Integrative Arts 10
Comedy and Charlie Chaplin
"All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman, and a pretty girl."
-Sir Charles Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin
Born 15 April 1889, London, UK. Died 25 December 1977, Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.
The son of theatrical parents, Chaplin’s childhood was one of extreme poverty and hardship. Abandoned by an alcoholic father and left with a mentally unstable mother who was unable to support him, he struggled through life in the poor house and on the streets. A newsboy and glass blower, he harbored show business aspirations, participating in a team of clog dancers, acting and performing in music halls. He learnt much of his timing and technique in the employment of impresario Fred Karno (1866-1941) whose troupe he left during an American tour in 1913. Offered a contract by Keystone Films, his tramp character was first glimpsed in Kid Auto Races at Venices (1914). A splay footed, bowler hatted, down and out with a mustache and walking cane, he railed against authority and evil, endured romantic disappointments and endeared himself to a vast global audience as an elementary embodiment of the common man.
In scores of silent shorts, he established the grammar and ground rules of screen comedy using his physical dexterity and pantomime skills to create expertly choreographed, visually humorous entertainment that mixed irreverence, romance, chases and pathos.
Among the more notable titles are The Pawn Shop (1916),
The Vagabond (1916). Easy Street (1917)
and The Immigrant (1917). He progressed to
lengthier work with Shoulder Arms (1918), The
Kid (1920). The Gold Rush (1924) and
The Circus (1928) which earned him a special Oscar
for 'versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and
producing'. He also directed but did not star in the serious
drama A Woman of Paris (1923). Resistant to the
arrival of sound and the use of dialogue, he created the wordless
- City Lights (1931) a film that illustrates
the difficulties for modern audiences in appreciating his work.
Filled with moments of high comedy and athletic grace, it is also
soaked in sentimentality and mawkishness as the little tramp
falls in love with a blind flower girl. Increasingly painstaking
in his filmmaking methods and more prone to use his character for
social or naive political comment, he made Modern Times
(1936) (a satire on mechanization) and the well-intentioned
anti-Hitler diatribe The Great Dictator, (1940 Best
Actor Oscar nomination). After a lengthy absence, he appeared as
a dapper mass-murderer in the black comedy Monsieur Verdoux
(1947) and wallowed in the lachrymose final days of a fading
vaudevillian in Limelight (1952) (Best Musical
Score Oscar) in which he was outshone by Buster Keaton. His
left-wing sympathies caused him to fall foul of the rabid
anti-Communist factions in post-war America and he emigrated to
Switzerland, making only two further features; the embittered
anti-American satire A King In New York (1957) and
the arthritic romantic comedy A Countess From Hong Kong
(1967) There Was a very public reconciliation with the American
establishment in April 1972 when he received an honorary Oscar
for ‘the incalculable effect he has had in making motion
pictures the art form in this century’. He published his
autobiography in 1964 and was knighted in 1975.
A writer Performer, director, composer and icon, he was a vital
figure in the development of the screen comedy. Changing public
tastes and critical attitudes will not deprive him of his
historical significance.
Dianne McIntyre's Chaplin Page
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