Essays On Chaplin by Andre Bazin
Essays On Chaplin by Andre Bazin
Essays On Chaplin by Andre Bazin
andre bazin
truffaut/ tenet) rohmer
https://archive.org/details/essaysonchaplin0000andr
Essays on Chaplin
ESSAYS ON CHAPLIN
André Bazin
Francois Truffaut
Jean Renoir
Eric Rohmer
Copyright © 1985 by
The University of New Haven Press
All Rights Reserved
Introduction
Hime: V alidates ANG Bazi <6) 66 eee ecteoke oly deudeten: Xi
Preface
Chaplin and Bazin, by Francois Truffaut ........ XIX
1. Modern Times
OL SOIS eek. eh eet a ee ke ee 3
Time Validates Modern Times,
DYCATIUPOOS ATID nc oiSaree WER eyogtie boone” 2)
2. The Great Dictator
SCI Gs ENE Oe Pa Fe hme eee ocd eae 13
Pastiche or Postiche, or Nothingness
over a Mustache, by André Bazin ........ 15
TReC IMIG WIARKVNG Say Sry. oe nea oo oie 22
3. Monsieur Verdoux
ROOTS ae recente eater Coser Pore nie oe. ae
Monsieur Verdoux or Charlot Martyred,
by Andre Bazi... ck sant se a oe ee le 29
No, M. Verdoux Has Not Killed
Charlie Chaplin! by Jean Renoir ......... 35
4. Limelight
ROROUU Gee eles ere gs eet yet tnto 49
If Charlot Hadn’t Died, by André Bazin ..... Sy!
5. A King in New York
RSPR Ae Oe 4 Man a cease Nn anctaBate Yokct a 61
A King in New York, by André Bazin ....... 63
. A Countess from Hong Kong
MOTT Ceen Wit Soc ee ee ee eer hk behead of
A Countess from Hong Kong,
Dae ROUNDER on 508 eee operate se ey a see 73
7. Necrology
Charlie Chaplin Was a Man Just Like Any
Other Man, by Francois Truffaut ......... 93
Immortal Charlot! by André Bazin ......... 98
Appendix
Working with a Friend, by André Lafargue ..... 103
DEICCIOM BIDMOSUADUY nies ke cack es care oh ae 107
Pilmsiby Chases Chaplin: 7 co 21... 2s hoes oan ee 123
Introduction
Chaplin invented an alter ego which best represented our intrinsic
needs in a more and more demanding society, an alter ego on the
scale of 20th century man: a simple character facing the complexity of
the industrial world.
Time Validates André Bazin
Xi
did not question its mechanism, just as people every-
where were learning to consume without questioning. In
fact, his creation was so appealing that even Chaplin
could not understand it:
‘‘My character was different and unfamiliar . . . even
to myself. But with the clothes on I felt he was reality, a
living person . . . he ignited all sorts of crazy ideas that I
would never have dreamt of, until I was dressed and
made up as a tramp.’”’
In retrospect, Chaplin invented an alter ego which best
represented our intrinsic needs in a more and more de-
manding society, an alter ego on the scale of 20th century
man: a simple character facing the complexity of the in-
dustrial world.
Unlike the inventions of Edison, the Wrights or Ford,
which could and would be replaced or improved in time,
Chaplin’s had to follow biological rules: it had to grow,
then die. The invention was doomed with its inventor. If
the public understood, they nonetheless refused any ex-
planation from its creator, wanting the little tramp to en-
tertain forever.
Unlike most people, Bazin not only understood but ac-
cepted that there was a man behind the creation; he un-
derstood the dramatic relationship between Chaplin and
the little tramp. Unlike most, Bazin defended the man
and not the product. Bazin understood that from Modern
Times to Limelight Chaplin was showing that his own
aging meant the irrevocable death of the little tramp.
Though fame eluded Bazin during his lifetime, he is
the greatest film critic in the history of cinema. He influ-
enced not only cinephiles but filmmakers and triggered
the birth of a new school in cinema: The French New
Wave. Indeed, some of these filmmakers and critics
showed their recognition of his influence by organizing a
Xi
tribute to him at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival on the
25th anniversary of his death.
During his short career as a critic, Bazin’s primary
concern was not to answer questions but to raise them,
not to establish cinema as art but to ask ‘‘What is art?’’
and *‘What is cinema?’ Through this collection of essays
Bazin asks *‘Who and what is Charlie Chaplin?’’ and
*“Who and what is the little tramp?’’
Bazin’s writing, just as Chaplin’s films, can still stim-
ulate cinephiles. Unlike other critics or filmmakers, both
of their works have an essence of timelessness. While ev-
ery filmmaker tries to produce, act, direct and compose
as did Chaplin, every film critic writes, analyzes and the-
orizes, using Bazin’s groundwork.
* OKok
Xi
Essays on Chaplin, which is based on the content of
Charlie Chaplin’ in French by André Bazin and Eric
Rohmer, offers some improvements in the arrangement
and the selection of the articles. It includes two articles,
hitherto unpublished in book format, namely, ‘Immortal
Charlot!’’? by André Bazin and ‘‘Charlie Chaplin Was a
Man Just Like Any Other Man’’ by Francois Truffaut.
Along with the others, these two articles retrace the
chronological evolution of Chaplin’s work from 1936 to
his death. This arrangement, with respect to Chaplin’s
films, facilitates reading and makes the material suitable
for students. Moreover, it is also interesting to compare
the evolution of Bazin’s writings by following the se-
quential order of his reviews and to contrast his style with
those of Renoir, Truffaut and Rohmer. This approach is
well supported by André Lafargue’s article on Bazin’s
style and methods of working. The Lafargue piece is set
apart from the rest of the text in an appendix, as it deals
directly with Bazin and not with Chaplin.
Additionally, film credits, editor’s notes and selected
bibliographies on Chaplin and Bazin‘ have been included
for quick reference and to help clarify the text.
* kK Ok
XIV
I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. André
Lafargue, Mrs. Janine Bazin, and Dr. James Dudley An-
drew. Through their discussions, interviews, letters and
research, they helped me find André Bazin, a man that I
could admire and love beyond his work.
I will never be able to help someone the way Mr.
James Paty helped me. His assistance, encouragement,
editing and criticism were invaluable. Without Jim, my
best friend and colleague, this project would have been
truly impossible.
I would like to again express my love for Rachel, my
companion, who tolerated my frustration—and who did
marvelous work in designing the book cover.
Essays on Chaplin is an abridged version of my doc-
toral dissertation. Accordingly, | am immeasurably in-
debted to my major professors, Dr. Wayne Minnick and
Dr. Antoine Spacagna, who both provided encourage-
ment and guidance in the completion of this work.
I am indebted to my publishers, Dr. Thomas Katsaros
and Dr. M.L. McLaughlin, for their assistance and kind-
nesses. I am grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Norman Botwinik,
whose grant made it possible to do research in France.
Special thanks and love go to my parents for their sup-
port and for sending me valuable information from
France.
I also want to express my appreciation for helping on
numerous occasions to Steven Raucher, Woody and
Nancy Goulart, Kay and Ric Long, Janet Mowry, Robert
Singer, Paul Falcone, Carl Barratt, Donald Ungurait,
Stuart Willinger, Sally Devaney, Kathy Milani, Tom
Gniazdowski, Ed Wotring, and Nancy Katsaros.
The final word goes to Barbara Tomaso who can still
smile after typing this manuscript.
IEBe
XV
NOTES
XVI
Preface
Chaplin was not the only filmmaker to describe hunger, but he was
the only one who knew it, and this is what audiences all over the
world felt when his two-reelers began appearing in 1914.
Chaplin and Bazin*
by Francois Truffaut
XIX
prise effects. Bazin spoke about Chaplin better than any-
one else, and his astounding dialectic added to the
pleasure.’
As opposed to Eric Rohmer, I would never cast doubt,
either in writing or speech, on the special status granted
Chaplin in the history of film. In any case, I admire with-
out reservation Rohmer’s essay on The Countess from
Hong Kong which he agreed to undertake in order to
bring this book up to date.
During the years preceding the invention of the talkies
people all around the world, especially writers and intel-
lectuals, had disdain for the cinema because they only
saw it as a funfair, or at best a minor art form. They
made only one exception in that they torerated Charlie
Chaplin. And I understand that this attitude annoyed all
those who understood the films of Griffith, Stroheim or
Keaton. Out of this grew a quarrel which centered on the
question: is cinema an art? But this debate between two
intellectual groups had no effect on an enthusiastic public
which never even entertained the question. Such broad
enthusiasm is difficult to imagine nowadays: one would
have to think of a cult like that of Eva Peron in Argentina
carried to the corners of the earth. By the end of World
War I, the public had made Chaplin the most popular
man on earth.
If I am amazed by all this, 58 years after the first ap-
pearance of Charlot’ on the screen, it is because I see a
great logic in his career and in this logic a great beauty.
From its beginnings cinema was practiced by privileged
persons even though it was not practiced as an art until
1920. Without going so far as to sing the famous verse of
May 1968 about ‘‘cinema/the art of the bourgeoisie,’’® I
would like to point out that there has always been a great
difference, not only cultural but biological, between
those who make films and those who watch them.
XX
If Citizen Kane seems such a unique first film, it is be-
cause, among other things, Citizen Kane is the only first
film made by an already known person.’ (I am referring
to the great popularity Orson Welles enjoyed after his ra-
dio broadcast of The War of the Worlds which provoked
a great panic across the USA that has become legend. It
also brought Welles to the gates of RKO’s Hollywood
studios.) It is obvious that this acquired celebrity allowed
Welles to make a film about an already renowned man
(Hearst). Also, I would like to add a biological element,
namely, the precocity that allowed him at 25 to plausibly
retrace a whole lifetime, including death.
For me there is yet another genius whose unique first
film, Breathless—the complete opposite of Citizen Kane
—1is full of the despair and energy of one who has noth-
ing to lose. When making Breathless, Godard did not
even have enough money to buy a métro ticket. He was
as broke, or rather broker, than his cinematographer on
whom Michel Poiccard’s life depended as much, I be-
lieve, as Jean-Luc Godard’s identity depended on
Breathless.*
Let me return now to the subject of Charlot, from
whom I have not really strayed that much because great
men, like beautiful things, have many common points.
Charlie Chaplin was abandoned by his alcoholic father
and lived his first years in the anguish of finding his
mother being sent to a mental hospital. He himself was
picked up by the police. He was then a little nine-year-
old tramp wandering aimlessly along Kennington Road,
living ‘‘in the lower strata of society,’’ as he writes in his
memoirs. If I am redundant about his youth, which has
been described so often and commented on at such length
that the value of its rawness is lost, it is because I feel
one should see what explosiveness there really is in total
misery. When Chaplin started making chase films at the
XX1
Keystone Studios, he ran faster and farther than his
music-hall colleagues. Chaplin was not the only
filmmaker to describe hunger, but he was the only one
who knew it, and this is what audiences all over the
world felt when his two-reelers began appearing in 1914.
I keep thinking that Chaplin, whose mother died crazy,
came close himself to being put in an asylum and escaped
thanks to his talent as a mime, a talent he inherited from
her.
In-depth psychological case studies have been made re-
cently on children who have grown up in isolation, in
moral, physical or material distress. The specialists de-
scribe autism as a defense mechanism. Bazin’s examples
from Chaplin’s work clearly point out that Charlot’s ac-
tions, his movements, in short, everything he does is a
defense mechanism. When Bazin explains that Charlot is
not anti-social but asocial and that he aims to enter so-
ciety, he has defined Charlot in almost the same terms
used by Kanner who defined the differences between
the schizophrenic and autistic child. Kanner writes:
‘“Whereas the schizophrenic tries to resolve his problem
by leaving the world that he was part of, our children
arrive progressively at a compromise which consists of
carefully exploring a world that has been strange to them
from the beginning.’””
To take a single example of displacement (the word re-
curs constantly in Bazin’s writings as well as in Bruno
Bettelheim’s work on autistic children, The Empty For-
tress), | will quote from both. Bettelheim said: ‘‘The au-
tistic child is less afraid of objects and may even act
against people since it is people and not objects who
seem to threaten his existence. However, the use he
makes of objects is far from their intended purpose.”’
And Bazin wrote: “‘It seems that objects work against
Charlot in the uses society has assigned them. The best
XXil
example of such displacement is the famous dance of the
rolls, where their complicity explodes into gratuitous
choreography.”’
In today’s vocabulary, one would say that Charlot is a
‘‘marginal’’—and the most marginal of marginals. Chap-
lin became the best known and richest artist on earth,’
and he compelled himself, because of his age or perhaps
his modesty but in any case with a clear mind, to aban-
don the character of the tramp. He understood that the
roles of the ‘‘well-established’’ were forbidden to him.
He had to change the myth by staying mythical. So he
plans a Napoleon or a Life of Christ, then renounces
them, making instead The Great Dictator, then Monsieur
Verdoux and A King in New York via Calvero from Lime-
light, a clown so broken down that he asks his manager,
‘And what if I continue my career under a false
name?’’!!
What is Charlot made of? Why and how did he come
to hold sway for over 50 years of motion pictures to the
point that one can see his persona superimposed behind
Julien Carette in The Rules of the Game," or Henri
Verdoux behind Archibaldo de la Cruz,’ or again be-
hind the little Jewish barber who watches as his house
burns in The Great Dictator, and who is reincarnated 26
years later as the old man in Milos Forman’s The Fire-
men’s Ball?'* This is what André Bazin saw and
showed.
NOTES
XXII
Films such as Shoulder Arms (1918) were sometimes shown in two
parts. In Europe this film was shown as a |,772-foot version instead
of the 3,143-foot original.
Triple Trouble, an Essanay film dated 1918, was a re-edited version
of Carmen (1916), released as a ‘‘new Chaplin film.”
In addition to this partial listing of forgeries, Chaplin had to con-
tend with numerous imitators who were supported by clever advertis-
ing. (A drawing of Chaplin’s face, the use of the name **Charlie,”’ or
a film title named closely after the previous Chaplin production.)
Finally, distributing companies often used different titles for the
same film: Uno Asplund in Chaplin’s Films notes that for 81 Chaplin
films, there were 214 titles in England and the U.S. and 170 in
France.
In addition to the expiration of Chaplin’s exhibition rights, his later
films were frequently banned or boycotted. Modern Times was banned
in Germany and Italy for ‘“‘communist statements’? and was not
widely distributed in the U.S. for the same reason. The Great Dictator
was banned in Chicago in 1936, the year Germany also began banning
all American films for economic reasons when Joseph Goebbels na-
tionalized the motion picture industry. This film was also banned in
Italy, and later in France when the Vichy Government came to power.
Monsieur Verdoux ran for a short time in New York, and only ap-
peared across the entire U.S. for three weeks following its premiere
on April 11, 1947. In October of that year Chaplin stopped its distri-
bution in order to build a new promotional campaign. Because the Le-
gion of Decency as well as other pressure groups judged Monsieur
Verdoux to have communist overtones, it was boycotted by numerous
theater owners. Finally in 1949, Chaplin stopped its distribution alto-
gether. Limelight failed in the U.S. mainly because of Chaplin’s di-
minished popularity brought about by the poor financial showing his
previous films had made for more than a decade. This film was not
shown either at the Fox theaters on the West Coast or at Loew’s in
New York.
2. That year Chaplin decided to redistribute nine of his feature
films. In 1972 Chaplin sold his rights to Blackhawk Films, the same
year the British Broadcasting Corporation bought the right from
Blackhawk to televise Chaplin’s films. Also that year, the American
television networks obtained the right to broadcast any of the nine
films.
3. It was at a ciné-club, the ‘‘cinémathéque francaise,’ ’ that
Truffaut met the future New Wave directors Jacques Rivette, Jean-
Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer.
XX1V
In 1948 Truffaut first met Bazin at this cine-club ‘‘Objectif 48,””
which Truffaut felt was interfering with his own club ‘‘Cercle
Cinémane.’’ They became fast friends because of their mutual interest
in cinema.
Truffaut pays homage to Bazin whose first ciné-club, ‘‘Studio des
Ursulines,’’ is shown in Truffaut’s Jules et Jim (1961). It was at that
club that Bazin first met Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
4. Pierre-Aimé Touchard, one of Bazin’s collaborators at Travail et
Culture and at Esprit, describes Bazin as having great descriptive abil-
ities for explaining the complexities of art and culture. Bazin always
used terms in their precise etymological sense. Ironically, Bazin, who
had wanted to be a professor, failed his oral examinations because of
a stuttering problem which was aggravated by a constant nervousness.
5. Charlot, the French equivalent to Charlie. Chaplin became so
popular in France that French distributors added the name *‘Charlot’’
to the title of most of Chaplin’s films. /n the Park became Charlot
dans le Parc; The Bank became Charlot a la Banque, and so on.
Eventually the French expression for a motion picture comedy was ‘‘a
Charlot,’’ which flattered Chaplin very much. Max Linder, his **pro-
fessor’? as Chaplin calls him, was the first to tell Chaplin that his
nickname in France was Charlot and his brother Sidney was called
Julot. Charlot was the most popular name for the little tramp charac-
ter, even more than the English and American *‘Charlie,’’ the German
“Von Charlotte,’’ or the Brazilian “*Carlito.”’
6. A reference to student riots which started at the Sorbonne and
the University of Nanterre in May 1968.
The 1968 Cannes Film Festival was abandoned halfway through be-
cause it displayed *‘too much commercialism.’’ This movement was
strongly supported by Jean-Luc Godard and Truffaut.
7. Truffaut wrote an article on this film in 1967 especially for his
book The Films In My Life. He explains that the film opened in Paris
in 1946, six years after its release in the U.S. The film was subtitled
in France ‘“‘Rosebud’’ because of the journalistic persuasiveness of
Bazin and Denis Martin. In his Foreword to Bazin’s Orson Welles,
Truffaut says that ‘‘this film has inspired more vocations in cinema
throughout the world than any other . . . . Everything that matters in
cinema since 1940 has been influenced by Citizen Kane and Jean
Renoir’s The Rules of the Game.”
8. Michel Poiccard, alias Laszlo Kovacs, is the role played by
Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless. Poiccard’s identity exists only in
XXV
relation to cinema, the printed image, the image recorded by cinema-
tographer Raoul Coutard.
9. During an interview (Dec. 31, 1982) Truffaut said that he was
well aware at the time of writing of the ‘‘autistic’’ child syndrome. In
February 1970, he had just completed filming The Wild Child.
10. Chaplin’s personal fortune in 1972 was approximately $15
million.
11. No longer *‘Charlot’’ but *‘Calvero.”’
12. A film by Jean Renoir (1939). Julien Carrette (1897-1966)
played Marceau, a clown in this ‘“‘comedy drama.”’
13. Archibaldo de la Cruz (Archibald of the Cross), was the sub-
ject of Luis Bunuel’s film Ensayo de un Crimen (Mexico, 1955). The
film’s theme revolves around killing one’s wife and was inspired by
Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1948) and Chaplin’s Monsieur
Verdoux (1947) as well as Preston Sturges’ Unfaithfully Yours (1948).
14. Milos Forman’s 1967 film in which Josef Svet plays the role of
an old fireman who is dying.
XXVI1
l
Modern Times
Modern Times
(85 minutes)
by André Bazin
5
6 Essays on Chaplin
NOTES
<
Chaplin succeeds perfectly only once, during the dance with the globe.
The Great Dictator
(126 minutes)
by André Bazin
15
16 Essays on Chaplin
the fact that Hinkel exists on the screen all over the
world. It is he who becomes the accidental, contingent
being, alienated, to sum it up, from an existence on
which the other nourishes himself without owing it to
him and whom he annihilates by absorbing him. In the
last analysis, this ontological burglary rests upon the theft
of the mustache. Consider that The Great Dictator would
have been impossible if Hitler had been glabrous" or if
he had trimmed his mustache like Clark Gable. In that
case all of Chaplin’s art would not have succeeded be-
cause Chaplin without his mustache is not Charlot, and it
was necessary for Hinkel to behave no less like Charlot
than Hitler, that he become at once as much one as the
other—to be nothing. It is the very clash of the two
myths that annihilates both beings. Mussolini is not anni-
hilated by Napaloni;’ he is only caricatured. And it 1s
possible that he has only a minor existence anyway and
therefore cannot be killed with ridicule. Hinkel’s case is
different: he depends on the magical properties of this
hairy pun that would have been impossible had Hitler not
committed the first imprudence of looking like Charlot by
having a similar mustache.
It was not mime talent or even genius that allowed
Chaplin to make The Great Dictator. It was nothing more
than the mustache. Charlot waited for just the right time
to take his property back.
Mythical power: Hitler’s mustache was a real one!
NOTES
Recruiting Mankind *
by Charlie Chaplin
NOTE
Monsieur Verdoux
The secret of M. Verdoux is that he is the metamorphosis of Charlot
into his complete opposite.
Monsieur Verdoux
(122 minutes)
by André Bazin
29
30 Essays on Chaplin
NOTES
ee)
36 Essays on Chaplin
NOTES
Karno’s troupe made two tours of the U.S. (1911, 1913), during the
second of which Laurel and Chaplin stayed behind in the U.S.
Karno’s influence is especially apparent in A Night in the Show
(1915), which is based on an act Chaplin played in Karno’s Hum-
mingbirds which was renamed A Night in an English Music Hall dur-
ing the second American tour.
English vaudeville, the music hall, was devoted to comic songs,
varied with acrobatics, conjuring, juggling and dancing, and began in
small London taverns in the early 18th century.
9. Renoir may mean the Hollywood ‘‘romantic melodrama’’ as
represented by Max Ophuls, Minelli or Sirkin in the late ’40s and
early ’5Os.
10. This five-act comedy (1662) contained Moliére’s first fully de-
veloped comic character: Amolphe. This success provoked some at-
tacks to which Moliére replied in his Critique de l’Ecole des femmes
(1663) and in his play L’/mpromptu de Versailles (1663).
L’Ecole des femmes was controversial because Amolphe is a reli-
gious zealot who believes that women should be locked up and kept in
submission. This brought attacks on Moliére’s religious views; he was
called a “‘libertine.’’ In his defense in the Critique de l’Ecole, Moliére
says that *‘an author portrays a hero, and an author can use his imagi-
nation, but when one portrays a man, he must paint him according to
nature.””
11. Voltaire, an apostle of human justice and political freedom,
bitterly attacked organized religion and the government, as well as
other institutions. Like M. Verdoux, Voltaire makes a judgment on
the society he is living in cynically and ironically, particularly in his
Correspondance and Candide.
Voltaire writes that “‘good and evil must be judged relative to social
criteria of usefulness;’’ Verdoux says that he is ‘‘an amateur in com-
parison to mass killings. . .’’ Voltaire was imprisoned for his bitter
lampoons and later exiled; Chaplin was forced into a voluntary exile.
12. ‘‘Ode to Cassandre’’ by Pierre de Ronsard (1524-85). The
poem’s theme is about time passing in which the aging Ronsard prop-
ositions the young Cassandre in an explicitly sexual yet poetic
manner.
13. In ‘‘André Bazin’s Little Béret’’ from Jean Renoir, Renoir ex-
presses similar ideas on scientific progress: ‘‘The modern world is
founded on the ever-increasing production of material goods. One
must keep producing or die. But this process is like the labor of Sisy-
phus. Forgetting Lavoisier’s dictum ‘‘In nature nothing is created,
46 Essays on Chaplin
Limelight
JO]ADYD
S YSOUL
OU sa8Uuo] pasaypy kj4adodd
0} uydpy)
§ ‘aov{
Limelight
(143 minutes)
Cinematographic
Consultant : Roland Totheroh
Editor : Joseph Engel
Music : Charles Chaplin.
Main Titles: “‘The Theme from Limelight,”’
‘Ballet Introduction,’’ “‘Reunion,’’ ‘‘The
Waltz-))Temy s Themes ~ The Polka
Songs : Charles Chaplin; Ray Rasch
Choreography : Charles Chaplin; Andre Eglevsky; Melissa
Hayden
Art Director : Eugene Lourie
Assistant Producers Jerome Epstein; Wheeler Dryden
by André Bazin
51
a2 Essays on Chaplin
haps more than sound, it was the end of the pure black-
and-white cinema that determined Charlot’s evolution.
The arrival of the gray undermined the very essence of
the myth, just as the advent of oil painting, begetting an
obscure brightness, replaced a descriptive and psycholog-
ical art with the iconography’ of the metaphysical Middle
Ages. And, since City Lights, Charlot had already be-
come the chrysalis of Chaplin. With The Great Dictator,
no doubt remained, and the final closeup showed us the
dramatic moulting of the mask to reveal his face. Without
this dissociation, Monsieur Verdoux may not have been
possible. Even though the character can only be under-
stood in the light of Charlot, the myth of which he is the
negative image, or if you like, even though the role of
Verdoux is interpreted essentially by Chaplin, the latter
hides his complicity to better distract suspicions.
Whatever it is, we had up to this point two substantial
points of reference: Charlot’s mask and Chaplin’s face. It
is elementary psychology to say that actors grow old in-
versely to their fame. At the extreme, as Gloria Swanson
says in Sunset Boulevard, ‘‘Stars never grow old.’ A
few wrinkles touched up with makeup, a white lock of
hair in The Great Dictator, did not yet jeopardize the im-
age that we have kept through the photographs of a 30- or
40-year-old Chaplin. But the illusion was no longer pos-
sible. The first film interpreted by the great actor Charles
Spencer Chaplin without makeup is also precisely the
first where we do not recognize his face anymore. I mean
the first that forces us to give up the reference point of
Chaplin’s eternal maturity.
It is the grandeur and intelligence of the work to have
dared to base itself precisely on its first surprise: the ac-
tor’s age. He’s one person who knows how to grow old
with grace (and not just by retiring!) But without a
If Charlot Hadn't Died B,
doubt, he did not have any choice but to give up the style
of his previous works for the sake of dramatic realism the
instant that he took old age as the subject. Old age can
surely be a theme for comedy or even for buffoonery, but
not his own old age. By not being able to grow old, by
not even being able to deal with the problem of aging be-
cause of his essence, Charlot made it a must for Chaplin
to abandon the realm of stylization, to give up the dra-
matic system to which all of his work ascribes (except
A Woman of Paris) and which is the comedy of fixed
characters from the Commedia dell’ Arte.
However, by giving up stylization for realistic drama,
Chaplin himself cannot escape the gravitational pull of
his myth. Thus, a simple reading of the script would be
sufficient to pull us back within it. Though his auto-
biography does not quite parallel the script,°® the similar-
ity lies only in the presence of a common theme and not
in its dramatic development. In a sense, Chaplin is the
complete opposite of Calvero because the world has not
forgotten his name or that he is married to a very young
woman who has given him three children. But how could
we doubt that Chaplin, through Calvero’s decline, exor-
cises a sort of fear about his own old age. He has every-
thing that Calvero lacks: glory, wealth, love and health,
but not youth . . . which to regain would undo every op-
portunity for glory, wealth, love and health.
One should not forget that Monsieur Verdoux was a
big financial failure ($350,000 in box office receipts in
the U.S.) as well as a vehemently critical failure. If
Chaplin made himself the traveling salesman for Lime-
light, it may also have been for other reasons, but cer-
tainly because the success of the film, as much moral as
financial, is now a vital question for him.
Thus, this drama—we could even say this melodrama
54 Essays on Chaplin
*] mean the word “‘style’’ in the very precise sense, for example,
where there is a distinction between tragic style and comic style.
Thus, the ‘‘drama’’ defines itself, on the contrary, by the denial of a
style. [Bazin’s footnote]
If Charlot Hadn't Died 35
longer the critique but the beauty which has become sim-
ply an understanding of the necessities. Two or three
generations of professors had reservations about Théra-
méne’s tirade,* thinking perhaps that through this imper-
fection they could give more magnificence to the perfec-
tions of Racine’s work: a carefulness that is not only ri-
diculous but entirely false.’ If masterpieces are
overlooked by their own authors, then it is even more the
case for the critics.
I am pleased that the performance Chaplin was invited
to see in Paris was precisely Moliére’s Don Juan. Let’s
assume the opportunity of Théramene’s tirade and
Moliére’s dramatic digressions is first to respect the di-
vinity within the creation as well as to postulate that it is
impossible not to find in these faults a few necessities
and, therefore, a little harmony.
To the autonomous beauties of Limelight, one can add
more than one can subtract to what I call with pleasure
the beauty of his faults, which are only the perception of
their fatality. It is only to the mercenaries of cinemato-
graphic art and to the minor artists that a “‘constructive
critique’? can be applied. This constructive critique
implies that the work ‘‘could have been different.’” They
are the Christian Jacque’s who can ‘“‘succeed’’ just as
easily as they can ‘‘fail’’ in making Fanfan la Tulipe and
Adorable créatures. But what would be the meaning of a
‘‘constructive critique’’ of Stroheim’s work?'°
Thus, it seems to me that the apparent unbalance that
one may feel about Limelight and which comes from this
haunting style of the mythology, adds a pathetic dimen-
sion to the scenario, like the perception of Verdoux’s se-
cret identity, giving to his life and especially to his death
an explosive significance.
The realistic episode, the involvement in the drama of
Limelight, was certainly necessary for Chaplin to denude
56 Essays on Chaplin
NOTES
1. O’Hara’s last words were actually: ‘‘The only way to stay out of
trouble is to grow old, so I guess I’ll concentrate on that.’’ In Lime-
light Calvero says: ‘‘I must follow the road; it is the law.”’
2. Bazin generally uses the French title in his reviews. Here, how-
ever, he does not use the French title Les feux de la rampe.
3. Chaplin’s ‘‘makeup’’ is Charlot.
4. Black and white panchromatic film stock shows a gradation of
tones roughly corresponding to the visible spectrum. Before 1925
films were shot with orthochromatic film which is insensitive to red
and thus Charlot’s face appears as pure black and white. Chaplin’s
first film using panchromatic stock was Modern Times.
If Charlot Hadn’t Died 57
_ VO
O
Distributor : Attica—Archway
by André Bazin
63
64 Essays on Chaplin
NOTES
Lo
So
an
Ch
Jr.
Si
A Countess from Hong Kong
(120 minutes)
Process : Cinemascope
Distributor : Universal
Cast : Marlon Brando (Ogden Mears), Sophia Loren
(Countess Natasha Alexandroff), Sidney
Chaplin Jr. (Harvey Crothers), Tippi Hedren
(Martha Mears), Patrick Cargill (Hudson),
Margaret Rutherford (Miss Gullswallow),
Oliver Johnston (Clark), Geraldine Chaplin
(girl at dance).
A Countess from Hong Kong*
by Eric Rohmer
73
74 Essays on Chaplin
ous way and reconciles itself better with the tone, with
the dialogue and with the situations of the average com-
edy than with the moralism of his penultimate words in
which the moral was acceptable only at the expense of
the mise-en-scéne.
Chaplin’s destructive genius, having already elimi-
nated Charlot, will give the gags priority without moving
towards complete annihilation. Even when dismantled,
abused, dishonored, ridiculed, the gag seems to remain
the element that unlocks laughter; but once started, the
gag moves at its own pace, with more or less ease bounc-
ing back and forth between the abyss that separates the
burlesque world where it was born and the daily universe
where it emerges.
We see that Chaplin no longer considers himself
unique, and is far from proposing solutions that are valu-
able only to himself, or settling disputes between Chaplin
and Charlot, when the questions that interest us are the
relationships of cinema to itself, like that of talkies to si-
lent films. Now, he very humbly answers the question of
questions for those who practiced or loved the cinema be-
fore 1930 and who intend to continue practicing or loving
it: How can the soul of the gag, its phantasma, its poetry
fit in with the obligatory naturalism of today’s cinema?
The answer is not that the visual expression is diminished
by the presence of sound; there are some very effective
audio-visual gags, such as those of the Marx brothers.
There is no conflict between sound and image but be-
tween a space-time which is reconstructed and dominated
(if not faked) and a world which appears (even if it is
not) an exact reflection of reality, which in principle is
“not funny.’’ In summary, instead of being the general
rule, it is the exception; it screeches rather than sings, as
in times of old.
A Countess from Hong Kong 83
NOTES
Necrology
Charlie Chaplin Was
a Man Just Like Any Other Man*
by Francois Truffaut
For the last time, all of us around the world will speak
in unison about Charlie Chaplin, and obviously in glori-
ous terminology because Chaplin was the most, the best,
the only one who . . . Certainly, using such extreme vo-
cabulary will irritate some; we can therefore expect to
read in the near future calls for moderation by way of
simpler comparisons, etc. After all, what is a critic but a
type of writer whose best interest is to demonstrate that
Victor Hugo was just a man like any other man?
The best way one could salute this man Charlie
Chaplin—who was like any other man as his poor body
just finds the strength to open the door, marked ‘‘artists’
exit’’—is to set a projector on the dining room table and
show on the wall the moving stills of A Night in the
Show, The Immigrant or The Pilgrim. Here, everyone
agrees, Charlie Chaplin was the greatest mime. The dis-
agreements start later with his adaptation to full-length
features and talkies, with his political activities, his pri-
vate life, his fortune (what could now be called his as-
sets), with the quality of his technique and finally with
his book, My Autobiography.
Q2
94 Essays on Chaplin
NOTES
Immortal Charlot! *
by André Bazin
sal art: such as the letter that Charlot reads over the
shoulder of a friend happier than he himself—a sublime
touch; also in a famous scene: invisible, Charlot terror-
izes German soldiers as his disguise blends perfectly with
the countryside—an endless perfection reminiscent of a
Moliére scene.
Appendix
Working with a Friend
by André Lafargue*
103
104 Essays on Chaplin
In French
Andrew, Dudley. André Bazin. Préface de Francois Truf-
faut avec un texte de Jean-Charles Tacchella. Paris:
Editions de |’Etoile/Cahiers du Cinéma/Cinémathéque
Frangaise, 1983.
In English
Andrew, Dudley. André Bazin. Preface by Francois Truf-
faut. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Ill. Periodicals by André Bazin
Cahiers du cinéma
‘*Pour en finir avec la profondeur de champ.’ no 1 (avril
1951), 17-23,
“Un Saint ne l’est qu’apres (La fille des Marais).’’ no 2
(mai 1951), 46-48.
‘Le Journal d'un Curé de Campagne ei la stylistique de
Robert Bresson.”’ no 3 (juin 1951), 7-21.
‘“Le Pour et le contre (Orson Welles).’’ no 4 (juil.-aott
1951), 46-51.
‘“‘Néo-réalisme, opéra et propagande (Le Christ inter-
dit).”’ no 4 (juil.-aoaut 1951), 46-51.
‘‘A propos des reprises.’’ no 5 (sept. 1951), 52-56.
‘““L’Eau danse (Images pour Debussy).’’ no 7 (déc. 1951),
58-59.
‘*Coquelin nous voici: (Cyrano de Bergerac).’’ no 7 (déc.
1951), 61-62.
Selected Bibliography 109
Esprit
“Le Cinéma pur (La Bataille du Rail et Ivan le Terri-
ble).’’ XIV, no 121 (1946), 667-72.
“Le Cinéma (Scarface).’’ XIV, no 122 (1948), 841-44.
**Le Cinéma: a propos de Pourquoi nous combattons: His-
toire, documents, et actualité.”’ XIV, no 123 (1946),
1022-26.
“*Réflexions aprés le Festival de Cannes.’’ XIV, no 128
(1947), 908-13.
‘‘Farrebique ou le paradoxe du réalisme.”’ XV, no 132
(1947), 676-80.
‘‘A propos de l’échec américain au Festival de Brux-
elles.”’ XV, no 137 (1947), 28-32.
‘Cannes Festival 47.’’ XV, no 139 (1947), 773-74.
‘‘Le Réalisme cinématographique et Les Raisins de la
colére.’’ XVI, no 142 (1948), 297-300.
‘‘L’ Adaptation ou le cinéma comme digeste.’’ XVI, no
146 (1948), 32-40.
“‘Le Festival de Venise.’’ XVI, no 155 (1948), 901-10.
‘‘Films d’enfants: Quelque part en Europe et Allemagne
114 Essays on Chaplin
C. Le Parisien libéré
“‘Dernier Métro.’’ (11 juillet 1945).
‘*Festival Charlot.’’ (6 juin 1946).
“Citizen Kane.’’ (5 juillet 1946).
**Théatre et cinéma.’’ (9 aoat 1946).
*‘Jean Renoir.’’ (24 Janvier 1947).
“‘Jean-Paul Sartre Vedette du jour au Festival de
Cannes.’’ (18 aoat 1947).
‘““Le plus grand film de résistance du monde: Paisa.’’ (1%
octobre 1947).
“‘Quand les microbes’ jouent les vedettes—un festival
méconnu: celui du film scientifique.’’ (10 octobre
1947).
‘‘Monsieur Verdoux \e martyr de Charlot.’’? (14 janvier
1948).
“Orson Welles m’a dit . . .”’ (2 septembre 1948)
**Va-t-on enseigner le cinéma sous les ponts?’’ (13 octo-
bre 1948).
“‘Les Jeux Olympiques de Londres 1948.’’ (8 decembre
1948).
‘“‘Immortel Charlot!’’ (21 juillet 1949).
“Set up a reveillé a coups de poing le festival ou régne la
corvée du smoking.’ (17 septembre 1949).
‘*Venise: Grace 4a la télévision.’’ (10 octobre 1952).
‘“‘Les Feux de la rampe’’: nouveau film de Chaplin, sont
un bouleversant poéme.’’ (31 octobre 1952).
‘‘Le souvenir d’un Chien Andalou a réveillé le Festival.”’
9 avril. 1953).
“Je 7°™* art tel qu’on |’écrit. Avant-garde et mysticisme
au cinéma.’’ (23 aoat 1953).
‘‘Les enfants d’Hiroshima. Pélerinage de |’Apocalypse,
116 Essays on Chaplin
G. France-Observateur
““Faut-il croire en Hitchcock?’’ (17 janvier 1952), 23-4.
“Un sur-western. Le train sifflera trois fois.’’ (9 octobre
1952); 21-2.
‘‘Napoléon d’ Abel Gance.’’ (10 mars 1955), 30.
“Télévision: le monde chez soi.’’ (5 janvier 1956), 14.
‘La télévision: culture.’’ (19 janvier 1956), 14.
“‘Sociologie de la télévision.’’ (26 janvier 1956), 15.
‘‘La télévision et la relance du cinéma.’’ (26 avril 1956),
14.
“Télévision et cinéma.’’ (31 mai 1956), 18.
‘*La ruée vers l’or.”’ (5 juillet 1956), 18.
‘Télévision: Panorama des émissions de variétés.””
‘Regards sur la télévision.’’ (20 aoat 1957), 15.
“‘Un roi a New York.’’ (31 octobre 1957), 22.
‘Verdict critiquable des critiques de télévision.’’ (26 dé-
cembre 1957), 21.
‘‘Les Amants’’ (10 novembre 1958).
123
124 Essays on Chaplin
II. ESSANAY
1915 His New Job
A Night Out
The Champion
In the Park
The Jitney Elopement
The Tramp
By the Sea
Work
A Woman
The Bank
Shanghaied
A Night in the Show
1916 Carmen
Police
1918 Triple Trouble
Hl. MUTUAL
The Cure
The Immigrant
The Adventurer
VI. UNIVERSAL
1966 A Countess from Hong Kong
lf thisseOOok has taken me back to Chaplin the clown
and the pleasure of his movies, it has done so in large part
~- because of fireless and serious scholarship.... The direct
style of the introduction, the informative notes, the surprise
article that serves as an appendix. must force usto read
these essays as closely as these essayists watched the
films. Let not the slenderness of this book mislead us. It is as
subtle, detailed, and thickly human as, say, The Pawnshop,
or any essay by Bazin, the greatest critic the cinema has
_ had. Happily his spirit, like that of Chaplin, is still with us.”
—Dudley Andrew, Author of André Bazin, The Major
_ _ Film Theories and Conceptsi in Film Theory
cover design
by rachel mathieu _