Starring Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, and Harry Myers
Written and Directed by Charlie Chaplin
It's always a fun thing to discover a favorite movie...and I discovered a new favorite movie tonight in City Lights.
A beautiful story of a poor, homeless Tramp (Chaplin) who, while wandering around the city one day, falls in love at first sight with a Blind Flower Girl (Cherrill). Later that same night, The Tramp saves a drunk Eccentric Millionaire (Myers) from drowning himself. The Millionaire befriends The Tramp (but only when the Millionaire is drunk...when he's sober, he kicks the poor Tramp out on the street). Through a series of events, the Blind Flower Girl finds herself in need of money and The Tramp needs to find a way to help her out. Will he succeed? Will they fall in love? All we be revealed by the end.
Chaplin was something special in this. As the star, he was captivating onscreen. Completely charming, absolutely engaging, and incredibly humorous, it was a treat to watch his facial reactions and comedic physicality onscreen (physicality? Is that even a word?).
As a director, the film looked good. Sure, there was no movement of the camera (it stays in one place for each scene), but with the little bit of film history that I know, the cameras were much too big and clunky to move around much "back then." But, the film was still visually appealing and didn't feel like you were watching something as if it were on a stage (which, with the lack of camera movement, can sometimes be the case at least in what I've seen silent movie-wise).
As a writer, Chaplin has a knack for comedy, for sure. There's a boxing scene in this that, as my fellow filmgoer Anonymous said, should be shown on classic comedy clip reels. It's been a long time since I laughed so much that my eyes welled up with tears, but that happened here during that boxing scene. But, Chaplin doesn't just excel at comedy here...the love story between The Tramp and the Blind Flower Girl is amazingly touching and believable. And he's able to convey this with minimal title/dialogue cards popping up on the screen. I was actually slightly surprised by the limited usage of title cards. I've seen a decent amount of silent films and they all seemed to rely much more on the title cards than Chaplin needed to in this. This certainly jumps back to Chaplin as a director -- he was able to get nearly all of what he needed to convey out of his actors' movements and facial expressions.
I don't know what else to say. I really loved this movie. Before I went into this, I was telling myself that I liked Buster Keaton more than Charlie Chaplin in the Battle of the Silent Film Stars, but Chaplin definitely has skyrocketed to the lead with this flick.
The RyMickey Rating: A
God I love this movie.
ReplyDeleteIt was so simple and elegant. I don't know why I don't own it.
I really loved the opening scene with the statue. I found that funnier than the boxing match.
Simple and elegant is a really good description.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the opening scene was quite good. I also loved the scene where he swallowed the whistle and the scene at the dance hall and the scene at the...I could go on and on...
At some point in time, I'm going to seriously think about my Top Ten/Top Twenty films of All Time...and I don't see how this doesn't make the cut.
That being said, it's still not my favorite movie that I saw this year (as you'll see in the sidebar).
On that note, Magnolia is definitely in my top 10. It may actually be right next to Amelie. I have to watch it again though.
ReplyDelete