Chaplin

Chaplin – 1992, Richard Attenborough

I count myself lucky to have grown up in a time when there was no internet and satellite TV was a rarity. In those days there were only a few people in charge of what was broadcast on the four TV channels available in the UK, and looking back, they made some good choices. According to my rose tinted recollection, every weekend afternoon of the 1980s and early 90s at least one of the following would have been on telly: a handful of Loony Tunes or Tom & Jerry cartoons, a Laurel and Hardy film, a Three Stooges film or least often but still occasionally, a Chaplin film.

All of those things form a ubiquitous part of my childhood which I’m sure is missing from the collective consciousness of anyone born in the UK after 1990. It may sound like a self satisfied justification of the prejudices every generation has toward the one that comes after it, but... maybe the reason kids nowadays are such poor idiotic saps is because they weren’t exposed to the excellent short films produced in the first half of the twentieth century, like wot I was when I were a young un. It taught me an appreciation of the simple things. There is a purity to slapstick that is all but lost nowadays. The only place it seems to appear any more with any quality are Pixar films.

It’s easy to either forget or be unaware of how important Sir Charles Chaplin is to the history of cinema. It’s only since I got round to Attenborough’s biopic that I first looked back at Chaplin’s life and work with any real interest. The story of Charlie Chaplin is similar to many a biopic; born into poverty, tragic upbringing, emigration to America, massive success that ultimately doesn’t bring happiness, years in the wilderness, eventual happy ending. There’s a lot of ground to cover in the life of Chaplin, and it certainly warrants a Ghandi style biographical epic directed by the great Dicky Attenborough.



Given Chaplin’s 140+ minutes runtime, it’s a good thing that the film gets better as it goes along. Charlie was born into theatrical family in 1889 and from a young age performed in the Music Hall, following in his parents footsteps. Times were hard and his alcoholic father was out of the picture, leaving Charlie and his elder brother to be raised by their insane mother. Chaplin’s early life is covered to the necessary extent, but it’s all very ‘Dickensian cockney workhouse Oliver Twist guvnah’. Maybe people really did used to sing Any Old Iron at the doth of a hat, but it’s a surprise that Attenborough turns Chaplin’s childhood into such a cliché.

Like all such films, things pick up when the subject’s career takes off and Chaplin makes his way to Hollywood. Rather annoyingly the film skips over how Chaplin was discovered; he literally goes from watching a silent film projected onto a sheet in a saloon somewhere in the Mid West, to wandering into the middle of a shoot in California after being summoned by the great Mack Sennet (well played by pre-career-meltdown Dan Ackroyd).

It’s Chaplin’s rise to become one of the most successful and powerful filmmakers of pre-golden era Hollywood that is of most interest to Richard, leading up to his eventual exile from the USA during the height of McCarthyism. Attenborough’s directorial style changes noticeably as the film progresses through each era of Chaplin’s life. Early on during the scenes in London he makes heavy use of George Lucas style wipes between scenes, which is very off-putting, but it doesn’t last long.

Robert Downey Jr does a great job of mimicking Chaplin’s physical performance and his portrayal of Chaplin as a young man is fine, but Rob was only about 27 when the film was made, so when he portrays the elderly Chaplin, he falls short. They should have used an older actor to play the older Chaplin, rather than trying to make Downey look like someone else.

Anthony Hopkins plays the role of a fictional editor who visits an elderly Chaplin in Switzerland to discuss his autobiography. This plot device allows the use of a reflective voice over that is in context with the life of Chaplin as it plays out on screen. It works quite well but I think it was a bit unnecessary. Milla Jovovich has a small role as Chaplin’s first teen bride. Chaplin liked them young you see, much like those other renowned creative talents Polanski and R Kelly. Richard Attenborough’s Chaplin is very kind to the subject when covering his four very young brides; Chaplin didn’t see what all the fuss was about and Dicky would rather dwell on Chaplin’s tortured genius than his controversial love life.

I liked this film, but I hesitate to recommend any film over two hours long unless I really enjoyed it, so instead, if you’ve got an hour to kill, you could do worse than watching one of Chaplin’s most celebrated silent works The Kid, which like a lot of Chaplin’s films is easily found online. Maybe the youth of today will do themselves the favour of stumbling upon it.

The silent era is born again online. I’m quite interested in watching some of the great silent films that paved the way for all the great movies that I enjoy, but not so interested that I would seek them out beyond a brief search on the web. Maybe I’ll work my way round to Max Linder one day.