Chaplin on charlie

The other day I saw my very first Charlie Chaplin film. In my ignorance, I had never imagined that his films would appeal to anyone from my generation, or indeed the one that preceded it, so I was pleasantly surprised by the warmth, humour and intelligence that appeared before me on the screen.



I tend to avoid slapstick because most things that a human can do can be tuned to perfection or wildly exaggerated in cartoons or in computer animation. Unless a filmmaker is aiming for realism, or has actors whose faces portray the finest nuances of mood, there is no significant artistic reason – and budget isn’t artistic – why that filmmaker shouldn’t make an animated film. Perhaps an exception can be made for genuine stuntmen and martial artists like Jackie Chan, whose work astounds because he persistently stretches himself to physical extremes.

Most slapstick seems contrived. What’s Up, Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972) didn’t bring a smile to my face, but then again, there would be cause for concern if a film starring Barbra Streisand did elicit that reaction. Home Alone (Columbus, 1990) was funny, but mainly because the viewer likes to see the bad guys getting punished for picking on a defenceless kid – the punishment was inventive, but the spectacle was fairly straightforward. The work of the Farrelly Brothers amuses me, but more because the dialogue is funny than because the characters do silly things or are put in farcical situations. It’s often best to leave slapstick for the lowbrow morons who sit down to watch home video compilation shows featuring people who hurt themselves accidentally.

But Chaplin can move. There is an elegance to his antics that is missing from most slapstick. In Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936), he roller-skates in a department store, prances balletically around a factory, and runs wild on a generous dose of cocaine (that he didn’t mean to take). The highlight of the film, however, is his famous ‘nonsense song’, the only time in Chaplin’s career that the audience is subjected to the Little Tramp’s voice. It isn’t a triumph for its novelty value alone: his singing voice is funny, the way he moves is funny, and his facial expressions are funny. There is a difference between a performer and a bumbling idiot. Chaplin was a performer, and we need more like him.

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