" is and isn't. It isn't Chaplin's funniest picture. That would be "The Gold Rush." It isn't his most innovative picture. That would be "Modern Times." And it isn't his most profound picture. That would be "The Great Dictator." Instead, "City Lights" is Chaplin's most humane picture, his most sympathetic to the human condition, his most hopeful, and his most loving picture. The movie combines elements of ethos, pathos, and humor to create a portrait of all of us, with Chaplin's Little Tramp representing the best, yet the most fragile, in everybody.
As was common to Chaplin's work, "City Lights" is entirely Chaplin. He wrote, directed, produced (uncredited), and starred in the movie, using his own studio to make it. With the exception of the girl's theme, he even composed the music for the picture, and readers familiar with his later film "Limelight" will hear traces of his award-winning "Eternally" throughout "City Lights." As the movie's complete auteur, Chaplin stands or falls by his product, and he most certainly stands tall. If it's too sentimental for some viewers, it's because Chaplin was a sentimental fellow, and this film more than any of his others wears its heart on its sleeve. It's all the better for it because the sentimentality never becomes maudlin or mawkish, and Chaplin knows exactly where to place his emotional touches and how much to use for optimal effect.
The story line is about as simple as anything Chaplin devised for a full-length film, yet it's just as sharp-witted as his more complex creations. Perhaps more so than in any of his movies, the plot is little more than a series of gags, episodes strung together to convey a sense of cohesion and continuity in what is essentially a modest tale. The Tramp is bumming around town when he spies a beautiful, blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) and is instantly smitten by her. It takes him a moment to realize she's blind, but it only endears her to him all the more. They become acquainted, and through the course of events she gets the impression that he's rich and handsome. He, in turn, takes various jobs and undergos personal sacrifice to help her pay her rent and, eventually, get an operation that may restore her sight.
Among the Tramp's new jobs are those of street sweeper and boxer, both done up in high comic style. Also along the way the Tramp meets a drunken, despondent millionaire (Harry Myers) and saves him from committing suicide. The millionaire is eternally grateful to the Tramp, but only when he's drunk are they pals. When he's sober, the millionaire can't remember who the Tramp is and orders him thrown out of his house. Most of the movie involves the Tramp's amusing escapades with his newly made friend, the millionaire, and only a small part of the film actually involves the Tramp's romance. Yes, Chaplin knew what he was doing in punctuating the more sensitive aspects of the film with plenty of pointed humor.
The Tramp, as always, is the symbol of the little man, you and me and practically everyone else watching the picture, the little guy we can all relate to, the small fry forever at the mercy of but never giving in to the powers that be. The opening sequence is a perfect illustration of Chaplin skewering the rich and powerful by literally having a public statue skewer the Tramp while a crowd stands idly looking on. Chaplin also uses this scene to skewer the newfangled idea of sound dialogue in motion pictures by having a group of civic leaders talk in gibberish squawks. The Tramp was, indeed, the perfect emblem of the common man in 1931. For a country in the midst of a Great Depression, the Tramp's affable yet indomitable spirit was just what audiences needed to buoy them up. The character's pluck and resiliency have no less an impact on viewers today, the Tramp's pure good continuing to be an inspiration.
The blindness theme that runs throughout "City Lights" is another element that intrigues audiences. Of course, its primary purpose is to show us that love is blind, but the thread runs deeper than that. Everywhere in the picture we see instances of things not being what they appear to be, of people seeing or not seeing things in the same way. The millionaire, for instance, only recognizes the Tramp when he's blind drunk. Sober, the millionaire ignores the Tramp altogether. Perhaps Chaplin is suggesting that physical perception is a poor substitute for intuition, that people must let go of their prejudices, biases, and stereotypes to grasp the true meaning of the world around them. Like the rest of the film, it's a sweet, if unrealistically quixotic, notion.
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