City Lights is one of Charlie Chaplin's most famous film and was his climax point of Chaplin's silent movie career. The film received positive feedback and won many important awards that hold the remarkable position of silent film at that time and also even shone over the 'voice movies '. Chaplin is extremely because of his spectacular talent on acting but also directing, writing and acting the film by himself. The way he perceived acting was absolutely unique and genius which contribute to the film industry and inspired a lot of talents like Walt Disney.
Charlie Chaplin was acting as a tramp in City Light which is his signature look: black hat, oversize shoes, walking stick and small mustache. Although the character was a lower-class, he had a very noble heart. He helped the blind girl even he had no money; he saved the millionaire from suicide and taught him to be brave and faced life. It is a reflection of the movie title 'City light'. ' Increasingly Chaplin tackled what was real for working people, his core audience: the Depression, alienation in big cities, the heartlessness of modern factory life.' Providing the suitable product to the customer is the best way to improve reputation. This is also the reason why his movie is more related to the public and understandable for all classes within the society.
The story is very simple and easy to understand without the help of dialogue which is not even needed. Chaplin was very clever, he was good at interacting with the stage, using all the tools, props, geographical benefit and even other supporting character to refine the tramp's personality and generousness.
For example at the scene where he met the blind girl, this was where the theatrical reality began, the acting there was beautifully considered. It is more than just buying flower from the blind girl, but a build up of connection and relationship with the girl. He showed a stage from not caring to suddenly know she was blind and finally interested in her by a lot of body language.
1. When they first met, he did not know she was blind thus he was not paying close attention to her. Chaplin showed this by looking around which is something we would usually do when talking to strangers because we avoid eye contact with people we do not know in order to keep the comfort zone.'Where, when, and how we look at others are all part of the phenomenon of eye gaze, one of our most important and primitive means of communication.' said by Adrain Furnham suggests that gazing is the most important element in communication. Although the tramp is buying the from from the girl, he is still showing defensive until he found out she cannot see.
2. 'Did you pick it up, Sir?' is when he slowly realised that girl is blind. Chaplin shows the transition by reacting slowly to show the thinking process, which is a mechanical movement human do, we slow down our movement when we think. Also this is where the thinking leads to conclusion theory begins as well. He soon found out her disability and suddenly show sympathy to her because of moral obligation. He did that by staring at her (in a good way, she could not know anyway) and hold the girl's arm in order to lead her to the seat. There are also a lot of facial expression and detail body languages to enhance the situation which allow audience to feel the emotion of the tramp. 'I admired Chaplin very much because you could see him think, and plan, and you cared for him' said Chuck Jones and which is true that Chaplin bought empathy to comedy and emotionally connected with audience with romance and charisma.
Comparing to the movie nowadays, they still use body language a lot in movies(since it is an essential component when communicating), actors are not using they wisely and effectively due to the involvement of dialogue and the complicated content of the story. Usually actors nowadays speak out their thoughts to try to make the scene funny and humorous, example could be found everywhere, here is a trailer I found on youtube, searching 2016 comedy movie.
It is understandable that the movies are in different generation but the lack of content and the degree of depth of the movies now are real decline from what we had at the past.
reference:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/08/charlie-chaplin-peter-ackroyd-review-simon-callow(6/10/16)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201412/the-secrets-eye-contact-revealed(6/10/16)
http://www.seattlepi.com/ae/movies/article/What-s-the-Big-Deal-City-Lights-1931-883942.php(6/10/16)
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