All language subtitles for Classic.Movies.The.Story.Of.S05E02.Classic.Movies.Chaplin.1992.1080p.NOW.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

How do you do, sir?
I'm Charlie Chaplin.

Chaplin. You sent me a telegram.

Butte, Montana.

You've hired me for a year,
Mr Sennett.

You can't be Chaplin.

The guy I hired did the best
comedy drunk I ever saw.

But he was old.
I don't pay 100 a week to juveniles.

Another one, boss?
No, no, we'll move on.

Mr Sennett...

There can be no argument
that Charles Spencer Chaplin

is the most iconic figure
in movie history.

Through his silent film persona
as the Tramp

and his dazzling talent
behind the camera,

he transformed cinema
into an art form.

So if nothing else,
it is an act of great daring

to take on such a man.

With Chaplin, director
Richard Attenborough does much more.

This is a passionate,
richly detailed biopic

of one of cinema's founding fathers.

What is it about
the life of Charlie Chaplin

that makes him such a worthwhile
subject for a biopic?

Well, Charlie Chaplin does encompass
almost all of the 20th century.

So the events of his life
cover the key events

of one of the most tumultuous
centuries.

Also,
he is a particular kind of man,

and he's the kind of man
that lends itself well to biopics

in that he's driven,
he's passionate, he's damaged,

and therefore,
the decisions he makes

are not necessarily
the decisions we'd make.

He's incredibly famous as a result,
but it doesn't make him happy. He...

These are all the great things
for a biopic.

The coming from nowhere,
in his case, extreme poverty,

the getting to somewhere,
and it not giving you what you want.

Hm?

OK.

You might be Chaplin after all.

In a sensational central performance,

Robert Downey Jr portrays Chaplin
both on and off screen,

from teenager to octogenarian,

convincingly capturing both his
outward glamour and inner turmoil.

This is a highly textured portrait
of a highly complex artist.

Charlie Chaplin remains, I think,

one of our great geniuses
of the art of motion pictures,

and even people
who don't know much about him

probably recognise the iconic image
of him as the Little Tramp

with his moustache and cane.

And so when Richard Attenborough
makes this film,

which encompasses
not just the biography of Chaplin,

but really a history
of the early part of Hollywood

and silent pictures
going into talkies,

he is sort of introducing that
to a brand new audience in the '90s.

Charlie Chaplin
is vitally significant

in the evolution of cinema.
He is, in fact,

one of the most important figures
in the early period of Hollywood.

He was the man who took
basically silent comedy,

which was relatively
unsophisticated,

and dragged it into the 20th century

with a greater deal
of sophistication

and also social conscience.

He was able, somehow, through
his character of the Little Tramp,

to engage with the audience in a way
that hadn't been done before,

because behind that figure,

with whom many people
could identify,

because, of course,
these films, the great films,

were made during
the Great Depression,

he could then not only
send himself up,

but he could also show the spirit
of someone who was down but not out.

And it's also an extraordinary time
for mankind, isn't it?

This is technological change.
There's the invention of an art form,

but the period in which
Charlie Chaplin sort of comes of age

is sort of the move into
the industrial century, isn't it?

Well, it's the industrialisation
of the arts.

I mean, we've had the industrial
revolution in the 19th century,

and where Chaplin is, it's at
the point where creative arts

are becoming industrialised. In
particular, we see him in Hollywood

at a time when it begins
like a factory

and very gradually becomes
an artistic endeavour.

But he's encompassing
how ideas about what we do

with all this machinery
to create something beautiful,

something funny, something tragic,

he's critical
in helping us understand

how to use things
like a movie camera

and make something out of it
that isn't simply

knocking out 20-minute short films.

And who's this
sitting on top of the world?

Why, it's none other than
Charlie Chaplin,

back in the old Keystone days
when his pathetic little figure

first taught millions of grouches
how to smile.

And here we see him,
a couple of million dollars later,

but you'll notice there are
silver threads among the gold.

We get the many shades
of a remarkable life,

the rise from London poverty
to Hollywood fame,

the pursuit of all the possibilities
of film and its attendant stardom,

and also the womanising
and political views

that tested his welcome in America

and eventually would bring about
his downfall.

Chaplin as a film
has all of the beats

that you would want from a biopic
or from a film from this period,

which is lavish period detail,

the glamour of Hollywood
bygone times,

the sort of idea that
the creative process

is a difficult and costly one
for the artist.

And, of course, Chaplin's life
was incredibly glamorous.

He was the first really major
international film star

and one of the most famous men
in the world.

And the art form was so new
that he sort of lived out

how that would affect the future
and what that meant to people.

This is indeed

a very emotional... moment for me.

You're all here,
and it was realised,

and I want to take this occasion

to thank you

and to express, if I possibly can
in words, although words relatable,

I can't express
the wonderful friendship,

this marvellous family and love
I've felt

ever since my arrival here.

I can't tell you
how much it has meant to me

to know that I've had
such staunch, loyal friends.

It's wonderful to be back
in my country, amongst my people.

Hear, Hear!

Charlie Chaplin is an ideal subject
for a film

because, of course,
he is a creature of the cinema.

Not only that,
he had such a full life

that it's sort of stuffed
with incident.

There's also a great
rags to riches story,

which, of course,
is one of the great narrative arcs

of any biography or any biopic.

So there's everything that you need
to make something

that is not only relevant
to the subject itself,

I mean the man himself, but also
has a kind of meta interest

in the fact that
it's about the creation

of a certain cinematic style.

But it's also a risk, isn't it,
taking on the most iconic figure

- in film history?
- Yes, I mean, he was,
well, for the '20s and '30s,

he was probably one of the most
famous men in the world.

And he is also
a particular kind of performer.

He's very skilful, very precise.

So to put someone on screen
trying to imitate him,

you can't imitate Chaplin,
you can't,

"Oh, well, we'll do something
that's a bit Chaplin-style."

You have to be able to be sure
that the actor, the performer,

is able to have that level
of precision about comedic timing

that Chaplin had that would make
the simplest things funny,

which is incredibly hard.
There's a reason why

there's really
only one Charlie Chaplin

and that's because it's very hard
to do what he did.

What do you think makes for
a good biopic,

just in the general sense
of the genre?

I think a good biopic
has to be laced with tragedy.

We are not going to go to the cinema

to watch someone become incredibly
wealthy and live happily ever after.

That's not what we like.

We are aware that with the deals
that we do for fame,

it's like the blues singers
at the crossroads,

the deals that we do for fame
bring about great costs.

But also, we're also aware that
artists are normally damaged,

that there's something
they're carrying with them.

To want to do this in that sort
of way, that obsessive way,

they're driven by something.
And we're fascinated,

what is it that drives an artist?

And with Chaplin,

it begins, and certainly
the film argues it begins,

with his poverty-stricken
upbringing,

with his mother
going to the madhouse,

and with him falling in love
with a girl who he never sees again.

So there's a lot of tragedy
at the beginning

which he's really unable to resolve.
He's always trying to find a way

to use the money he has
to find the happiness he's lost.

We also get a fabulous portrait
of Hollywood's sunlit infancy

and the changing face of a nation

across the first half
of the 20th century.

The little man
makes for a big subject.

He was the FBI, old darling.

Said he knew
what a loyal American I was,

wondered if everyone else
felt the same way.

I just sat there and let him work
his way around to you. Which he did.

He asked were you a member
of the Communist Party?

I said that was
an absolute impossibility.

- Because I love America.
- Because
you're too cheap to pay the dues.

It's remarkable.
Your timing and work is flawless.

In life, it's the reverse.

In 1992, Attenborough was celebrating
50 years in the film industry,

both as star and director.

He specialised in transforming
real lives into epic dramas,

with Winston Churchill,

apartheid martyr Stephen Biko,

and an Oscar-lauded life of Gandhi
behind him.

When a biopic of American
revolutionary hero Thomas Paine

fell apart, he was at a loss
where to turn next.

Richard Attenborough, by the time
of making Chaplin in 1992,

was a recognised and beloved veteran
of the motion picture industry,

both in front of the camera
and behind it.

He had starred in the indelible role
of Pinkie in Brighton Rock

back in the '40s,
and went through doing a series

of amazing war pictures,

and then went on to direct
films like Gandhi,

which would win him Best Director
in 1983.

Richard Attenborough's reputation
in 1992 was,

after 50 years in the business,
absolutely unassailable.

He was actually a kind of
national treasure, to be honest.

Of the 12 films
that he actually made,

only three of those are not based
on real people or real events.

So he was very attracted
to real lives

and tracing their kind of trajectory

over often many, many years.

He is, you know, the archetypal
biopic director.

Essentially, he almost
invented the form, didn't he?

Yes, he did.
I mean, he invented the form

with films about Winston Churchill,
Young Winston,

concentrating on a very specific
period of his life.

This is the most interesting thing
about the film Chaplin

is it stands out from his biopics.

He does Young Winston, he does Biko,
and he does Ghandi,

and later
he would go on to do Shadowlands,

but these are key figures
in the 20th century again.

You know, obviously Churchill, Biko
is an anti-apartheid campaigner,

a critical
anti-apartheid campaigner.

And these are people
who bring about change.

Without them, we would have
a different world today.

And so that's what interests us.

And so Chaplin's decisions
change art forever,

but he doesn't know that.
He's unaware.

What he's doing is he is being
driven by the thing that hurts

and the desire
for some kind of peace.

And that is why we watch.
Because if we just had someone

writing a great song and becoming
famous, great, we don't care.

It was Diana Hawkins,
Attenborough's long-term assistant,

who came up with the answer.

She drew up a list of everything
she thought Attenborough looked for

in his world-changing life stories,

and something closer to home.

At the bottom of the list,
she scribbled "CC."

When Attenborough realised
she meant Charlie Chaplin,

he leapt at the chance to celebrate

the supreme figure
of his own art form.

Sir Richard Attenborough
had actually made the acquaintance

of Charlie Chaplin in the 1950s,
and like many who were in cinema,

was a huge admirer of his.

So he, I guess, had, on some level,
it in the back of his brain

and loved Chaplin very much.

But it hadn't been
at the forefront of his thoughts

and he had recently had a project
fall through

and was feeling
quite depressed about it.

So enter his long-time publicist
and assistant

and creative collaborator,
Diana Hawkins.

She, knowing that he loved Chaplin,

and feeling that actually
if he were to take on that project,

that all the best talent in
Hollywood would be drawn to it

because of the subject
and how beloved Chaplin was,

she put a list on his desk

and floated the idea of Chaplin
to him. And that was the beginning.

And she kind of graduated
from being a publicist

to being credited as a producer
and co-writer on Chaplin.

Chaplin and Attenborough met,
they knew each other briefly,

towards the end of Chaplin's life.
And he was obsessed by him.

But he'd come up himself through
a very different kind of route

into acting. One of his early roles
was Pinkie in Brighton Rock,

which is definitely not a Chaplin
role, it's a psychotic killer.

Really, really mesmerising actor.

And he was able to play
an enormous range of characters.

He could play comedy,
he could play hard working-class,

he could play posh, he had an
enormously diverse range of talent.

So he understood
the challenge of acting

and he understood
the possibilities of acting.

But gradually,
he became more and more interested

in production and directing,

beginning with Oh! What A Lovely
War, which is 1969,

and then moving more into
his biopics,

until by the 1980s, he was rarely
acting, if so, more cameos, I think.

Do you think there's sort of
an added resonance, though,

in the fact that Attenborough is one
of the most famous actor/directors

who there's ever been,
taking on someone he reveres

as much greater than even him, but
it's a love song to the very art form

and industry
that Attenborough belonged to.

Yes. And, I mean,
it's a risky thing to do.

It's typically a truth
in film and television

that the general public don't want
to see films or television

about people
who make films and television.

But people who are in that industry,
they find the artist

and they want to explore them.

Attenborough had known Chaplin
in his dotage.

They had met by chance at a
restaurant in the French Riviera.

The younger director would drop by

whenever Chaplin was at the Savoy
in London,

listening to his stories,
catching the note of sadness.

Years later, getting his daughter,
Geraldine Chaplin, on board

was key to gaining the approval
of Chaplin's widow, Una.

Her one condition was that
she had nothing to do with it.

She entrusted Attenborough
with her husband's legacy.

He then acquired the rights
to two books,

Chaplin's autobiography,
and David Robinson's biography,

very well regarded, in order to be
able to start thinking about this,

what would be a grand and, in fact,
rather difficult project.

But what he wanted to do
first of all, his initial idea,

was to make
a television mini-series,

because he felt that the project
was too big

to be contained within one movie.

He went to Universal Studios,
they initially liked the idea,

and they agreed in principle.

He had, on the back
of the huge success of Gandhi,

got a three-picture deal
with Universal.

So he knew he had to make three
movies. So he set about making...

I mean, Gandhi he'd been working on
for 18 years,

so he must, to some degree,
have felt

a level of creative sort of
completeness and exhaustion,

to looking around for something,
"What can I do?"

To find that,
he then was committed to that.

You know, not the same level
of time, but the same level

of absolute defiant determination
to deliver the project.

You would've thought Attenborough
would've had the keys to the kingdom

after the success of films
like Gandhi and his overall career,

but he struggled with Universal

when he approached them
for the idea of Chaplin.

They didn't really feel that
this dusty old figure

was someone that was relevant
any more.

They assumed audiences
wouldn't be interested.

Tom Cruise, who was initially chosen
for the part, turned it down.

And the person that Attenborough
wanted instead

was a young actor
called Robert Downey Jr,

who had been in a few things
but didn't have

a huge amount of star power
behind him just yet.

And so there was a lack of
confidence on the studio's part.

Also, to complicate matters further,

he wanted a $30 million budget
for it,

which he needed in order to capture
this elaborate world,

over a long period of time, as well.

So the production actually stopped,

or pre-production stopped,
for about ten months.

As convinced as Attenborough was
that he had the perfect subject,

Hollywood was wary
of such an expensive project.

There was the fear that Chaplin
might not translate to modern times.

Initial plans for a mini-series
were shelved.

Then Universal pulled the plug

as they were building sets
at West Fillmore in California.

Attenborough had to take
his begging bowl around Hollywood

to save his film.

It was blockbuster indie Carolco

who scented awards potential
in the lavish biopic.

Attenborough had a very difficult
time making Chaplin to begin with,

and getting it off the ground,
because Universal Pictures,

first of all having sort of
got cold feet about it,

then halved the budget. They said,

"You'll have to find the rest
yourself."

Attenborough went to Columbia
and they turned him down flat.

He then thought, "Where can I go?"

He went to a studio, Carolco,
run by Mario Kassar.

Carolco was known for Rambo films,

and they made a lot of money through
Rambo and Schwarzenegger movies,

and they, unbelievably, said,
"We will finance the whole film."

They probably saw it
as a prestige product.

It was something that would
give them respect and kudos,

having made vast amounts of money

from, you know,
sort of shoot-em-ups.

All of my fear and everything
came up before doing this film

because this was like saying,

"Are you... Can you really do

what you've always hoped
and wanted to do?"

So it's like, you know, it was
like a real judgement day for me.

But what did you hope
and want to do?

I hoped I could...

I could bring him to life on screen.

And I wanted to...

I wanted to do it for myself
and for Richard,

who had had the faith
to give me the opportunity.

Naturally, there were big names
in the frame to play Chaplin.

Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey,
Robin Williams and Billy Crystal.

26-year-old Robert Downey Jr,

one of Los Angeles'
brat-pack generation,

won the part the old-fashioned way,
in a screen test.

Nearly tripping on his way in,
he ballet-danced around the room,

moving in and out of character
as the Tramp.

It was the way he moved
that convinced Attenborough.

The fact that he and Chaplin
looked uncannily alike also helped.

Why are you so worried?
Me?

Oh-ho-ho!
I haven't a care in the world!

I'm the oldest action star in
the business and talkies are coming.

What the hell have I got to be
worried about?

That's talking, Charles.

Talking! Talking.

Can you imagine the Tramp talking?
It's the future, Charlie.

Not in my lifetime.

Talkies!

It'll never catch on.

Talkies!

Talkies?

Talkies!

A perfectionist, Chaplin
first rehearses his routines

in front of the camera,
so he may later study

and improve every gesture.

This rare film, a rehearsal without
make-up for a scene in City Lights,

shows how carefully Chaplin develops
his exquisite precision.

Downey was well aware
he was taking on an icon.

He worked with film historians,
vocal teachers and movement coaches.

He learned how to take a fall,
to walk with splayed feet,

or simply how Chaplin sat in a chair.

All of it had to feel effortless,

that languorous,
dishevelled elegance,

those madcap, slapstick routines.

His entire body
had to become Chaplin.

Moreover, this isn't just
a convincing version of the figure

we see on the screen,
but the man we never knew,

out of character,
wrestling with his art.

Now, you mentioned briefly
that Robert Downey Jr won the part

in probably the most traditional way
there is, he did a screen test.

Can you just tell me a bit more about
that very famous screen test,

and what it was
that Attenborough saw in him?

Well, I mean, the screen test
started with an accidental trip,

that he walked in front
of the camera and genuinely,

unintentionally, almost fell over.

That didn't necessarily
immediately translate

and Attenborough thought
it was deliberate. Excellent.

And then Robert Downey Jr used
sort of dance techniques

and he moved
almost as a ballet dancer.

And that's what...
really what the Vaudeville

and the Music Hall
slapstick routines were,

is they were choreographed
as if they were dance.

So he saw that ability
to move like a dancer,

which was critical
for inhabiting Chaplin.

He also looked a bit like him.
That was very, very important.

I mean,
that does a lot of work for you,

if you've got
a certain physical resemblance.

But the performance was just, he had
a little, and it wasn't quite there,

well, of course it wasn't there,
it took him a year

to get to that stage
where he was ready to perform,

- but he had a quality.
- Yeah.
And once he'd seen that quality,

that ability to be
both a bit tragic and funny,

then Attenborough stuck with him,

despite the lack of financing
as a result.

No, wait, wait, hold it.
Keep it going.

Maybe it's not so crazy after all.

Photographer! Henry!
Chase him around the camera!

OK, put him in line.

Big reaction! Big reaction!
Who is this?

Stay down, Henry, stay down!

Groom, look jealous. Jealous.

You can do better than that,
can't you? Pride!

Now, Mabel, give the Tramp the eye.
That's right.

Yeah, yeah. Matron, you're a real
hoity-toity. Who is this bum?

Good, very good.

Downey Jr shows a really natural
and instinctive ability

to switch between
Chaplin the performer,

which was a very important thing
when there's a real persona

behind him
in those early silent years,

and Chaplin the man,
who was a very serious artist,

who was someone
who was naturally haunted

by some of his past
and childhood experiences

and who put that into his work,
and who was a major perfectionist,

who did things in the early
wild days of Hollywood

that were truly pioneering, but
spent much longer amounts of time

than the quick sort of slap-dash way
that they made films back then,

was sort of in opposition with.

And so Downey Jr encompasses
both of those sides of Chaplin,

rather than just playing to a crowd
who might only see the stereotype.

The choice of Robert Downey Jr
was quite controversial

because he wasn't a big star.

He was recognised,
but, you know, he would never...

he'd never led a film. The two films
he had done before Chaplin

were Soap Dish and Air America,

and he was a sort of second lead,
or even third lead in that.

He was on his way up, but he was
by no means a sort of marquee name.

Once you've seen Robert Downey Jr
play Chaplin,

it's quite obvious that nobody else
could have played it like him.

He is absolutely perfect.

It's not that he was born to play
the role, in spite of what he says,

it was that he worked so hard
to get it right,

and he took all the right choices.

He got the voice right
for a start off.

His English accent
is absolutely impeccable.

But he got the physical comedy,
the timing.

He could do the man
with the Chaplin mask,

the Little Tramp mask, perfectly,
and when he took the mask off,

he could do Chaplin the man
wonderfully.

You could see the transition,

you could see the melancholy
in his eyes

and the sort of way
that he needed to

sort of keep this creature
that he had created going.

The other crucial element
is this isn't just the Tramp

he's performing as. It isn't just him
repeating Charlie Chaplin's films.

He's playing the teenager,
he's playing the old man,

he's playing the man off camera,
the man in Hollywood.

You know, this isn't simply a version
of the Tramp, it is an entire life.

Yes, and it is very hard
for an actor to manage to do that.

I mean, at that point, Robert Downey
Jr was not tested in that way.

He'd been in brat-pack films,
he'd been in...

He'd been in smaller roles,
he'd never led a film.

And he wasn't necessarily known
as an actor actor,

he was, you know, quite good
looking, he was in popcorn movies.

So Attenborough saw something in him

which made him understand that
he would commit to this performance

and that he would work hard
every step of the way

to try and inhabit this man.

He was also a huge fan. I mean,
actually, he was a fan of Chaplin.

By the time he'd finished
all his training,

he was probably as knowledgeable
about Chaplin as Attenborough,

and they did used to argue a bit
about details of,

"This would happen first, Richard,"
and he would go,

"Poppet, this is not a documentary,
we are making a film,

we're making my film."

So that's the other thing
is that he was a huge fan.

Tell me a little bit about
your opinion of the performance,

because it is the movie. You know,
we talk about Chaplin the biopic,

it's really about Robert Downey Jr,

who's in every scene of the film
virtually.

And as we say, he just did
all these different versions of him

and these different textures. What do
you make of that performance?

If Robert Downey Jr
can't convince us

that he is the greatest physical
comedian of the 20th century,

then we are not going to buy
this film. It's someone doing

a really poor-quality
Charlie Chaplin impersonation.

And there's plenty of people
who do impersonations of characters

and we just don't really want to pay
to go to the cinema to see them.

He was so devoted
to getting this right,

he found a guy who used to work on
The Benny Hill Show,

who had worked with a guy
who'd worked with Fred Connor,

and he then trained with that man.

He had these huge books that all
the Vaudeville and Music Hall stars

used to work from,
these enormous choreograph books.

He had two body movement coaches.

You know, he really, really
put himself through the hoops

in order to get everything right.

Chaplin is almost by definition
a one-man show.

No-one knew how to hold centre stage
like him.

Nonetheless, there are sumptuous
supporting performances.

Paul Rhys as his devoted brother Syd.

Dan Aykroyd as cranky,
tobacco-spitting

comedy mogul Max Sennett.

Kevin Kline cutting a dash
as Douglas Fairbanks.

And Kevin Dunn as a soon-to-be
FBI head J Edgar Hoover.

And out of an unseemly parade
of wives and lovers,

Diane Lane shines as the sassy,
exasperated Paulette Goddard.

So in order to understand Chaplin

and the sort of microcosm
of early Hollywood,

you do have to understand
who all the major players are

within that world,
especially because Chaplin,

as a newcomer
in the beginning part of the film,

is himself kind of an ingenue.

And so two of those key figures are
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks,

who were sort of the first
celebrity couple of Hollywood,

and great friends
and creative partners to Chaplin.

And they would go on to form
Famous Players,

which would become United Artists,

the first sort of independent
production companies and studios

for and led by artistic vision
and by the actor.

So that's one set of relationships
that Chaplin has.

Another more adversarial one
is one with J Edgar Hoover,

who basically begins a vendetta
against Chaplin

which will end with Chaplin
in exile,

leaving Hollywood and not
being welcome back into America,

having his visa revoked.

So these are the key relationships
that the film shows at the start,

which will go on to affect the
trajectory of his life and career.

There are an awful lot
of characters, of course,

in the film around Chaplin,
who are, you know,

are or were very well-known,

and they all get very distinctive
portrayals by the actors.

I'm particularly fond of Paul Rhys's
portrayal of Syd Chaplin.

Dan Aykroyd as Max Sennett,
who is wonderfully funny,

at the same time
immensely sort of irascible.

Diane Lane as Paulette Goddard,

and Kevin Kline,
who's a fantastic Douglas Fairbanks,

and who has to age, and so you see
him go into a sort of decline.

And you have to be good, really,
in those roles

because you're playing with
Robert Downey Jr,

who's spent a year
getting this part right.

If you don't turn up with
the same level of commitment,

it's going to look weak.
And they really do.

I mean,
I think that Max Sennett is superb.

There's a description
in Chaplin's autobiography

about what it was that made
Max Sennett a great director.

And it was that
he was always laughing.

Whenever he was directing you,
if it was funny, he laughed.

That's what you were working towards
was getting Max Sennett to laugh

while you were filming.
And that's what Aykroyd's doing.

He's watching the performance, and
once Max Sennett starts to laugh,

then it happens. So that's,
you know, it's a nice touch.

Poignantly,
Attenborough asked Geraldine Chaplin

to play Chaplin's mother,
her grandmother.

Hannah Chaplin's rapid decline
into insanity,

with her son committing her
to a London asylum,

haunted Chaplin his entire life.

Just as he was haunted
by 16-year-old Hetty Kelly,

the girl he left behind
to seek his fortune in America.

Casting Geraldine Chaplin in
a very important role in the film,

as her own grandmother,
Chaplin's mother,

is a master stroke by Attenborough

because she gets to bring all of her
inherent family knowledge

to that role. And Chaplin's mother
was a very key figure

in his life and his work.

She herself was an artist
and an actress for the screen.

She had a great artistic ambition
and passion,

but she struggled with
her mental health.

His own heartbreak is that he can't
get his mother back from insanity

and he can't ever get Hetty back.

Yes. And, I mean, there's also,
he doesn't overly stress this,

but there's also
his mother's psychosis involves

an obsessive-compulsive aspect,

which she's always grinding things
up in her hands.

And you get the sense that
he sees Chaplin's obsession

with just a few notes on the piano

as he's trying to compose the score
for a film,

it's not madness in the same way,
he's functioning,

- but it is obsessive.
- Cos the book
editor asked the question of him

in the film, he said, "Did you ever
fear going mad yourself?

Your grandmother had been mad,
your mother went mad."

And that felt like a very powerful
thing to ask him.

Yes.
And Chaplin dodges the question.

But it is a film that studies
- a kind of madness, isn't it?
- Yes.

The obsessive nature,
the creative madness

of what he brought, that you wonder.

Chaplin became, very quickly,
very famous.

In fact, he became one of
the most famous people in the world.

And that, of course, brings with it

a sort of forensic
sort of spotlight.

And because of the nature
of what he was doing,

which was he created a character

in the clown, in the Little Tramp,

that spoke to millions of Americans

who had suffered
under the Great Depression,

and they could identify with someone
who had nothing

and yet had the sort of...
had that sort of spirit

to, you know,
kick authority in the pants,

in spite of the fact that he had,
you know, absolutely nothing at all.

And that appealed to them a lot.

It was almost... almost anarchic.

The script by Brian Forbes,
William Boyd and William Goldman

condenses a mini-series
into a feature film.

This is the life, beginning with
a hard-scrabble, East End childhood,

then the rise in Music Hall,

the coming to America,
the movies, the Tramp,

to being the most famous man
in the world,

as framed by an aging Chaplin,
exiled in Switzerland,

discussing his autobiography with
Anthony Hopkins' book editor,

sceptical about
what he's leaving out.

I am amongst my own fellow artists.
Hear, hear!

And after all,
the wonderful profession

was a great and honourable one.

It was the backbone,

the sort of...

oh, the joy,

the expressed joy
of good old England.

And I come back
and, of course, that's gone.

Life goes on.
There's nothing static about life.

Alongside Chaplin's journey
from stage to screen

is a portrayal
of the birth of cinema.

After the dingy, cluttered,
Victorian streets of London,

early Hollywood is rendered
with a widescreen poetry,

an almost rural industry basking
in that glorious Californian light.

This is still pioneer country,

where Max Sennett was making
two pictures a week,

and where a tramp
could make a million.

Well, he is... it's the Tramp,
- isn't it?
- Yeah. He is the Tramp.

Yeah, he carries the Tramp with him
everywhere and the Tramp has no home.

And, I mean, this line that he says,
the critical line is,

"If you want to understand me,
watch the movies."

If you think about the Tramp,
the Tramp has many qualities

which Chaplin had. He's enormously
sentimental, he's enormously kind,

he falls in and out of love a lot,

he is, well, he certainly begins
each film broke.

But he's incredibly cruel, as well.

So he will kick anyone
if he wants to, if he needs to.

I mean, there is almost no person
who's safe from him.

So there is something about
understanding the Tramp

that is really about
understanding Chaplin,

is that this switch between
lovely sentimental man,

caring for the small child, and the
guy who will give you a kicking

if you get in his way.

And so he really is
saying the truth.

"This man is me. I am him."

And understanding that
all of the qualities of that,

that rootlessness, that inability
to be anywhere comfortably,

get caught up in things to your own
detriment, that's how he felt.

So, there is a narrative device
in Chaplin,

which is entirely the invention of
Attenborough and his screenwriters,

which is this idea of Chaplin,
who in real life

had been living in Switzerland,
sort of in exile from America,

in his later life, working on
writing an autobiography.

He is having conversations
with an imagined book editor,

played by Anthony Hopkins, and I
think this is a way of Attenborough

addressing the fact that
the book was criticised

for Chaplin having certain omissions

around some of the more tawdry
or controversial aspects

of his life story. And so it's a way
to lightly challenge Chaplin

in terms of his egotism,

in terms of his own narrative
of the story of his own life

that he is putting in the book. And
so Attenborough is trying to address

some critiques of Chaplin's fame
and personality there.

This biopic of Chaplin
is surprisingly unsentimental.

He is drawn as a flawed man,
a neglectful husband

and cruel perfectionist,
and often wilfully naive.

Memories of that poverty-stricken
childhood

lead him to risky political views.

Chaplin understood that this art
could speak to millions.

Tellingly, it is his first encounter
with a Kinetoscope

and walking onto his own sound stage

that are accompanied by
composer John Barry's Love Theme.

Nothing quite like it.

The film is also the story
of how Chaplin created Chaplinesque.

From the Vaudeville routines
born out of desperation

to his unbending devotion
to the art of comedy,

we see the spontaneity behind scenes,

or the balletic choreography
of silent film,

and the grind of editing
that could go on for months.

Attenborough even dares to switch
the film into slapstick mode,

as Chaplin and his team escape
across the state line

with reels of The Kid
to avoid divorce lawyers.

One of the good things
about this film,

and particularly
the character of Chaplin,

is that it shows how difficult
the creative process is,

and how, you know, the idea that

creation is 1% inspiration
and 99% perspiration.

Chaplin was, like Stanley Kubrick,
he was a perfectionist,

and he would do many, many,
many, many takes to get it right.

He would want absolute perfection.

He not only drove his actors
into making sure, you know,

going through several takes,
but he would drive himself.

And it was that driven quality

that, you know, was, in fact,
as one of his wives says,

you know,
when he's pouring over a screenplay,

or still pouring over something
that isn't quite right,

right into the middle of the night
and the early hours of the morning,

said, "Is this why, you know, is
this what caused your last divorce?"

And he said, "Probably." Because
filmmaking and getting it right

was above all. It was paramount,
above relationships, everything.

That shows a man
who is clearly driven

by an ambition and an aspiration.

It also shows someone who cares more
about what he's producing

than what he... and what he leaves,
in other words, after his death,

than his relationships with anybody.

The film didn't do well on release.
It was as if critics, audiences

and Hollywood itself
felt that Chaplin was untouchable

and were blinded
to the film's qualities,

though Downey Jr's performance gained
a much-deserved Oscar nomination.

But it's only over the years

that the film's value
has come to be recognised.

What Attenborough and Downey
truly evoke is Chaplin's humanity.

He was gifted in ways
he couldn't express in words.

Uneasy and often tormented,
but deeply empathetic.

This mix is what gave us The Kid,
The Gold Rush, City Lights,

Modern Times and The Great Dictator.

As Chaplin says in the films,

"If you want to understand,
watch the movies."

One of the big takeaways for me
from watching Chaplin

is that Hollywood,
and often, in a larger sense,

the commercial side of the artistic,

punishes those who colour
outside the lines too much.

And although eventually
we get great catharsis for Chaplin,

being invited back to America

and the welcoming arms of a 1972
Lifetime Achievement Award

at the Oscars, and it's a very
emotional moment for him...

...it is profoundly unfair, really,
what happened to him

and the way a target was put
on his back for his politics.

And it was because
he wasn't a people pleaser.

It was because he didn't quite
colour within the lines.

And Hollywood punishes
its geniuses sometimes.

And so that's a bitter pill
to swallow.

And I think Attenborough really
understood the complexity of that

and also the immortality
of Chaplin's art.

Chaplin gives an excellent portrait
of an instinctive artist

who created an incredible character,

universally recognised,

and then also takes off that mask
and shows the man beneath it

and the psychological complexity
that actually made him what he was.

I think it's one of the few
really good biopics

of somebody who went from being
a nonentity

to a universal icon.

It's vastly important, isn't it?

Because this is a lasting testament
to Chaplin.

You know, we've read the books, we've
seen the films, but so many haven't.

And I think this is an extraordinary
film in just honouring that legacy.

Yeah, this is going to be the urtext
about Chaplin and his life

for the majority of people
who encounter him and his life.

I mean, it's beautifully,
respectfully, lovingly delivered.

But it's more than that.
It has a heart and a soul to it

that is part and parcel
of the Chaplin films.

You can take enormous
pain and suffering

and you can make millions
and millions of people really happy.

That's the paradox.

This is a valuable portrait
of a man, an artist,

and America, his great backdrop.

Attenborough goes in search
of the source of greatness

and returns
with a profound ambiguity.

This film is a moving testament
to the enigmatic, era-defining,

unforgettable genius
of Charlie Chaplin.

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