Man With A Movie List

Director: Charlie Chaplin Year: 1940 Run-time: 2 hrs 4 min - There's too much to unpack about this short article, but suffice it to say that the stars must have been aligned in order for Chaplin to get to make this film about his ostensible doppleganger in 1940, when the U.S. was a neutral spectator to the war in Europe. The Hitler parody is funny, but most of the time it isn't over-the-top, and it often becomes quite frightening at the same time (see the famous "balloon globe" scene). This film is in many ways the apotheosis of Chaplin's desire to control his audience's experience, which even in a sound film (Chaplin's first) he is still able to do remarkably well. The pivot to honesty in the last scene is incredibly moving.  I'm not sure if it's my favorite of Chaplin's films, but it's certainly the most essential.

Director: Charlie Chaplin Year: 1936 Run-time: 1 hr 27 min - Charlie Chaplin took a five-year break between City Lights  and this film, but in that time kept his focus on the American dream.  Modern Times  feels like the film on this list that has more than any other tackled the Great Depression as a subject, and it's altogether strange but fitting that it would be Chaplin, the fading icon of the 20's, who would feel so contemporary.  This is remembered today for the wonderful opening scene set at an insane Metropolis -style factory, but the whole film is terrific, and open to all sorts of fascinating analysis.

Director: Charlie Chaplin Year: 1931 Run-time: 1 hr 27 min Source: Criterion Channel Wikipedia Roger Ebert's Analysis Gary Giddins' Essay for The Criterion Collection Notable for : It's Chaplin's most renowned film, being the best example of his "Tramp character" as well as his innovative intermixing of comedy and tearful drama.  It's also a deliberate throwback, a silent film made three years after the advent of sound, which Chaplin knew signaled the end of the art form that he had pioneered.  Nevertheless it became a box office smash, and a sign that moviegoers were looking for comfort and familiarity in the midst of the Depression.  Chaplin controlled every inch of this film, frequently firing (and re-hiring) his put-upon actors, shooting hundreds of takes of the shortest scenes, and manipulating every twist of his audience's emotional state.  In return, it's likely become one of the most analyzed films in history, with many differen...

Director: Charlie Chaplin Year: 1925 Run time: 1 hr 35 min Source: Amazon (make sure to find the 1925 version) Charlie's Chaplin's The Gold Rush is an excellent movie in any time, but it will not strike a modern viewer as very ambitious.  That's because in our era, comedies and dramas are mostly considered equals, at least outside of award season.  This wasn't so in the silent era: while D.W. Griffith could spend extraordinary sums creating massive sets for a three-hour long "serious" film, Chaplin took a huge risk in making the longest (90 minutes) and most expensive comedy at that time.  (It doesn't really look expensive, being shot mostly in one-room cabins.  But being the perfectionist that he was, it makes sense that he spent a lot of that money on few short establishing shots and one memorable ending.) But while the movie doesn't feel as ambitious as it was, it does feel very iconic, the epitome of Charlie Chaplin.  The love story is trit...

Director: Charlie Chaplin Year: 1921 Runtime: 53 min Source: Youtube Surely this will be a sad cliche by the time I give up on this mad quest, but while watching Charlie Chaplin's The Kid , I couldn't help but think about superhero movies.  Specifically, the way that superhero movies once could be relied on to contain predictable and largely superfluous plots, and now, due to their massive popularity, they're trying to adapt themselves to a whole host of genres, from slapstick comedies to emotional dramas. Somehow that's the best analogy for me to make sense of The Kid .  This was Charlie Chaplin's gambit, to adapt his vaudeville-rooted comedy, all based around his wildly successful Tramp character, to somehow fit into a tearjerker drama, which seems to be heavily influenced by D.W. Griffith (who Chaplin definitely admired and partnered with to create United Artists).  Chaplin adopted Griffith's penchant for nameless, archetypal characters (The Tramp is f...

Director: Charlie Chaplin Year: 1918 Runtime: 33 minutes Source: Youtube Though it may come before his greatest and most well-known works, A Dog's Life shouldn't really be considered an "early" Charlie Chaplin film.  By 1918, Chaplin was a massive celebrity, one of the highest-paid men in the world, and his character "The Tramp" was already a global icon.  But it is clear from this film that Chaplin was only just beginning to push his character beyond pure vaudeville slapstick. A Dog's Life  is a breezy delight from beginning to end - there are plenty of great set-pieces.  The dog is plenty cute, although she doesn't actually play a huge role in what plot there is, or even in the best comedy bits.  Of course I'm just guessing here, but it's easy to imagine that Chaplin with his notorious perfectionism was immensely frustrated while dealing with a canine costar, and chose to limit her involvement.  In any case, Chaplin is more than cap...