Film- City Lights (1931, Charlie Chaplin)

During the silent era, comedy was one of, if not the, most popular and critically acclaimed film genres. Criticism of silent comedy remained consistent into the post-sound era, reaching its best clarity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The art of pantomime—the communication of thoughts and emotions solely through the use of gestures and facial expressions—and the art of film were intertwined at this part of the century.

Although the Stock Market crash occurred in 1929, the economic situation continued to decline into 1931, the year of City Lights’ release. The character of the Tramp became even more relevant as so many of the film-going public could relate to someone down on his luck.

The first feature length, full-sound film was The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland 1927), however throughout 1928 when Chaplin began production on City Lights, the majority of films were still silent.  By 1931, when Chaplin released City Lights, sound films had become dominant.  As a silent character, the Little Tramp was the most well-known motion picture character in the world. 

Here we see what I first discussed in an earlier post, the difference between the universal silent humor and the localized verbal humor.  If City Lights were to fail commercially and critically, it would mean a sudden fall from the top for Chaplin.

Chaplin finally compromised by using synchronous music and sound effects, but still removing any need for dialogue. Although other films at the time used the same method of music and sound effects, Chaplin’s film remains the best example of the technique.

Charlie Chaplin

One cannot find a text that discusses film comedy that does not mention Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977). It is important for the reader to understand that scholars write of Chaplin as an artist, not as a comedian. Many film historians write about Chaplin as one of the great creative minds. This view of Chaplin’s artistic merit, beyond that of an entertainer, helped shape his recognition as quite possibly the first auteur in the film world.

Chaplin handled many of the filmmaking tasks of writing, directing, acting, editing, and composing. Chaplin was an auteur before the impact of the French New Wave of the 1960s popularized the use of the term in film scholarship. Through his filmmaking methods, Chaplin set the standard by which scholars judge later auteurs.


Chaplin came from a family of music hall performers, where he developed the physicality of his performances. Chaplin described the rhythm of his physical pantomime as a dance, and few performers have demonstrated such subtle control over their bodies.  As the reader will discover shortly, Chaplin understood that the internal motion within a static shot was as significant to the medium of film as was the external motion of the camera in capturing a dynamic shot.

Some film historians have criticized Chaplin for what seems to be his lack of knowledge of film conventions.   I disagree with these scholars’ assessments of Chaplin’s filmmaking knowledge.  Chaplin went against the established conventions of film presentation not because he did not understand the conventions, but because he had already mastered them and could create his own conventions.  For example, instead of following the tradition of the wide shot to establish a scene and the closeup to reveal details, Chaplin preferred wide shots for his comic sequences, while he would only use closeups in order to capture the expression on his performers’ faces in moments of sentiment.  Other scholars criticize Chaplin for what they see as a lack of editing.  However, many critics feel that his lack of cuts is a strength, not a weakness, and I agree.
Other filmmakers do not hold shots as long, simply because they cannot.  Chaplin alone has the ability as performer and filmmaker to hold the viewer’s attention without having to divert it through a change of angle.  The cuts—when he does use them—are a textbook model of invisible editing.  
Chaplin’s ability as a supreme artist rests partly on the fact that he understood not only exactly what to show the viewer, but also how to show it to the viewer in a way that made the technique unobtrusive. Of all the comic filmmakers and performers, no artist has ever been better at juxtaposing comedy and tragedy without detracting from either. At the end of City Lights, we have experienced an incredible emotional and aesthetic experience, but we do not feel cheated out of a good laugh.

Production

As I stated above, Chaplin was the biggest movie star in the world as he began work on City Lights. With his previous succession of films, his audience had high expectations for Chaplin’s next work, and he was not one to disappoint.  

As for the preproduction stage of City Lights, the writing process was rather brief, with the major themes already chosen, and the story developing as shooting approached.  While the narrative of City Lights was an original idea of Chaplin, many of the gags came from earlier sources, including Chaplin shorts.  The greatest of artists, Chaplin included, always have the risk of duplicating previous work. As I noted in a previous post, the same gag can successfully return again and again as long as it is still able to elicit laughter.

 Influencing later filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock and David Lean, Chaplin had a hand in virtually every aspect of production.  Everything that Chaplin did involved thorough preparation and practice.  When it came to scoring the film, Chaplin had to rely on the assistance and experience of orchestrator Arthur Johnson. While Chaplin may have lacked the knowledge to notate music, he certainly understood how it should function within the film medium.

Reception and Legacy

Without Chaplin’s skill and reputation, a silent film during the sound error would not have succeeded. The critics of nearly every major publication in the United States agreed that City Lights was a triumph.  Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times said that “It is a film worked out with admirable artistry, and while Chaplin stoops to conquer, as he has invariably done, he achieves success”.  Box Office Magazine called it Chaplin’s “finest comedy” and praised its story as well as the performances of its cast.  Sid Silverman of Variety felt that it was a good film but “not Chaplin’s best picture, because the comedian has sacrificed speed to pathos” and had some doubts as to its “holdover power”, wondering if its initial success was “novelty money”.  In 1931, The National Board of Review named it one of the Top Ten Films of the year, adding that it is “a challenge to the talkies, a crucial event in cinema history” but “not Chaplin’s best but far ahead of any other funny man’s best”.  Time Magazine predicted “he, whose posterior would probably be recognized by more people throughout the world than would recognize any other man’s face, will be doing business after talkies have been traded in for television”.  Notice how each one of these critics speak of the film in terms of Chaplin, and do not address the themes that he explores.  They describe the “novelty” of the film and its silent qualities of gesture and expression.  The reviewers that criticize it, do so because of the relationship of comedy and pathos within the film.

As for the international critical reaction, Siegfried Kracauer of the Frankfurter Zeitung said that “In it Chaplin demonstrates again his mastery of the language of gesture, a mastery that reduces the spoken word to shame”, however he added “It’s not difficult to find weaknesses in the film” referring to a plot that he felt was not as strong as earlier Chaplin pictures.  Note how he echoes the above reviewers’ praises of the silent performance techniques of gesture.  Also, consider how Kracauer criticizes what he claims is a lack of plot—showing that Kracauer does not completely understand comedy’s necessary balance of narrative and gag.  E.A. Corbett of the Edmonton Journal concluded that “no one else in the world can take the same outline and make it compete successfully with the talkies, because no one else can so fully occupy that delicious, illogical, unreal world which Chaplin’s genius has created for himself alone,” approaching the film in terms of Chaplin.  Surprisingly, City Lights did not receive any Academy Award nomination, which seems inconceivable considering its reputation today.  Tim Dirks, of the American Movie Classics Filmsite attributed the lack of nominations, “to the pro-talking film Academy members, it must have appeared to be reversing the trend toward talkies that advanced sound films”, which would make sense.  The contemporary film industry leaders’ advocacy for the “progress” of sound in 1931, has a parallel with today’s film industry leaders, who seem to favor many pictures because of the perceived revolutionary visual effects that they contain.
 
I have been unable to find any explanation for why Chaplin chose to rerelease the film.  I speculate that perhaps newly-formed television networks had begun to program some of Chaplin’s shorts, and this could have brought an audience demand for Chaplin features.  Also, his most recent release, Monsieur Verdoux (1947), did not fare well with audiences and reviewers (TCM), perhaps prompting Chaplin to rerelease an earlier, more successful work in order to regain his reputation.  

In addition to film scholars and critics, many filmmakers have cited City Lights as an inspiration.  Both Stanley Kubrick (in 1963, Cinema Magazine) and Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (in 1972, Life Magazine) have called it one of their favorite pictures.  Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert has reviewed the film twice; reviewing it for a second time 35 years after the first review.  In 1972, he said, “Chaplin’s films age so well, I think, because his situations grow out of basic human hungers such as lust, greed, avarice”.  The reader will learn that this is true of many such film classics.  Ebert appears to be the first reviewer who talks about the deeper themes beneath the surface of City Lights—perhaps themes reviewers forty years earlier did not want to acknowledge.
    Of the seventeen reviews written in the Twenty First century that I have compiled, only one critic, Alan Vanneman of the Bright Lights Film Journal gave it a less than favorable review, citing the “remarkably unfunny beginning”, the “numerous detours” in the plot, and how “Chaplin leaves entirely unresolved how Cherrill will treat the Tramp now that she knows who he is”.  Looking at Vanneman’s review, we can infer that his expectations for a comedy were misaligned.  The “numerous detours” (gags) and the lack of resolution at the end of the narrative are perfectly acceptable for comedy—in fact, sometimes a lack of resolution is an even more fitting ending for a comedy than the typical deus ex machina found in so many dramas.  

The remaining sixteen critics praised the film, as dozens of critics had done when it premiered.  Four of the reviewers, Collin Souter of eFilmcritic.com, Jules Dassin of The Telegraph, Wes D. Gehring of USA Today, and John Nesbit of Old School Reviews particularly praised the final scene—a scene of pathos and not humor.  Several reviewers focused on the historical importance that it is one of the last silent films, and on Chaplin as an artist.  Dan Mancini of DVD Verdict called it “Chaplin at his best…. his last—and arguably finest—silent feature”.   Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich explained, “Below the surface of City Lights, there is an ache of nostalgia for the lost Eden of the silents that is still palpable today”.  James Berardinelli of Reelviews called it “the quintessential silent film”, adding that “sound would have ruined it”.  Jay Antani of CinemaWriter.com added, “City Lights is a great gift to all of us by a filmmaker at a latter-day peak of his genius. To see anything by Chaplin is to nourish the soul. Chaplin is good for the world”.  Other critics attempt to analyze the deeper meanings behind the narrative and gags of the film.  Following Ebert’s example, Dan Jardine of Cinemania noted its “universal themes, such as the intoxicating blindness of love and the rejuvenating power of selflessness”, speaking of the themes that contemporary reviewers did not address.  
    Many scholars have provided varying analyses of the film over the years.  Charles Silver of the Museum of Modern Art calls it “Chaplin’s most perfectly accomplished and balanced work”, focusing on the combination of comedy and drama in one film.   Chaplin scholar Dan Kamin, on the other hand does criticize it on a structural level, “City Lights may have the best plot, and it certainly packs the biggest emotional wallop, but its comic routines are inconsistent in quality”.  The foci of both scholars show opposite ends of the same critical difficulty in approaching comedy.  Silver seems to appreciate it for its moments of sentiment, while Kamin seems to grade the value of a comedy by how funny he finds the gags.  They insist on comparing a comedy film to something that is not—for Silver, a non-comic film and for Kamin, a comic Vaudeville routine.

In 1952, critics at the British Film Institute voted it the second greatest film of all time, behind De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (BFI)—juxtaposing it with one of the quintessential film tragedies (especially during the European recovery from World War II when the BFI vote occurred).  In 2002, critics at the British Film Institute voted it one of the greatest films of all time (BFI).  In 2008, The American Film Institute declared it the greatest romantic comedy of all time (AFI).
In the 1970s, critics began to rethink their opinions on Chaplin, especially since more attention turned to Buster Keaton.  I highly recommend City Lights and think you will find it very approachable despite it being 90 years old.