oOoBarracuda
A giant of silent cinema, Charles Chaplin was a skilled director, as well. Chaplin's prolific film career included his 1952 feature Limelight. Starring in the film, as well as writing and directing it, Chaplin also elicited the help of Buster Keaton to tell his story of a comedian at the end of his career helping to council his suicidal neighbor and fledgling ballerina. The kinship developed between the two was mutually beneficial, as they both struggled to find meaning in their lives. One performer at the end of his career, another at the beginning--yet crippled by self-doubt, the two forge a bond that becomes just as necessary for one as it does the other.Living in London in 1914, Calvero (Charles Chaplin) lives in the shadow2 of his former self. He was once an extremely successful stage clown but was now experiencing problems filling concert halls. Turning to alcohol to drown his woes, he stumbles home one day to smell gas in the hallway. Upon further investigation, he realizes the smell is coming from within his downstairs neighbor, Thereza's (Claire Bloom) apartment. He breaks the door in to save her, taking her upstairs to his apartment so he can call a doctor. After she awakes, she becomes angry with Calvero revealing that she was intending on ending her life, distraught that she foiled her plan. Calvero takes it upon himself to try to show Thereza the endless gifts that life has to offer. In order to ease her burden, Calvero opens his home to Thereza for as long as she wishes to stay. This union works well for both involved because Thereza doesn't have to struggle in silence battling her demons, and Calvero feels a usefulness that he had lost. Creating an incredible bridge of emotional support for each other, Calvero is having some success in reviving his career, and Thereza is being discovered for her own talents. Perhaps the greatest blessing between the two, however, comes from Calvero imparting his wisdom in regards to love, especially when a former admirer reemerges in Thereza's life.The story of the sunsets and sunrises of life will always be interesting and engaging, because no matter who you are you have experienced one or both of these, or will be experiencing these aspects of life. Chaplin paints a beautiful picture of a man who has the best years of his life in the past, and can't find much use for himself in the changing world. When someone like this finds a wounded dove in another person, a performer like them who they can cultivate and build confidence in their art, they will gravitate towards them in hopes of feeling useful again. The only negative side is that the dove will one day be healed and embark from the nest, leaving behind the same sense of uselessness. At points throughout Limelight, Chaplin became a little overt in his message in places where subtlety would have been better suited. From about the halfway point on, pacing suffered a bit lagging on a bit for my liking. I wonder if it wasn't too much to put in the subplot of the long-ago admirer. The film was beautiful without the romantic subplot and perhaps would have been better without it. The ending was especially problematic and its execution was not a proper payoff to the investment given by the audience. The film techniques, especially the camera movement were lovely, and a nice homage to some silent film techniques, making Limelight a joy to watch despite its flaws.
grantss
Not Charlie Chaplin's final movie, but it feels like it should be. There is a symmetry and poetry to this movie, like Chaplin was writing his own epitaph. Life's cycle is there for all to see.The last few scenes are great, and would have been a fitting way for Chaplin to sign off his careerCertainly not your average Chaplin movie. While there are some humorous moments, this is a drama, and a very poignant one too.Good performance by Chaplin in the lead role. Maybe a bit too speech-filled and theatrical for a movie - though the fault there would be with Chaplin the writer, not Chaplin the actor. Claire Bloom is great as the female lead. Sweet, beautiful and very convincing.Good to see Buster Keaton, albeit in a minor role. Not perfect, however. As mentioned, some of Chaplin's dialogue is overly theatrical and verbose. Plus, the point of the movie is soon obvious, but Chaplin draws it out unnecessarily. This results in the movie seeming to drag in places, especially in the latter half of the movie.Chaplin at his most symbolic and poetic.
tieman64
This is a brief review of Charlie Chaplin's last six feature films.A comical take on Lang's "Metropolis" (1927), Chaplin's "Modern Times" opens with the words "a story of industry and individual enterprise, humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness!", an ironic jab at the mantras of industrial capitalism. The film then finds Chaplin reprising his iconic role as "the tamp", a poverty-stricken but lovable outcast whose ill-fitting clothes epitomise, amongst other things, his inability to fit in.The film watches as the tramp struggles to survive in a depressed economy. Like "Metropolis", it satirises labour, management and dehumanising working conditions. Elsewhere life for the worker is seen to be precarious, alternatives to playing the game are but death or prison, giant clocks speak to the daily grid of blue-collar workers, bosses are shown to be obsessed with speed and production, the property class relies on police brutality and all-encompassing surveillance, and the workplace itself is painted as an absurdest torture chamber. The film ends with the tramp on a road, America's future uncertain."Modern Times" made waves when it was released. It was banned in fascist Germany and Italy, then allies of the West, and scorned by those in power in the United States. It was also heavily praised in the Soviet Union and France, particularly by philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merlau-Pony. The film's middle section, which featured Chaplin waving a red flag and unwittingly leading communists and worker unions, would get Chaplin on several government watch-lists.Chaplin followed "Times" with "The Great Dictator". Hollywood studios wanted the film scuttled, so Chaplin financed it himself. It contains two criss-crossing plots, one about a Jewish barber who is essentially persecuted by Nazis, the other about a brutal dictator, a stand in for Adolf Hitler. Funny, scary and sad, the film would rock the US establishment. Hitler was, at the time, a US ally and good for business. What's more, he was viewed by those in power as a tool to destroy communist Russia. For many, Chaplin was a "subverisive" who was "inciting war with an ally". Deemed particularly offencive was a last act speech in which Chaplin urges the people of the world to "love one another", "throw away international barriers" and foster an "international brotherhood". Though deliberately vague, this speech was viewed as inflammatory. Was Chaplin extolling the virtues of the United States or the Soviet Union? Regardless, the US' approach to the conflicts in Europe promptly shifted. It became an ally with Russia, Hitler became the enemy and Germany attacked Russia. In the blink of an eye, "Dictator" went from being sacrilege to prophetic.Chaplin, British, was born into extreme poverty and often found himself sleeping on the streets of London. As such, he identified with his "tramp" character completely, as did millions word-wide, who saw themselves in the tramp: desolate, poor and forever bumbling down life's highways. Prior to shooting "Times", Chaplin would embark on a tour of the world, intent on seeing the effects of poverty. He'd talk to many prominent figures, most notably Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Einstein and Gandhi.As Chaplin grew in consciousness, so would FBI files on Chaplin. He was put under government surveillance and forced to appear before a Senate subcommittee in 1941 where he was accused of being "anti American" and an "unofficial communist". Many newspapers, including the Times, began a campaign attacking Chaplin, and called for his deportation. In the mid 1940s he was charged with the Mann Act and the FBI would collude with newspapers to smear Chaplin as a sex maniac who "perverted American culture". From here on, conservative political pressure groups would attack each new Chaplin release. Some of his films would be boycotted or outright banned. In 1947 he'd be brought before the HUAC committee.Chaplin followed "Dictator" up with "Monsieur Verdoux". A black comedy, the idea for which came from Orson Welles, the films stars Chaplin as a bank clerk who loses his job and so murders women for cash and land. The film's point is explicit: if war is an extension of diplomacy, then murder is the logical extension of business. And so banking terminology is used to rationalise murder, weapons manufactures are idolised and the poor are condemned for trying to play by the rules of the wealthy. "Numbers sanctify!" Chaplain says, pointing to Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the ruthlessness of post-war capitalism; kill millions and you're a hero.Next came "Limelight", Chaplin's ode to silent film. Elegiac and autobiographical, the film stars Chaplin and the legendary Buster Keaton as two fading comedians. A meditation on time's passing, the film's also relentlessly optimistic; man must assert his will, his desires, no matter how glum the times! The film would be banned from several US theatres. Chaplin himself was swiftly banned from entering the US and several of his assets were seized. He'd live in Switzerland henceforth."A King In New York" followed. It finds Chaplin playing an usurped "dictator" who seeks refuge in America. Also autobiographical, the film pokes fun at various aspects of US culture, its irrational hatred of all things left-wing and the way in which humans are both always branding and refuse to look beyond the political, beyond superficial branding, to tolerate even the slightest bit of difference or dissent. Chaplin's son would play a hilarious anarcho-communist, but the film as whole messily mixed silent gags with sound comedy.Chaplin's "A Countess from Hong Kong" confirms that Chaplin's films were moving from the lower to the upper echelons of society. Here Sophia Loren plays a Russian "tramp" who is taken in by a wealthy politician (Marlon Brando). His worst feature, the film watches as "humane" capitalism benevolently absorbs the "detritus" of Russia and Asia. Chaplin accepted an honorary Oscar in 1972. He received the longest standing ovation in Oscar history.8.5/10
