FILM STUDIES 1

FILM STUDIES

Subject : FILM STUDIES

(For undergraduate students)

Year : 1st

Paper No. & Title : 1A

Social History of Cinema
(Group A: Western Cinema)

Topic No. & Title : 2b

Silent Comedy

Lecture No. & Title : 2

Charlie Chaplin Lecture - 02

SCRIPT

“In thinking of Chaplin, I always see him in the image

of that merrily laughing little Chinese, seeing how
comically the hand-slaps of the little woman make the
head of the big man wobble from side to side. It is not
important that the Chinese woman is the mother. That
the man is the father. And it is not at all important
that in general he is dead.In that is the secret of
FILM STUDIES 2

Chaplin.In that is the secret of his eyes. In that is his

inimitability.In that is his greatness.To see things most
terrible, most pitiful, most tragic through the eyes of a
laughing child. To see images of these things
spontaneously and suddenly– outside their moral-
ethical significance outside valuation and outside
judgment and condemnation – to see them as a child
sees them through a burst of laughter. In that Chaplin
is outstanding, inimitable and unique.”
-Sergei Eisenstein

In the case of the USA, sound came formerly, officially to

cinema in 1927. And by the next three years or so, it
came to almost all national cinemas. For example in
India, the first sound feature film was released in 1931.
In some other countries by 1928, 1929, people convert to
sound all over the place. Charlie Chaplin faced a deep
crisis.Should he make sound films? Should he use
dialogue? Because if he does, then he has to kill the
tramp character. The tramp is essentially a pantomime.
The tramp is essentially this white mask like make up
wearing a physical entity which is mute. It cannot speak.
FILM STUDIES 3

Think of the Charlie figures that have seen. If it begins to

speak, the whole reality of that character or if you like it's
kind of film almost ethereal half reality will be gone!And
Charlie knew that.

So he was in a crisis. And he writes in his autobiography

in great detail how that period of extreme uncertainty,
anxietyfor him. What to do? Now he was the only person
among the major filmmakers, successful actors and
filmmakers who insisted on making silent films even in
the sound era. The Hollywood studios wouldn't allow
anyone else to do that. But Charlie Chaplin was Charlie
Chaplin. So he insisted on making silent films. So he
made not really silent films but dialogue less. The tramp
character wouldn't speak in City Lights 1931, in Modern
Times 1937 and the tramp character will not also speak
in The Great Dictator 1940, but one should also
remember that there are two characters there. Charlie
plays Adenoid Hynkel (Hitler) and also a Jewish barber.
So,in the last scene, the tramp like Jewish barber who
was silent throughout, start speaking in The Great
Dictator. Breaking the silence he dramatically spoke out,
FILM STUDIES 4

addressed the masses. Hynkel’s famous speech starts like

this,
“I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's
not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer
anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible -
Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help
one another. Human beings are like that. We want to
live by each other's happiness - not by each other's
misery. We don't want to hate and despise one
another. In this world there's room for everyone and
the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we
have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls -
has barricaded the world with hate - has goose-
stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have
developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.
Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.
Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness,
hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too
little. More than machinery we need humanity. More
than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will
FILM STUDIES 5

be lost.”

That's the end. Charlie decided to end the tramp carrier

there.

After 1941, the films he made as I said before, there is

no Charlie-the-tramp. Chaplin plays other
roles.Sometimes very sinister for example a film like
Monsieur Verdoux, he plays the role of a soft,
sophisticated serial killer. It’s kind of something that is
completely different from what he had done before.

So now he was doing something really extraordinary and

exceptional thing.Throughout the 1930s for a whole
decade he made three classics: City Lights (1931),
Modern Times (1936) The Great Dictator (1940). The
Great Dictator is, as I said, almost without dialogue for
the tramp character where the tramp could not
speak.Sometimes other characters speak, but the tramp
could not. And even if he does, he will speak
Gibberish.For example, there is a scene in Modern Times
where he is supposed to perform on the cafe and sing.So
FILM STUDIES 6

he loseshis words and he begins to create a kind of

completely meaningless kind of lyric for a song that he
sings.

That is how he would circumvent the speaking because

he believed that the universal appeal,the timeless, if not
timeless at least space-less appeal can be achieved
through silent films. Charlie was Charlie in India; Charlie
was Charlie in France, Africa everywhere in the
world.People did not need any dialogue to follow him. So
he thoughtdialogue would kill this ‘universal Charlie’. So,
he didn’t use dialogue till 1940–’41.But if you look at
these films, especially Modern Times and Great Dictator,
his political vision what we call is reflective character of
his films – that critical exploration of social reality
became more and more acute and more and more
focused.So much so that after the World War II, that is,
the American ruling establishmentdecided to persecute
Charlie Chaplin. By that time you can imagine the kind of
internationally acclaimed and highly prestigious figure
that he was.
FILM STUDIES 7

He was born in the year 1889.If we're thinking of the late

1940s, he is also almost 61-62 years old.But he could not
escape this persecution.There was a part of the American
establishment which thought too far that he too was a
Communist.He was too critical of society.He was critical
for war. He was critical of workers retrenchment. He was
critical of social inequality. He was too critical. So in those
daysthey were paranoid that somebody who is critical of
social practices must be a communist.

And as it so happened, Chaplin was close to some of the

left-wing intellectuals at the time.So he was hounded.
There were two things. One, this hounding by the
American house un-American activities committee headed
by Senetor Joseph McCarthy, which is to find out who is
associated or mixing with left-wing people and hound
them out. There was also a personal kind of lawsuit by a
lady which also put him in a great deal of trouble for at
least a few years. So much so that Charlie decided to
leave the USA. It’s one of the most deplorable things that
could happen to an artist of his starchier. He decided to
leave US. He was exulted.The court did not find anything
FILM STUDIES 8

against him but he was disgusted.The FBI was hounding

him.It's wasa situation that he thought was not conducive
to his work any longer.So he left US and finally settled in
a place in Switzerland, married for the fourth time
somebody much younger than him, Oona O’Neill and
spent his last years in Switzerland.But before that he died
in 1977,let us remember that he was active in film
making till the 1960s.So in 1950s, he made Monsieur
Verdoux (1947) that was in the US. Then he made A King
in New York (1957); then he made a film where he
played a very minor role but he was the director of A
Countess from Hong Kong (1967).

These are the last three films that he made which had full
dialogue, which had everywhere, in fact, A King in New
York or A Countess from Hong Kong has also used
widescreen. These were the things that Charlie Chaplin
did not like before.He was critical of the developments
but he was supple enough, dynamic enough to change
himself with times.

And by the time his life ended, he was the most watched,
FILM STUDIES 9

the most talked about, the most venerated filmmaker,

actor in thewhole history of cinema and he remains
so.That is the amazing thing.He remains the most well-
known, the most celebrated filmmaker and actor. Many
people have said that and if you look at the literature on
Charlie Chaplin,you will be really surprised that in almost
every country,in every language has a large body of
writing on Charlie Chaplin. If you really look at the even
the Indian vernacular languages, there are so many
people who actually wrote on Chaplin from a very early
on.

All sorts of people – people from literature, people from

historians, philosophers have written on Charlie Chaplin
with a great deal of gratitude that he could open our eyes
with extremely simple, extremely moving situations and
stories that entertainsus. There is great laughter; there is
greatmirth, his great cheerfulness and at the same
time,you have all the slapstick elements there.Slapstick
was also once considered bad form of comedy; something
that is not quite intellectualthat is not thoughtful enough.
FILM STUDIES 10

But Chaplin and Buster Keaton particularly these two

masters of American Silent Comedy placed Slapstick as
important art-form. There are others Harold Llyod was
also a great comedian of that time. ButChaplin and
Buster Keaton, these two Americans silent comedians,
prove that this doesn't have to be the case.You can do all
sorts of physical kind of comedy which is slapstick
comedy. Slapstick comedyishitting someone on the head,
kicking in the back – that kind of comedy which involves
physical movement.You can do Slapstick and at the same
time you can still be thoughtful,you can still be critical,
still be deeply sensitive to the social surroundings.You
can still be actually in some sense a cerebral. They do not
necessarily contradict each other.So Chaplin is one
person who solved that problem very effectively.

We often think and we often face as well a situation

where films are either entertaining orthey are
thoughtful.Either they have some profound kind of
reflection or they are just purely entertaining films.
Charlie Chaplin, like William Shakespeare in play writing
who was born 400 years before Chaplin,was one figure in
FILM STUDIES 11

the cinema who actually resolved this contradiction.He

showed that the cinema could be very good,very sincere
exploration of everyday ordinary lives.It could be highly
entertaining; it could actually generate a kind of laughter
and emotions that everybody, the most uninitiated
person in the audience can also understand in any corner
of the world.And also it can be thoughtful; it can be
critical, cerebral and so on.

This is an exemplary life and exemplary body of work.It

would be very hard to find somebody matching this kind
of achievement in cinema.Many people will tell you that
it's possible to repeat it any longer. Youcan have big
stars, you can have star directors,you can have huge
paraphernalia, visual effectsall sorts of things.He didn't
required any of these, minimal kind of means, simple
sets, simple characters, but then creating something
really not simplistic out of it but quite complex, quite
moving and enduring.

As I said before, it's very hard to find today somebody

ordinary people watching silent films.We don't have that
FILM STUDIES 12

kind of patients;unless we are students of cinema or

researchers of film history we don’t go back to silent
cinema that much.We don't even go back to old black-
and-white films that much.But there are television
channels everywhere which would still show a 1916 film
by Charlie Chaplin or 1920 film by Charlie Chaplin.They
are still universally popular.

If we are interested in learning about Chaplin the best

way is to look at his films closely. If possible look at
themat least decade by decade, so that we have a sense
of the development of his style both as a director and as
an actor. So we can start from 1916, if we don’t want to
go back two years before that when Chaplin entered in
film, and then come up to Limelight which is a 1952 film.
Apart from that there are also films made on Charlie
Chaplin. One of them is particularly interesting which is
by Kevin Brownlow, the American film historian and critic
who actually compiled a large number of shots that
Chaplin rejected on his editing table. It gives you an
insight into the way he worked. The extreme
ridiculousness and care with which he created each of
FILM STUDIES 13

these scenes that we now walked and rollover with

laughter is remarkable. For example, we can refer that
absolutely sublimely ridiculous and beautiful scene of
eating the shoe in Gold Rush. They are so hungry in Gold
Rush, one would remember, that in one scene Charlie
just boils his own shoe and eats it. As if he is eating pasta
and is eating spaghetti and saw on. They had to shot 100
takes of that before Chaplin himself was satisfied. So we
can imagine the kind of hard work and the perfectionism
that went into it.

Also, Chaplin’s own autobiography, it's just called My

Autobiography which gives us a vivid sense of his
childhood, his growing up as a poor boy in London. Also
sense of a music hall kind of atmosphere where his
mother and he and his elder brother Sydney grew up and
the way he explores the film world at least in the US in
the first few decades. The early career is more
interestingly narrated there than the last. But
nevertheless this is invaluable. It’s a kind of bestseller.
Many people have read it, even though they may not be
students of cinema.
FILM STUDIES 14

It something really that one should not miss and we also

learn this is not in autobiography that from other
biographers of Chaplin like David Robinson for example,
we learn that his life. The last days were also quite
interesting in the sense that he died when he was 88
years old. He died during Christmas. But the last public
appearance of Charlie Chaplin was at a circus. We were
talking about the great tradition of clowning that he
belonged to. The last public appearance was at a circus
and this was a circus in a little town in Switzerland where
Chaplin went with his family to watch the performance. At
the end of it they all invited him in the circus ring. So he
went there, stood there, took off his hat and bowed to
the audience which is very emblematic, in a sense, very
symbolic that one of the greatest clowns’ life ended. The
last public appearance in a circus ring.

French Filmmaker Rene Clair says rightly about Chaplin,

“All cinema is indebted to him. We are all the offspring of
this man, whom I admire....”
FILM STUDIES 15

References
Richard Schickel, Charlie Chaplin: A Life in Film, New
Word City, 2012.

Charlie Chaplin, Heather Kiernan et al, Charlie Chaplin :

Intimate Close-ups, Scarecrow Press, 1999.

Tom Gunning, ‘Chaplin and the body of modernity’Chaplin

BFI.

Lisa Stein Haven, Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp in

America, 1947–77, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Charlie Chaplin, A Comedian Sees the World, University

of Missouri Press, 2014.

David Robinson, Charlie Chaplin: Footlights with the

World of Limelight, Distributed Art Pub Incorporated, 28-
Apr-2015.
FILM STUDIES 16

Wes D. Gehring, Chaplin's War Trilogy: An Evolving Lens

in Three Dark Comedies, 1918-1947, McFerland&
Company, 2013.