Richard M Roberts wrote:Oh don’t be silly, of course CITY LIGHTS is a comedy. That said, I will have to admit that it has never been as high on my Chaplin favorite list as it seems to be with others. I think it is technically the sloppiest of Chaplin’s prime works, looking like something pieced together in dribs and drabs over a number of years (our favorite game is watch Chaplin’s moustache and eyebrows grow and shrink from scene to scene, and sometimes shot to shot) and continuity is generally very sloppy indeed (his street cleaner uniform goes from white pants to grey pants within the same scene). I think the gagging is somewhat weak compared to the films made around it (and I’ve always thought that THE CIRCUS is really one of the funniest pictures he made gag-wise, and have seen it work better with audiences than most of his other pictures in getting solid laughs) and I have actually seen the film fail with audiences not completely into Chaplin and willing to be charmed by anything he does.
And the famous ending, despite its ambiguity, has always come off as an admission of failure to me that Chaplin really had no idea how to wrap the thing up. Perhaps a brilliant way of getting out of that situation, but still an admission of failure nevertheless, and a corner neither Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd would have allowed themselves to be put into because they would never have proceeded on a story that they didn’t know the ending to. I definitely subscribe to Keaton’s opinion that Chaplin got “lazy” when he had his fame and his own studio, and as he made fewer and fewer films, and took longer to make them, the laziness shows through the seams more and more.
I understand what you're saying, but I have to disagree. Yes,
City Lights has a patchwork feel to it, just as its younger brother
Modern Times has. It's a collection of scenes rather than a narrative that flows purposefully from beginning to end. And I much prefer the mischievous, energetic Tramp of old to this less-resourceful, world-weary Tramp.
But though the film has its shortcomings, I think Chaplin overcame them by developing certain themes that elevate it above his usual high standard. In the urban setting of
The Kid, the Tramp was perfectly at home, but in the thoroughly 20th-Century urban setting of
City Lights, he's an alien visitor, a complete outcast who can no longer charm and bluff his way through life. The ending works very well for me, because while he's more than ever a bum with a murky future (a reality that the ending of
Modern Times casually throws away), he's transcended everything through love and sacrifice. Unlike the perfunctory, unconvincing romances we always see Keaton and Lloyd involved in, here Chaplin paints
LOVE vividly, more so than anyone had ever done in a film comedy before (or since). In spite of the impersonal big city, the Tramp prevails through his humanity, which is really the only thing he's got... and neither he nor we realize that victory until the final scene.
Modern Times is a lesser film, because there the Tramp simply endures. But in
City Lights, he prevails. Here, Chaplin is doing what William Faulkner talks about in his Nobel acceptance speech. The Tramp has his adventures, he gets kicked around and he goes to jail, but there's a lot more going on than these things we see on the screen.
I have to disagree also about Chaplin's "laziness." Apart from one long vacation in 1921, he was working almost continuously until after
City Lights was finally in the can. There might have been several years between releases, but he didn't have long stretches of inactivity until the 1930s. I'm glad that Keaton and Lloyd were able to knock out a film or two every year--- and they're wonderful films--- but I don't think it's a sign of laziness that Chaplin chose not to work that way.