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1
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Chaplin became increasingly miserable
there and would expensively...
2
00:00:05,144 --> 00:00:08,447
...return to Los Angeles
for most of the shoot.
3
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Even the famous chicken gag
had to be reshot there.
4
00:00:12,949 --> 00:00:16,051
For one take they used a double.
You could obviously put a double...
5
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...into a chicken costume.
I mean, one chicken looks like another.
6
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Not true. Apparently the double--
You could see it was a double.
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It just didn't move like a chicken,
like Charlie moves like a chicken.
8
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The miners are starving.
9
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They're so hungry
that Mack Swain begins hallucinating.
10
00:00:33,061 --> 00:00:36,664
Was ever there a more perfect
animal imitation than Chaplin 's?
11
00:00:36,864 --> 00:00:40,966
His ability silently to convey thought,
even a bird's thought...
12
00:00:41,866 --> 00:00:46,069
...inspired a young Richard Attenborough
when he saw the film in rerelease.
13
00:00:46,169 --> 00:00:50,872
He was able to convey the most
extraordinary thoughts...
14
00:00:50,972 --> 00:00:55,175
...and intricacy of thoughts,
and debate and reaction...
15
00:00:55,375 --> 00:00:59,378
...purely by physical,
and not just facial...
16
00:00:59,577 --> 00:01:02,680
...but physical reaction to things.
17
00:01:02,879 --> 00:01:07,683
It was an experience
I had never even considered...
18
00:01:07,883 --> 00:01:10,684
...in that here was somebody
who could not only hold...
19
00:01:10,784 --> 00:01:15,887
...my attention absolutely, but deny me
the choice of laughing or crying.
20
00:01:16,087 --> 00:01:20,490
I mean, he dealt with me
as this figure on the screen.
21
00:01:20,690 --> 00:01:25,093
I thought it was the most magical thing
I'd ever seen in my life.
22
00:01:25,293 --> 00:01:29,796
And it was that occasion, no question,
I want to be an actor.
23
00:01:29,996 --> 00:01:34,098
If I could do what he could do
in relation to an audience...
24
00:01:34,298 --> 00:01:39,102
...I want to be an actor.
That's how it started my love of him.
25
00:01:40,402 --> 00:01:45,405
The Tramp was, as usual, the outsider,
especially when it came to love.
26
00:01:45,605 --> 00:01:48,007
It looked as if he would not get the girl.
27
00:01:48,107 --> 00:01:51,209
Or maybe it was that
the girl did not get him.
28
00:01:52,109 --> 00:01:55,311
Georgia Hale had replaced
Lita Grey in the film.
29
00:01:55,511 --> 00:01:59,714
In real life, Chaplin naturally
began having an affair with her.
30
00:01:59,914 --> 00:02:03,116
The discontinuities between his Tramp
character and Chaplin's own...
31
00:02:03,316 --> 00:02:06,618
... vast worldly success
were not much remarked.
32
00:02:07,018 --> 00:02:10,421
Except by Chaplin, who once rather
bitterly noted the irony...
33
00:02:10,621 --> 00:02:15,323
... that he had become rich
by playing the poorest of men.
34
00:02:19,926 --> 00:02:22,628
Johnny Depp had to duplicate one
of The Gold Rush's...
35
00:02:22,728 --> 00:02:25,730
...most famous moments
in his movie Benny & Joon.
36
00:02:30,333 --> 00:02:34,135
Approaching the roll dance, when you
see the thing it's very simple.
37
00:02:34,335 --> 00:02:38,037
It's so difficult. It's so difficult.
l mean, the coordination.
38
00:02:38,237 --> 00:02:41,940
It's something that Chaplin
just did in an instant.
39
00:02:42,039 --> 00:02:44,841
He just came up with it like that.
40
00:02:44,941 --> 00:02:47,943
It took me about, I don't know,
a good three weeks to a month...
41
00:02:48,143 --> 00:02:51,045
...of really working on it.
42
00:02:51,845 --> 00:02:55,948
It's not just in this.
It's in this, you know. It's all in here.
43
00:02:56,148 --> 00:03:01,852
Chaplin's head and, you know,
the little glances, the side glances.
44
00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:09,074
Advertise your product or brand here
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45
00:03:12,358 --> 00:03:16,761
The Gold Rush is the one film in which
the Tramp ends up a millionaire.
46
00:03:16,860 --> 00:03:21,964
Maybe it's Chaplin 's acknowledgment
of his own equally astonishing rise.
47
00:03:25,466 --> 00:03:29,468
Six years after the company's founding,
Chaplin had finally delivered a hit...
48
00:03:29,669 --> 00:03:32,170
... to his United Artists partners.
49
00:03:33,571 --> 00:03:36,472
Meanwhile, Lita, seen with him
here at a premiere...
50
00:03:36,573 --> 00:03:39,375
...had delivered
their second son, Sydney.
51
00:03:39,475 --> 00:03:42,276
But the marriage was not going well.
52
00:03:48,580 --> 00:03:51,982
The Circus, maybe Chaplin's
most purely hilarious feature...
53
00:03:52,382 --> 00:03:54,183
... was not going well either.
54
00:03:54,284 --> 00:03:57,685
Its production was haunted
by unimaginable problems.
55
00:03:57,885 --> 00:04:02,689
It was in '28. I was 5 years old,
and I went to see the film.
56
00:04:02,889 --> 00:04:07,591
It must have been The Circus.
I was amazed.
57
00:04:07,792 --> 00:04:11,194
I laughed, and it moved me...
58
00:04:11,394 --> 00:04:14,596
...even though I was a 6-year-old boy.
59
00:04:16,597 --> 00:04:18,398
And then I started to imitate Chaplin.
60
00:04:18,598 --> 00:04:21,800
I stole the bowler hat of my father,
his trousers...
61
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:26,203
...and with the ink I put
the moustache on, and I mimed Chaplin.
62
00:04:29,104 --> 00:04:33,307
With this picture, self-consciousness
enters Chaplin 's universe.
63
00:04:33,507 --> 00:04:37,609
It's his first exploration
of his own art, the art of being funny.
64
00:04:37,710 --> 00:04:42,013
When he tries to be funny, he isn 't.
When he doesn't try to be funny, he is.
65
00:04:42,212 --> 00:04:46,915
The scene also comments on
his supposed old-fashioned qualities.
66
00:04:47,015 --> 00:04:51,418
The bits that don't work here in 1927,
did work for him a decade earlier.
67
00:04:55,120 --> 00:04:57,722
The clown in this scene
is played by Henry Bergman...
68
00:04:57,822 --> 00:05:00,023
... who worked with Chaplin for decades.
69
00:05:00,123 --> 00:05:05,326
He represents classic, highly stylized,
commedia dell'arte comic values.
70
00:05:05,526 --> 00:05:08,628
Chaplin represents
a more naturalistic variation.
71
00:05:08,728 --> 00:05:10,529
He's going to exaggerate, of course...
72
00:05:10,629 --> 00:05:12,731
...but there's also something
real about him...
73
00:05:12,831 --> 00:05:15,132
...something that works for the movies...
74
00:05:15,232 --> 00:05:18,234
... that most seemingly
realistic of all media.
75
00:05:21,736 --> 00:05:25,239
And in the film,
Chaplin had to play this pantomime...
76
00:05:25,439 --> 00:05:27,640
...but when he saw the clown
with a real arrow...
77
00:05:27,840 --> 00:05:29,741
...he was frightened he could be killed.
78
00:05:29,841 --> 00:05:32,943
Then he did this--
I show you what he did.
79
00:05:41,649 --> 00:05:46,651
That means, "I cannot do it, because
there is a worm in the apple. "
80
00:05:55,557 --> 00:05:57,458
He was a master in pacing.
81
00:05:57,658 --> 00:06:00,559
He knew exactly when after one gag...
82
00:06:00,660 --> 00:06:03,462
...he has to top it
with an even bigger gag...
83
00:06:03,662 --> 00:06:06,163
...or if he suddenly has to go
into total opposite.
84
00:06:06,864 --> 00:06:11,366
It was never gag for the sake of the gag.
It was always the gag for the sake of...
85
00:06:11,566 --> 00:06:14,468
...revealing something about
the character or something...
86
00:06:14,669 --> 00:06:17,470
...about the story,
or revealing something about the plot.
87
00:06:18,671 --> 00:06:22,073
In The Circus, Chaplin's plagued
by an endless array of animals...
88
00:06:22,273 --> 00:06:25,175
...all irrationally bent
on assaulting his dignity.
89
00:06:27,476 --> 00:06:31,078
It's true that he mastered
the cinematic art...
90
00:06:31,278 --> 00:06:34,480
...so well that you don't see it.
91
00:06:36,782 --> 00:06:40,084
You don't see it.
It just flows in the film and it goes.
92
00:06:40,484 --> 00:06:43,586
It's just so natural, everything.
93
00:06:58,795 --> 00:07:00,996
Chaplin 's routine with
the magician 's table...
94
00:07:01,197 --> 00:07:04,999
...is one of his most masterfully
orchestrated gag sequences...
95
00:07:05,099 --> 00:07:08,101
... yet he would go on
to top it in this very film.
96
00:07:09,902 --> 00:07:13,304
The Circus, it's just
a wonderful good time.
97
00:07:13,504 --> 00:07:16,206
The jokes and the execution
of them are so brilliant...
98
00:07:16,306 --> 00:07:19,407
...and so uncluttered by anything
that can date it.
99
00:07:20,108 --> 00:07:23,310
Social ideas and satire...
100
00:07:23,610 --> 00:07:27,513
...on the mores
of the time date all the time.
101
00:07:28,213 --> 00:07:34,017
This stuff is so beautifully done,
and it's as fresh as could be.
102
00:07:35,317 --> 00:07:38,519
Another example, say, would be
the movie Singin' in the Rain.
103
00:07:38,619 --> 00:07:43,122
That will be as fresh
500 years from now...
104
00:07:43,322 --> 00:07:45,824
...as it was the day it came out.
105
00:07:48,525 --> 00:07:51,927
Sometimes his gags were simple
little throwaway moments.
106
00:07:59,332 --> 00:08:03,635
Sometimes the gags were as familiar
as this nightmare of entrapment.
107
00:08:04,335 --> 00:08:08,137
Though perhaps only Chaplin would
have thought of this awful logic:
108
00:08:08,337 --> 00:08:11,639
A barking dog threatening
to awaken a sleeping lion.
109
00:08:12,840 --> 00:08:15,742
Surely the Tramp's
endless on-screen problems...
110
00:08:15,942 --> 00:08:21,045
...reflect Chaplin's off-screen problems
as he struggled to finish The Circus.
111
00:08:21,245 --> 00:08:24,347
The Circus isn't even mentioned
in his autobiography.
112
00:08:24,547 --> 00:08:27,449
It's a miracle that that film
got made, for a start...
113
00:08:27,549 --> 00:08:31,651
...because everything happened. All the
disasters in the world happened with it.
114
00:08:31,851 --> 00:08:34,253
The whole set was completely
destroyed by fire...
115
00:08:34,454 --> 00:08:37,655
...and then what the fire didn't
destroy, the firemen destroyed.
116
00:08:37,855 --> 00:08:42,258
Then he had the most messy
and disastrous and horrible divorce.
117
00:08:42,357 --> 00:08:44,960
The shooting had to stop
for nine months...
118
00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:48,562
...because his wife divorced him.
And it was such an ugly divorce...
119
00:08:48,762 --> 00:08:52,064
...that he was frightened that she would,
in fact, kidnap the film.
120
00:08:52,264 --> 00:08:54,265
And so he had to hide the film.
121
00:08:54,465 --> 00:08:59,268
Lita's 42-page divorce complaint
was designed to ruin Chaplin.
122
00:08:59,368 --> 00:09:03,571
It named the names of his lovers,
discussed intimate sexual behavior...
123
00:09:03,770 --> 00:09:07,973
...and in book form,
became an underground bestseller.
124
00:09:09,774 --> 00:09:12,776
The divorce was quite ugly,
and she got quite a bit of money...
125
00:09:12,977 --> 00:09:17,479
...my mother, and so they had
nothing really to talk about.
126
00:09:18,380 --> 00:09:22,382
Therefore, Chaplin did not
appear in court. He threw money at Lita.
127
00:09:22,582 --> 00:09:26,285
The divorce settlement was the largest
in American history to date.
128
00:09:26,385 --> 00:09:31,988
Such was his popularity that most
of the mud she threw ended up on her.
129
00:09:33,388 --> 00:09:36,091
Chaplin nearly collapsed under the strain.
130
00:09:36,190 --> 00:09:39,092
He fled to New York,
where these pictures were taken...
131
00:09:39,192 --> 00:09:41,994
...and suffered a nervous breakdown.
132
00:09:42,194 --> 00:09:44,395
He was having an affair
with his leading lady...
133
00:09:44,595 --> 00:09:46,397
...the best friend of his wife.
134
00:09:46,597 --> 00:09:50,399
So maybe that's why he never
mentioned it as one of his favorite films.
135
00:09:50,599 --> 00:09:53,201
She was Merna Kennedy.
In the movie, she loves Rex...
136
00:09:53,401 --> 00:09:55,903
... the tightrope walker,
played by Harry Crocker.
137
00:09:57,704 --> 00:10:01,906
Trying to impress her,
the Tramp decides to emulate Rex.
138
00:10:02,106 --> 00:10:06,009
Though I always am so much in awe of
and express my admiration...
139
00:10:06,109 --> 00:10:09,111
...for his sense of story arc
and of how he subordinated...
140
00:10:09,311 --> 00:10:11,912
...everything to story, still I realize...
141
00:10:12,912 --> 00:10:16,215
...my visceral memory and reaction
are to individual chunks.
142
00:10:16,315 --> 00:10:19,316
So when I think of The Circus,
that sequence on the tightrope...
143
00:10:19,517 --> 00:10:22,419
...with the monkey climbing on his head,
that's the movie to me.
144
00:10:44,832 --> 00:10:47,734
My father had an idea.
He said, "l have an idea...
145
00:10:47,834 --> 00:10:51,236
...of the Tramp being in a situation
where he can't get out of. "
146
00:10:51,436 --> 00:10:55,238
Comedy is often
a situation of a nightmare.
147
00:10:55,338 --> 00:10:58,841
And this was a nightmare situation
of a man on a tightrope.
148
00:10:59,041 --> 00:11:02,743
Everything goes wrong.
He's falling off. His pants fall down.
149
00:11:02,843 --> 00:11:06,445
He's got a whole lot of monkeys
around him who are biting his nose.
150
00:11:06,645 --> 00:11:10,648
And the idea started off
by that nightmare situation.
151
00:11:37,264 --> 00:11:41,466
You'd have to say this is the best
banana-peel joke in human history.
152
00:12:03,180 --> 00:12:05,481
Also, the last scene in the film...
153
00:12:05,681 --> 00:12:09,484
...this beautiful scene with the horses,
all these wonderful wagons...
154
00:12:09,684 --> 00:12:12,485
...and the dust and the light,
and it's extraordinary.
155
00:12:12,585 --> 00:12:15,687
He shot it and shot it and shot it,
and looked at the rushes...
156
00:12:15,787 --> 00:12:19,690
...at 3:00 in the morning and said,
"No, it's not-- His hat isn't quite right.
157
00:12:19,890 --> 00:12:21,791
We've got to do it again. "
158
00:12:21,891 --> 00:12:24,692
And someone stole the wagons.
They weren't there.
159
00:12:24,793 --> 00:12:27,194
This whole freshman
course of students...
160
00:12:27,394 --> 00:12:31,297
...stole the wagons
for their fire ceremony.
161
00:12:31,497 --> 00:12:35,099
Chaplin rounded up
the wagons and reshot.
162
00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:41,503
The ending of The Circus is one
of Chaplin's most beautiful.
163
00:12:41,603 --> 00:12:44,504
He could be,
whatever his critics might say...
164
00:12:44,604 --> 00:12:48,607
...a great pictorialist
when he wanted to be.
165
00:12:58,913 --> 00:13:01,815
But there's a larger symbolism
to this sequence.
166
00:13:01,915 --> 00:13:04,717
Chaplin finished work on
The Circus just three days...
167
00:13:04,817 --> 00:13:07,619
...after the premiere of The Jazz Singer.
168
00:13:07,718 --> 00:13:10,520
Sound was about
to revolutionize the movies...
169
00:13:10,721 --> 00:13:14,523
...and everyone, Chaplin included,
wondered if the Tramp...
170
00:13:14,723 --> 00:13:17,425
...a figure it was impossible
to imagine talking...
171
00:13:17,624 --> 00:13:19,626
... would survive the revolution.
172
00:13:19,726 --> 00:13:23,228
He, however, was already
writing his next movie.
173
00:13:25,429 --> 00:13:31,233
It was City Lights, Chaplin's last fully
realized, fully acknowledged masterpiece.
174
00:13:31,333 --> 00:13:34,235
The Tramp's introduction,
unconcernedly snoozing...
175
00:13:34,335 --> 00:13:39,838
...on the establishment's statuary, was
the greatest of all his movie entrances.
176
00:13:40,439 --> 00:13:43,140
The film had a score
and a bit of gibberish talk...
177
00:13:43,340 --> 00:13:45,942
...but it was essentially a silent movie.
178
00:13:46,442 --> 00:13:50,145
I've often said that it's much harder
being a talking comedian...
179
00:13:50,245 --> 00:13:52,546
...on the screen than a silent comedian.
180
00:13:52,646 --> 00:13:56,248
The example I always gave was the
difference between chess and checkers.
181
00:13:56,348 --> 00:14:00,051
It's like checkers to do it silently.
You can figure out the gags...
182
00:14:00,251 --> 00:14:04,153
...and painstakingly write them,
and then execute them...
183
00:14:04,553 --> 00:14:08,956
...but as soon as you have to speak,
you're plunged into a different reality...
184
00:14:09,156 --> 00:14:13,558
...that's much more complex and
the demands become much different.
185
00:14:14,359 --> 00:14:17,961
Even so, the demands of silent comedy
were not that easily satisfied...
186
00:14:18,161 --> 00:14:20,263
...especially by Chaplin.
187
00:14:20,463 --> 00:14:25,066
For unlike his competitors,
Keaton and Lloyd, he did it all himself.
188
00:14:25,165 --> 00:14:28,968
He never employed gag-writing teams
to help hone his humor.
189
00:14:29,068 --> 00:14:31,069
He always built up his routines
on his feet...
190
00:14:31,170 --> 00:14:33,471
...in endless rehearsals like this one.
191
00:14:33,671 --> 00:14:38,073
Later, in retake after retake,
he would elaborate or simplify them.
192
00:14:50,281 --> 00:14:52,182
In feature-length things...
193
00:14:52,382 --> 00:14:55,484
...you can't just do them
alone with comedy.
194
00:14:55,684 --> 00:14:58,285
So he brings in
romance and sentiment.
195
00:15:04,189 --> 00:15:09,793
When I saw City Lights, I realized
what a deep filmmaker he was...
196
00:15:09,993 --> 00:15:13,495
...because I felt that that film
said more about love...
197
00:15:13,695 --> 00:15:19,098
...than so many purportedly serious
investigations of the subject.
198
00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:25,102
Emotionally, it lives out
feelings of real love.
199
00:15:25,202 --> 00:15:28,504
You see what he feels for the girl...
200
00:15:28,604 --> 00:15:31,406
...and to what lengths
he's willing to go.
201
00:15:31,506 --> 00:15:37,609
If she can't see him,
she's able to feel that love...
202
00:15:38,110 --> 00:15:42,212
...and she has no idea
that it's some scruffy little tramp...
203
00:15:42,312 --> 00:15:45,614
...that's making her life beautiful.
204
00:15:51,918 --> 00:15:55,420
The production was strained,
particularly in Chaplin 's relationship...
205
00:15:55,521 --> 00:15:59,022
... with his inexperienced
leading lady Virginia Cherrill.
206
00:15:59,322 --> 00:16:04,025
As h3 gr3w, he started having to...
207
00:16:04,226 --> 00:16:08,128
...construct stories.
He started having to involve, also...
208
00:16:08,228 --> 00:16:12,931
...his own emotional feelings
with women...
209
00:16:13,131 --> 00:16:14,832
...and get deeper into himself.
210
00:16:15,433 --> 00:16:20,035
And I think that must have
made it a lot harder for him.
211
00:16:20,235 --> 00:16:23,938
It must have been a greater
struggle then to construct something...
212
00:16:24,038 --> 00:16:26,639
...because he tried to put
another dimension into it.
213
00:16:26,839 --> 00:16:29,440
And I think that's when
he would have moments...
214
00:16:29,541 --> 00:16:33,144
...of struggling to find ideas.
215
00:16:34,844 --> 00:16:38,846
He's always thinking, "What is logical?
Is the gag logical?
216
00:16:39,047 --> 00:16:42,449
Is it right for it to happen?"
And the stories about City Lights...
217
00:16:42,549 --> 00:16:46,651
...how he spent months trying
to work out one little bit of business...
218
00:16:46,751 --> 00:16:49,453
...to make it plausible, to make it logical.
219
00:16:50,254 --> 00:16:52,955
This is that bit of business.
220
00:16:54,056 --> 00:16:57,458
How to make the blind girl misidentify
her benefactor as a rich man.
221
00:16:59,559 --> 00:17:03,162
It's the noises of a limousine door
slamming, its motor purring off...
222
00:17:03,262 --> 00:17:07,264
...sounds resonant of wealth,
that do the trick.
223
00:17:13,167 --> 00:17:17,670
This is one instance where a soundtrack
would have made Chaplin's job easier.
224
00:17:17,770 --> 00:17:20,572
But he and Cherrill have
to convey her misunderstanding...
225
00:17:20,672 --> 00:17:23,474
...and his all too clear understanding
of what happened...
226
00:17:23,674 --> 00:17:25,875
...by brilliantly mimed thought.
227
00:17:25,975 --> 00:17:29,377
Chaplin, whose mood at the time
was erratic and angry...
228
00:17:29,577 --> 00:17:32,079
...shot on this picture for over a year.
229
00:17:32,279 --> 00:17:35,881
I love the toying with the sentimentality,
the way he makes you feel sentimental...
230
00:17:35,981 --> 00:17:38,483
...and particularly the scene
where he's watching her...
231
00:17:38,583 --> 00:17:41,384
...he's in love with her,
and she's at the fountain.
232
00:17:41,584 --> 00:17:43,886
He had me going
with the sentimentality...
233
00:17:44,087 --> 00:17:47,789
...and yet the moment happens
when she sprays the water...
234
00:17:47,988 --> 00:17:50,990
...in his face and breaks it.
I thought, "This guy's the best. "
235
00:17:51,891 --> 00:17:53,893
The movie's brilliant subplot:
236
00:17:54,293 --> 00:17:56,994
Henry Myers is a millionaire
who 's benign when sober...
237
00:17:57,094 --> 00:18:00,196
...but madly suicidal when he's drunk.
238
00:18:02,798 --> 00:18:06,100
And then, of course,
the guy with all the money...
239
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:09,902
...who's got all the possessions
and all the money in the world...
240
00:18:10,102 --> 00:18:12,904
...and is on the verge
of suicide all the time...
241
00:18:13,104 --> 00:18:16,706
...because his feelings
are unrequited in love.
242
00:18:19,608 --> 00:18:25,611
It's such an interesting exploration
of all those feelings in a nonverbal way.
243
00:18:27,012 --> 00:18:30,714
It's one step removed from music.
244
00:18:31,114 --> 00:18:33,316
For me, it's his best picture.
245
00:18:38,319 --> 00:18:43,423
The intertitle says it all. The job, as
what was once called a "white wing"...
246
00:18:43,523 --> 00:18:46,724
...cleaning up after animals
on the street, is demeaning.
247
00:18:46,924 --> 00:18:50,226
But it tells us Chaplin will do
anything to help the girl.
248
00:18:50,426 --> 00:18:54,829
And it leads to what may be one
of Chaplin's greatest sight gags.
249
00:19:13,340 --> 00:19:17,243
I began to be impressed with the fact
that he was such a good actor as well...
250
00:19:17,443 --> 00:19:19,844
...because the serious side
of that movie...
251
00:19:19,944 --> 00:19:24,447
...he handled with legendary brilliance.
252
00:19:24,547 --> 00:19:27,949
Well, my favorite picture
of all time, I guess, is City Lights.
253
00:19:28,149 --> 00:19:29,850
I've seen it 40 times or more.
254
00:19:31,951 --> 00:19:35,154
I think it's very funny,
incredibly touching...
255
00:19:35,354 --> 00:19:38,355
...and the end is just hard to....
256
00:19:39,356 --> 00:19:41,957
I get choked up now
even thinking about it.
257
00:19:42,057 --> 00:19:45,560
When she recognizes it's him
that's helped her regain her sight...
258
00:19:45,760 --> 00:19:49,762
...and everything, it's murder.
Beautiful picture.
259
00:19:54,965 --> 00:20:00,369
The Tramp has secretly paid for the
operation that restores the girl's sight.
260
00:20:19,180 --> 00:20:22,582
Three days after City Lights premiered,
an exhausted Chaplin...
261
00:20:22,782 --> 00:20:27,185
...embarked on a world tour.
As usual, the crowds were enormous.
262
00:20:27,385 --> 00:20:32,088
As usual, no door was closed to him.
In London, he met George Bernard Shaw.
263
00:20:32,788 --> 00:20:34,990
More important to him, he met Gandhi.
264
00:20:35,190 --> 00:20:37,791
As the world-wide
depression deepened...
265
00:20:37,992 --> 00:20:41,994
... Chaplin made the Mahatma's political
and spiritual concerns his own.
266
00:20:43,495 --> 00:20:46,297
Chaplin moved on to Berlin
in what many have said...
267
00:20:46,497 --> 00:20:49,698
... was his most enormous popular
reception ever.
268
00:20:49,899 --> 00:20:51,400
Yet it was tainted.
269
00:20:51,500 --> 00:20:54,101
The Nazis, just two years
before taking power...
270
00:20:54,201 --> 00:20:57,704
...issued vicious anti-Semitic
attacks against him.
271
00:20:57,804 --> 00:21:00,905
Chaplin was not a Jew,
but he was reluctant to say so.
272
00:21:01,106 --> 00:21:04,908
He thought that would implicitly
support the anti-Semites.
273
00:21:09,311 --> 00:21:11,812
Immediately on his return to America...
274
00:21:12,012 --> 00:21:15,114
...he met Paulette Goddard,
the second of his great loves.
275
00:21:15,714 --> 00:21:18,616
Even now, the grapevine
is enough alive so that people say:
276
00:21:18,817 --> 00:21:21,918
"He could be a difficult man
to work for or be married to...
277
00:21:22,018 --> 00:21:24,219
...and he often confused
the two statuses. "
278
00:21:24,420 --> 00:21:27,822
As he did with Goddard,
planning to star her in his next picture.
279
00:21:28,222 --> 00:21:32,124
A former showgirl,
she was a lively, lovely companion.
280
00:21:32,325 --> 00:21:35,627
Among her accomplishments,
she effected a reconciliation...
281
00:21:35,727 --> 00:21:37,828
...between Chaplin and his two sons.
282
00:21:38,028 --> 00:21:39,829
Oh, she was absolutely adorable.
283
00:21:40,029 --> 00:21:42,130
I used to sleep with her
until I was about 8.
284
00:21:42,230 --> 00:21:45,132
And my father said, "You can't
sleep with Paulette anymore. "
285
00:21:45,232 --> 00:21:47,934
I said, "Why can't
we sleep with Paulette?"
286
00:21:48,034 --> 00:21:51,336
Chaplin 's great recreational
passion was tennis.
287
00:21:51,536 --> 00:21:55,839
Here he's about to play a charity match
against Groucho Marx, among others.
288
00:21:56,039 --> 00:21:58,641
He played almost daily
on his court at home.
289
00:21:58,741 --> 00:22:02,243
It was after those matches,
drinking Cokes, sharing a snack...
290
00:22:02,443 --> 00:22:05,744
... that his friends thought him most
relaxed, reminiscent...
291
00:22:05,945 --> 00:22:09,147
...and expansive,
especially about politics.
292
00:22:12,349 --> 00:22:15,451
Mankind, he thought,
was being turned into animals...
293
00:22:15,550 --> 00:22:18,052
...blindly serving the factories,
the machinery...
294
00:22:18,253 --> 00:22:20,054
... that were supposed to serve it.
295
00:22:21,354 --> 00:22:23,555
In its most aspiring moments,
Modern Times...
296
00:22:23,758 --> 00:22:27,255
... was about a Marxist concept:
the dehumanization...
297
00:22:27,357 --> 00:22:29,653
...and the alienation of labor.
298
00:22:29,852 --> 00:22:34,969
No doubt about it, Chaplin was a leftist
of a devoted and radical kind.
299
00:22:36,865 --> 00:22:39,864
In fact, the first time
we ran the picture together...
300
00:22:40,064 --> 00:22:44,062
...I was so taken with it
that I about fell off the chair.
301
00:22:44,860 --> 00:22:47,174
He told me later
that he wondered about that...
302
00:22:48,476 --> 00:22:52,476
...whether I was putting it on, and he
said, "I soon discovered it was not so. "
303
00:22:57,270 --> 00:22:59,379
Attention, foreman.
Trouble on bench five.
304
00:22:59,478 --> 00:23:02,679
Check on the nut-tighteners. Nuts
coming through loose on bench five.
305
00:23:02,779 --> 00:23:04,380
Attention foreman.
306
00:23:05,881 --> 00:23:09,383
Charlie did not know
how to notate music...
307
00:23:09,584 --> 00:23:12,986
...and he didn't know how
to extend musical ideas.
308
00:23:13,085 --> 00:23:15,087
And they needed somebody
to work with him.
309
00:23:15,286 --> 00:23:18,189
The fellows who were in charge,
Alfred Newman and Eddie Powell...
310
00:23:18,389 --> 00:23:21,491
...knew my work from New York,
and they brought me out here.
311
00:23:21,691 --> 00:23:23,092
And I went to work for Charlie.
312
00:23:23,292 --> 00:23:25,693
And he really had a wonderful
instinct for music.
313
00:23:25,893 --> 00:23:30,496
They were simple little tunes,
and my job was to take them down...
314
00:23:30,596 --> 00:23:35,499
...to alter them when I thought they
needed altering. And that's what I did.
315
00:23:55,211 --> 00:23:58,513
We worked five days a week,
sometimes six...
316
00:23:58,713 --> 00:24:02,015
...and it was altogether
quite wonderful, you know.
317
00:24:02,415 --> 00:24:05,517
He became this sort
of a surrogate father for me.
318
00:24:08,519 --> 00:24:11,621
What you feel sometimes with a thing
like the eating machine...
319
00:24:11,821 --> 00:24:17,024
...you see an investment in a prop,
in a shot, in an idea.
320
00:24:17,224 --> 00:24:20,227
So we have to let this really play
and we have to do it.
321
00:24:20,426 --> 00:24:23,128
And it's about twice too long,
maybe, the eating machine.
322
00:24:25,029 --> 00:24:28,231
There's nothing in film
like the feeding machine.
323
00:24:28,432 --> 00:24:30,833
It was just absolutely wonderful.
324
00:24:31,033 --> 00:24:34,735
The man is reduced to something less
than the sum of the parts, you see.
325
00:24:34,835 --> 00:24:38,338
He's just an animal,
which is being fed by a machine.
326
00:24:39,338 --> 00:24:42,340
Few people know that table,
which goes around...
327
00:24:42,540 --> 00:24:46,342
...Charlie was manipulating that himself.
It wasn't somebody else doing it.
328
00:24:46,442 --> 00:24:49,944
He was the guy with gadgets
underneath the table...
329
00:24:50,145 --> 00:24:53,246
...and he would make it turn around
and all that sort of stuff.
330
00:24:53,346 --> 00:24:54,947
The man was simply incredible.
331
00:24:55,147 --> 00:24:58,049
And he also manipulated
that mouth-wiper...
332
00:24:58,149 --> 00:25:00,551
...that comes and hits him in the face
and hurt him...
333
00:25:00,751 --> 00:25:05,954
...and just made his face puff up
and his mouth puff up. He was amazing.
334
00:25:12,758 --> 00:25:16,360
Sometimes you feel
something akin to pretension...
335
00:25:16,560 --> 00:25:20,963
...in the agenda of Modern Times,
and it's a little off-- It's distancing.
336
00:25:21,163 --> 00:25:23,965
At the same time, when I watch
Modern Times, I'll sit there...
337
00:25:24,165 --> 00:25:26,567
...and feel slightly superior,
which with a great master...
338
00:25:26,766 --> 00:25:28,867
...part of you is urging,
"How can I get a leg-up on this guy...
339
00:25:29,068 --> 00:25:30,769
...and feel at least even with him?"
340
00:25:30,969 --> 00:25:33,070
But then there'll be a sequence
and you'll think:
341
00:25:33,271 --> 00:25:35,872
"That was so smart and so efficient. "
342
00:25:38,673 --> 00:25:41,976
Nothing was smarter
or more efficient than this sequence.
343
00:25:42,076 --> 00:25:44,877
The ever-helpful Tramp
picks up a red flag...
344
00:25:44,978 --> 00:25:49,380
...and before he knows it, he's innocently
leading a Communist demonstration.
345
00:26:04,389 --> 00:26:06,891
There's something prescient
in the sequence.
346
00:26:07,091 --> 00:26:11,193
Within a decade, Chaplin himself
would be cruelly red-baited.
347
00:26:12,495 --> 00:26:15,796
In a strange way, Modern Times
is a bit of a throwback.
348
00:26:15,996 --> 00:26:20,199
Because if you look at it, it's really
a collection of four two-reelers.
349
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,201
The film was certainly not
all politics, all the time.
350
00:26:24,301 --> 00:26:27,303
Goddard was cast as the waif
opposite the Tramp...
351
00:26:27,403 --> 00:26:32,006
...and much of the comedy was as
innocent as any Chaplin had ever done.
352
00:26:36,509 --> 00:26:39,210
In Modern Times, it is brilliant...
353
00:26:39,410 --> 00:26:42,713
...and you're following the story,
and it kind of peters out.
354
00:26:42,813 --> 00:26:46,415
It doesn't go anywhere.
It's just a brilliant trip...
355
00:26:46,515 --> 00:26:50,918
...and each skit is very funny
and brilliantly executed.
356
00:26:51,118 --> 00:26:54,020
And it goes along on the
momentum of his genius...
357
00:26:54,220 --> 00:26:57,621
...the fact that he's funny
and the bits are funny.
358
00:26:59,822 --> 00:27:03,625
We talked politics,
we talked just about everything...
359
00:27:03,826 --> 00:27:06,227
...because he had a real knowledge
of these things.
360
00:27:06,427 --> 00:27:09,329
He had a mind like a super attic.
361
00:27:10,029 --> 00:27:13,231
We went to Musso & Frank's
for lunch every day...
362
00:27:13,331 --> 00:27:16,633
...five days a week. We were
driven there in Charlie's car.
363
00:27:16,833 --> 00:27:19,435
And we had a table...
364
00:27:19,635 --> 00:27:23,438
...which was reserved for us,
and we'd sing.
365
00:27:23,637 --> 00:27:27,840
There was a thing called
"I Want a Lassie. "
366
00:27:28,140 --> 00:27:31,842
And it was a tune Charlie knew
and I knew, and we'd sing to that tune.
367
00:27:38,846 --> 00:27:42,249
And the people in the place would look
and say, "What's that?"
368
00:27:42,449 --> 00:27:44,750
And then they'd suddenly see
it was Chaplin...
369
00:27:44,850 --> 00:27:47,952
...and they had great prospects
for their evening conversation...
370
00:27:48,152 --> 00:27:50,253
...so they listened.
371
00:27:51,655 --> 00:27:54,456
I think people sometimes
don't understand about the fact...
372
00:27:54,656 --> 00:27:57,858
...that a man like Charlie,
who was a millionaire...
373
00:27:58,358 --> 00:28:01,861
...can do this poverty-stricken Tramp.
374
00:28:03,462 --> 00:28:06,663
Yet he did it, and there was never
anything more convincing in films...
375
00:28:06,864 --> 00:28:10,866
...I think, than the way he did it.
And that's a great tribute to him.
376
00:28:11,066 --> 00:28:14,168
Despite the film's casual construction,
some critics thought Chaplin...
377
00:28:14,268 --> 00:28:18,070
... was beginning to take himself
and the world too seriously.
378
00:28:18,270 --> 00:28:22,273
But still, in the end, he was able
for the last time in movie history...
379
00:28:22,473 --> 00:28:25,175
... to find an open road
into a better future.
380
00:28:25,375 --> 00:28:28,476
This time with a pretty girl on his arm.
381
00:28:40,184 --> 00:28:42,285
I really still love Charlie.
382
00:28:42,485 --> 00:28:46,588
He was not just like a father to me,
which he was in some ways...
383
00:28:46,788 --> 00:28:51,791
...but I admired him very much
for the constancy of his point of view.
384
00:28:52,091 --> 00:28:57,394
He really had a feeling for those
who lead ordinary lives...
385
00:28:57,595 --> 00:29:01,496
...and are sometimes
shortchanged by circumstances.
386
00:29:01,697 --> 00:29:03,998
After Modern Times' release in 1936...
387
00:29:04,198 --> 00:29:07,400
... Charlie and Paulette
took a vacation cruise.
388
00:29:07,500 --> 00:29:11,403
Charlie never saw a newsreel
camera he wouldn 't play to.
389
00:29:11,703 --> 00:29:14,305
What was supposed to be a short
Hawaiian vacation...
390
00:29:14,505 --> 00:29:17,907
... would soon stretch
into a three-month tour of Asia.
391
00:29:18,707 --> 00:29:20,608
Back home, people began to wonder...
392
00:29:20,708 --> 00:29:23,410
...if Charlie and Paulette
were actually married.
393
00:29:23,611 --> 00:29:25,411
They later claimed
that they were married...
394
00:29:25,611 --> 00:29:28,313
... though there's no record
of the nuptials, somewhere in Asia.
395
00:29:28,413 --> 00:29:31,315
Still later, when their relationship
began to come apart...
396
00:29:31,514 --> 00:29:34,517
... they found themselves
denying rumors of divorce.
397
00:29:34,717 --> 00:29:36,117
For the moment, though...
398
00:29:36,318 --> 00:29:39,520
... they were obviously delighted
with one another's company.
399
00:29:42,221 --> 00:29:44,523
And Chaplin was beginning
to plan his biggest...
400
00:29:44,623 --> 00:29:47,525
...and most problematic movie to date.
401
00:29:47,724 --> 00:29:51,927
The Great Dictator opens on the
Western Front during World War I.
402
00:29:52,027 --> 00:29:55,229
It is Chaplin's first
all-talking production.
403
00:29:55,430 --> 00:29:57,530
In it, he would play two characters.
404
00:29:57,631 --> 00:29:59,532
One of them would be
a Tramp variation...
405
00:29:59,732 --> 00:30:03,334
...an innocent Jewish barber
serving bravely, if ineffectually...
406
00:30:03,534 --> 00:30:05,336
...in Tomania's army.
407
00:30:06,336 --> 00:30:08,737
-Breech secured!
-Stand clear!
408
00:30:08,938 --> 00:30:11,539
Ready! Fire!
409
00:30:23,747 --> 00:30:26,348
Behind-the-scenes footage,
shot by brother Sydney...
410
00:30:26,448 --> 00:30:28,249
...has recently been discovered.
411
00:30:28,349 --> 00:30:31,651
On The Dictator, I remember, he had
a thing where he pulled the gun.
412
00:30:31,851 --> 00:30:34,554
He fired this Big Bertha sort of a cannon.
413
00:30:34,753 --> 00:30:37,955
And I was out there, and I let out
a big, "Ha, ha, ha! "
414
00:30:38,155 --> 00:30:41,357
And he said, "Cut, cut! " I thought
he was gonna be sore as hell.
415
00:30:41,457 --> 00:30:44,359
He was absolutely thrilled
that somebody laughed at it.
416
00:30:52,864 --> 00:30:56,967
Chaplin threw their famous
resemblance right in Der F�hrer's face.
417
00:30:57,067 --> 00:30:59,168
His pictures were now
banned in Germany...
418
00:30:59,368 --> 00:31:02,970
...but that's not what motivated
his portrayal of the dictator Hynkel.
419
00:31:03,070 --> 00:31:06,673
For his comic German accent,
he drew on his vaudeville training.
420
00:31:06,873 --> 00:31:10,675
Most comedians of his era
could talk "Dutch. "
421
00:31:22,682 --> 00:31:26,385
You know, I really started to see
movies when I was 13...
422
00:31:26,585 --> 00:31:27,985
...after the World War II.
423
00:31:28,186 --> 00:31:31,988
I lived in Czechoslovakia,
which was occupied by the Nazis.
424
00:31:32,088 --> 00:31:36,391
Suddenly comes The Great Dictator...
425
00:31:36,591 --> 00:31:40,793
...and there was a liberation,
because single-handedly...
426
00:31:40,993 --> 00:31:46,297
...Chaplin reduced this monster
into a pathetic...
427
00:31:46,397 --> 00:31:49,499
...ridiculous, venomous clown.
428
00:32:01,806 --> 00:32:06,209
You can say that, you know,
the Allies liberated Europe physically...
429
00:32:06,409 --> 00:32:11,412
...but The Great Dictator, Chaplin,
liberated us spiritually...
430
00:32:11,612 --> 00:32:15,214
...and made you think also, because
suddenly you realized watching:
431
00:32:15,414 --> 00:32:18,816
"How is it possible
that this pathetic creature...
432
00:32:18,917 --> 00:32:21,618
...had such a power
over good German people?"
433
00:32:21,718 --> 00:32:24,219
Millions of people followed him...
434
00:32:24,420 --> 00:32:28,222
...died for him, for this insane lunatic.
435
00:32:31,023 --> 00:32:34,425
It's almost as if he made that film
because he felt...
436
00:32:34,526 --> 00:32:40,529
...that Hitler had become his rival
in reaching out for everybody.
437
00:32:45,432 --> 00:32:48,034
The Hitler character,
he had a strong relationship...
438
00:32:48,434 --> 00:32:53,237
...to the early Tramp, who's
a troublemaker, who's primitive.
439
00:32:53,437 --> 00:32:57,840
And the other person, the barber,
is more his human side.
440
00:32:58,741 --> 00:33:02,943
It's interesting, the relationship between
the two and how they get confused.
441
00:33:09,747 --> 00:33:11,948
I think it was a very brave film to make.
442
00:33:12,048 --> 00:33:15,650
I don't think that many people
were being openly critical...
443
00:33:15,851 --> 00:33:19,653
...of what was going on at the time,
and he was one of the--
444
00:33:19,853 --> 00:33:22,454
Maybe not the only one,
but he was one of the few.
445
00:33:22,855 --> 00:33:26,558
Come here, you!
Attacking a storm trooper, huh?
446
00:33:26,657 --> 00:33:28,759
-Grab him!
-You'll hear from my lawyer.
447
00:33:28,959 --> 00:33:30,059
Come on!
448
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:31,661
Why, you--
449
00:33:35,462 --> 00:33:37,664
He bit my finger!
450
00:33:46,970 --> 00:33:50,072
The barber and Hynkel
will eventually exchange roles.
451
00:33:50,172 --> 00:33:55,074
The Jewish barber pays a comic, balletic
price for the accident of his birth.
452
00:33:55,174 --> 00:33:57,977
His creator,
asked once if he was Jewish...
453
00:33:58,176 --> 00:34:02,679
...made this superb reply,
"l do not have that honor. "
454
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:09,284
I love the whole film, and I think
that this scene when he plays...
455
00:34:09,483 --> 00:34:10,884
...with the globe...
456
00:34:11,084 --> 00:34:16,387
...and it's just perfect metaphor
for the sick dreams of every dictator.
457
00:34:17,589 --> 00:34:23,192
Out, Caesar of Nuris,
emperor of the world.
458
00:34:27,094 --> 00:34:29,295
My world.
459
00:34:44,004 --> 00:34:50,408
That scene was written. Every single
movement was written down.
460
00:34:50,608 --> 00:34:55,311
Whereas all the scenes where he does
that pretend German were improvised.
461
00:34:55,511 --> 00:34:59,814
l would have thought that that would be
written to make it sound like German...
462
00:35:00,014 --> 00:35:04,116
...but he just apparently said to the
camera, "Roll. " And then went on...
463
00:35:04,317 --> 00:35:07,018
...and just rambled on
in this almost perfect German.
464
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:09,920
It's an idea he'd had for a long time.
465
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:14,022
Some smart guy said,
"Oh, that was my idea. "
466
00:35:14,123 --> 00:35:19,126
But then there's actually footage of
him way back in home movies doing it.
467
00:35:19,326 --> 00:35:22,227
In the home movie,
he was dressed in a Grecian outfit.
468
00:35:22,428 --> 00:35:24,729
It just was so perfect for Hitler.
469
00:35:24,929 --> 00:35:30,733
The globe dance, I could watch it
for hours and hours. Rewind, once again.
470
00:35:30,933 --> 00:35:32,834
It's absolutely incredible.
471
00:35:33,034 --> 00:35:37,236
Literally, I could watch it
for weeks and never get bored.
472
00:35:38,137 --> 00:35:43,841
I mean, just the metaphor.
It's just endlessly, endlessly brilliant.
473
00:35:46,742 --> 00:35:50,945
People just fall down dead
over an alleged metaphor...
474
00:35:51,145 --> 00:35:54,146
...but I don't find it funny
or a brilliant metaphor.
475
00:35:54,347 --> 00:35:57,148
Some would agree with Woody Allen.
Some would not.
476
00:35:57,249 --> 00:36:00,551
But at a time when 90%
of America opposed war...
477
00:36:00,751 --> 00:36:04,453
...and half the country
was to some degree anti-Semitic...
478
00:36:04,553 --> 00:36:09,056
... this admittedly preachy film
was undeniably courageous.
479
00:36:09,156 --> 00:36:13,959
It was Hitler who seemed to be imitating
Chaplin, not Chaplin imitating Hitler.
480
00:36:14,159 --> 00:36:19,162
Chaplin came first. Chaplin was famous
long before Hitler was famous.
481
00:36:19,362 --> 00:36:22,964
There's a little bit of Hitler in all of us.
That's the whole idea...
482
00:36:23,164 --> 00:36:28,467
...that Hitler is not some creature who
came from outer space. He's one of us.
483
00:36:28,667 --> 00:36:33,371
l think the genius of the film is that
Chaplin realizes a lot of Hitler in him...
484
00:36:33,471 --> 00:36:35,972
...that there's a lot of Hitler...
485
00:36:36,172 --> 00:36:40,875
...in anyone who dominates audiences
and rouses the rabble.
486
00:36:42,176 --> 00:36:45,578
There is no doubt in The Great Dictator
that he felt he had to say...
487
00:36:45,678 --> 00:36:48,479
...something about this phenomenon,
this issue of fascism...
488
00:36:48,579 --> 00:36:50,681
...and where the world was headed.
489
00:36:50,881 --> 00:36:53,883
And when he does blatantly speak,
he's the voice of a generation.
490
00:36:53,983 --> 00:36:57,285
He's the voice of several generations.
What is he going to say?
491
00:36:57,885 --> 00:37:01,988
It's an imposing of a kind of self-
importance. It's very dangerous.
492
00:37:02,188 --> 00:37:05,490
I happen to like the tone of his voice.
I liked being with him.
493
00:37:05,690 --> 00:37:07,891
You must speak.
494
00:37:08,391 --> 00:37:12,594
-I can't.
-You must. It's our only hope.
495
00:37:12,694 --> 00:37:17,197
You have a situation, World War II,
and he speaks very clearly.
496
00:37:17,397 --> 00:37:20,599
He makes statements on the world
and the nature of government...
497
00:37:20,699 --> 00:37:23,201
...the nature of fascism.
498
00:37:23,401 --> 00:37:24,902
It does sound like preaching.
499
00:37:25,002 --> 00:37:28,404
lt sounds like, "They expect me to make
a comment, and I'm gonna do it. "
500
00:37:28,504 --> 00:37:32,306
The people at the time said, "He's too
self-important. He's got above himself. "
501
00:37:32,407 --> 00:37:36,208
I don't think it was quite that.
He did take life terribly seriously.
502
00:37:36,409 --> 00:37:38,610
He thought a lot about things.
503
00:37:38,710 --> 00:37:42,712
He would get terribly troubled by things
that were going on in the world.
504
00:37:42,913 --> 00:37:47,115
He was deeply distressed
by the Spanish Civil War, for instance.
505
00:37:47,315 --> 00:37:51,118
He genuinely felt he got an audience,
he's got to say something.
506
00:37:51,218 --> 00:37:54,319
It's not Hitler/Hynkel,
it's not the Jewish barber.
507
00:37:54,420 --> 00:37:58,622
Suddenly, Charles Chaplin's face
comes through.
508
00:38:01,924 --> 00:38:05,426
I'm sorry, but I don't
want to be an emperor.
509
00:38:05,626 --> 00:38:07,527
That's not my business.
510
00:38:07,727 --> 00:38:10,029
I don't want to rule or conquer anyone.
511
00:38:10,129 --> 00:38:15,232
I should like to help everyone if possible,
Jew, gentile, black man, white.
512
00:38:15,332 --> 00:38:18,634
We all want to help one another.
Human beings are like that.
513
00:38:18,734 --> 00:38:22,037
We want to live by each other's
happiness, not by each other's misery.
514
00:38:22,136 --> 00:38:24,238
We don't want to hate
and despise one another.
515
00:38:24,438 --> 00:38:27,440
In this world, there's room for everyone.
The good Earth is rich...
516
00:38:27,639 --> 00:38:29,341
...and can provide for everyone.
517
00:38:29,441 --> 00:38:33,644
Not one word has lost its significance.
It's as true now as it was then.
518
00:38:33,844 --> 00:38:37,946
Pacifist public opinion, critical hesitation,
counted for little.
519
00:38:38,146 --> 00:38:42,849
In its initial release, The Great Dictator
was Chaplin 's biggest-grossing film.
520
00:38:44,050 --> 00:38:45,951
In World War II, he vocally...
521
00:38:46,151 --> 00:38:49,253
...controversially supported
our Russian allies...
522
00:38:49,453 --> 00:38:55,156
...notably, at a Carnegie Hall rally, where
he followed a waffling Orson Welles.
523
00:38:55,257 --> 00:38:59,259
The next speaker was Charlie.
He came out, this natty figure...
524
00:39:00,460 --> 00:39:03,562
...walked to the center of the stage...
525
00:39:04,262 --> 00:39:05,963
...raised his hand...
526
00:39:06,363 --> 00:39:08,664
...said, "Comrades! "
527
00:39:10,666 --> 00:39:13,567
Well, the place came down.
528
00:39:14,068 --> 00:39:18,370
He remained what he had always been,
a restless, driven man.
529
00:39:18,571 --> 00:39:24,874
But at 53, he began to find a measure
of happiness when he met Oona o'Neill.
530
00:39:25,075 --> 00:39:29,277
She was 16, the daughter
of the playwright Eugene o'Neill.
531
00:39:29,477 --> 00:39:32,980
A New York debutante,
she was now both shyly and eagerly...
532
00:39:33,180 --> 00:39:35,481
...seeking a career as an actress.
533
00:39:35,681 --> 00:39:41,184
For Chaplin, it was love at first sight,
the last and greatest love of his life.
534
00:39:41,384 --> 00:39:44,686
Within a couple of months,
she was living with him.
535
00:39:52,691 --> 00:39:56,393
This screen test for an unmade film
called The Girl from Leningrad...
536
00:39:56,594 --> 00:40:00,296
...gives us a unique glimpse
of her spirit in 1942.
537
00:40:00,496 --> 00:40:04,499
Don't turn around so quick.
Hey, stop. Not so quick.
538
00:40:04,799 --> 00:40:08,801
But he had recently had and broken off
an affair with Joan Berry...
539
00:40:09,001 --> 00:40:11,302
...a very disturbed would-be actress...
540
00:40:11,503 --> 00:40:14,505
... who desperately broke
into his home one night.
541
00:40:14,705 --> 00:40:17,106
I came home, he was very strange.
He said, "Go to bed. "
542
00:40:17,306 --> 00:40:21,108
I went into bed, and what had happened
is, she had broken in with a gun.
543
00:40:21,308 --> 00:40:26,312
He talked her out of this nonsense,
and she put the gun down and left.
544
00:40:26,512 --> 00:40:30,214
He said, one day, he did the greatest
piece of acting he's ever done in his life.
545
00:40:30,414 --> 00:40:33,016
She pulled a gun on him,
and she was going to shoot him.
546
00:40:33,216 --> 00:40:38,519
He acted his way out of the situation
till he got that gun out of her hand.
547
00:40:39,620 --> 00:40:42,321
He could not act his way
out of the law's clutches.
548
00:40:42,421 --> 00:40:45,523
Here, he is humiliatingly fingerprinted.
549
00:40:45,623 --> 00:40:49,426
The FBI had been keeping a file
on him since 1922.
550
00:40:49,526 --> 00:40:54,229
For some reason, J. Edgar Hoover
held an implacable hatred for him.
551
00:40:55,029 --> 00:40:59,232
The FBI conspired to charge him
with a Mann Act violation.
552
00:40:59,331 --> 00:41:02,534
The law ludicrously forbade
the transportation of women...
553
00:41:02,733 --> 00:41:05,636
...across state lines
for immoral purposes.
554
00:41:06,336 --> 00:41:10,938
Chaplin, here shaking hands
with the jury, eventually won that case.
555
00:41:11,939 --> 00:41:16,542
Simultaneously, Joan Berry
brought a paternity suit against him.
556
00:41:17,243 --> 00:41:21,545
There were two trials
and countless scandalous headlines.
557
00:41:22,145 --> 00:41:24,447
Berry's lawyer had a field day.
558
00:41:24,647 --> 00:41:28,349
"Lecherous hound,
Cockney cad, a reptile"...
559
00:41:28,449 --> 00:41:31,251
... were just some of the names
he called Chaplin.
560
00:41:31,751 --> 00:41:34,653
Blood tests proved Chaplin
could not be the father...
561
00:41:34,753 --> 00:41:37,555
...but they were inadmissible
under California law.
562
00:41:37,655 --> 00:41:39,256
Chaplin lost the case...
563
00:41:39,356 --> 00:41:43,859
...also lost was much of America 's
affection for its beloved Tramp.
564
00:41:44,059 --> 00:41:47,361
You know, he supported that child.
He didn't make an issue of it.
565
00:41:47,561 --> 00:41:51,963
He said, "Okay. " Paid for the kid,
but it was not his.
566
00:41:54,765 --> 00:41:57,567
Monsieur Verdoux would deepen
the nation 's alienation...
567
00:41:57,767 --> 00:42:01,169
...despite this hilariously
failed attempt at murder.
568
00:42:01,369 --> 00:42:04,171
No, he won't--
569
00:42:04,471 --> 00:42:07,273
-What are you gonna do with that?
-Lasso him.
570
00:42:07,373 --> 00:42:10,175
Don't be silly, you can't lasso a fish.
Any fool knows that.
571
00:42:10,374 --> 00:42:11,775
Oh, yes, you can.
572
00:42:11,976 --> 00:42:15,078
All you have to do is to place it
over his head like that.
573
00:42:15,178 --> 00:42:18,080
Then you pull it tight, like this.
574
00:42:20,581 --> 00:42:22,182
What's that?
575
00:42:22,382 --> 00:42:24,183
A yodeler.
576
00:42:24,383 --> 00:42:28,385
-Oh, that ruins everything.
-Certainly does.
577
00:42:28,586 --> 00:42:30,987
Too bad we couldn't find a place
all to ourselves.
578
00:42:31,087 --> 00:42:32,688
Certainly is.
579
00:42:35,090 --> 00:42:37,591
Orson Welles proposed
the idea to Chaplin.
580
00:42:37,791 --> 00:42:42,794
Based on the true case of Henri Landru,
a notorious French wife-murderer.
581
00:42:42,994 --> 00:42:48,398
Chaplin vastly expanded it
into an indictment of bourgeois society.
582
00:42:51,199 --> 00:42:54,601
Making Verdoux at that moment
in his life...
583
00:42:54,701 --> 00:43:00,305
...when his own morality was so much
in question, was great provocation.
584
00:43:00,405 --> 00:43:04,707
It was the final pin
that broke the camel's back.
585
00:43:04,807 --> 00:43:11,211
It got him into deep trouble
with all sorts of war veterans....
586
00:43:11,412 --> 00:43:15,214
And everyone, I think,
came down on him for making that film.
587
00:43:15,314 --> 00:43:20,517
Monsieur Verdoux is a bank official
who gets fired after decades of service.
588
00:43:20,717 --> 00:43:24,319
To support his wife and child,
he takes to marrying rich widows...
589
00:43:24,519 --> 00:43:26,921
...and then killing them for their money.
590
00:43:27,021 --> 00:43:30,823
It's a black comedy by a man
who actually had no blackness in him.
591
00:43:31,023 --> 00:43:34,025
I wonder how long he's going
to keep that incinerator burning.
592
00:43:34,125 --> 00:43:36,427
-It's been going for the last three days.
-l know.
593
00:43:36,627 --> 00:43:39,028
I haven't had a chance
to put my washing out.
594
00:43:44,632 --> 00:43:48,134
It's almost a mea culpa.
It's a statement about capitalism.
595
00:43:48,234 --> 00:43:50,635
It's a statement...
596
00:43:50,836 --> 00:43:54,037
...that murder's the logical
extension of business.
597
00:43:54,138 --> 00:43:58,741
That when you're out
to make a living, anything goes.
598
00:44:12,048 --> 00:44:14,850
Verdoux expertly counting
his money was a chilling...
599
00:44:15,050 --> 00:44:18,352
...but well-remembered
comic motif in the film.
600
00:44:18,553 --> 00:44:21,454
The Lydia scene is unique, though.
601
00:44:21,654 --> 00:44:24,656
I think that's the first murder you see.
602
00:44:24,756 --> 00:44:29,059
And going up the stairs
and him talking about the moon.
603
00:44:29,159 --> 00:44:32,861
The elegance of the shot.
And, oh, "Yes, my dear. "
604
00:44:32,961 --> 00:44:35,362
The way he says, "Yes, my dear,"
is like a snake.
605
00:44:35,562 --> 00:44:37,064
He's just coiling around her.
606
00:44:37,664 --> 00:44:39,265
Yes, my dear.
607
00:44:39,465 --> 00:44:43,267
And you know it's going to come down,
he's going to kill somebody.
608
00:44:46,669 --> 00:44:48,971
That extraordinary moment,
going up the steps...
609
00:44:49,171 --> 00:44:51,572
...and looking at the moon outside
and reciting--
610
00:44:51,673 --> 00:44:53,874
I forget exactly the words,
but about the moon.
611
00:44:53,974 --> 00:44:56,175
She says, "What are you doing?"
"Oh, nothing. "
612
00:44:56,375 --> 00:44:59,978
-What a night.
-Yes, a full moon.
613
00:45:00,478 --> 00:45:04,180
How beautiful, this pale Endymion hour.
614
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:06,281
What are you talking about?
615
00:45:06,381 --> 00:45:08,483
Endymion, my dear.
616
00:45:08,683 --> 00:45:11,185
A beautiful youth
possessed by the moon.
617
00:45:11,384 --> 00:45:13,886
Well, forget about him and get to bed.
618
00:45:15,887 --> 00:45:17,288
Yes, my dear.
619
00:45:17,488 --> 00:45:21,591
And then he turns into a silhouette,
goes out of frame, the music rises....
620
00:45:21,791 --> 00:45:25,593
Her feet were soft in flowers.
621
00:45:34,698 --> 00:45:38,601
The night changes to day,
and you know it's been done.
622
00:45:39,902 --> 00:45:42,503
The vulgarity of his victims
is often contrasted...
623
00:45:42,704 --> 00:45:47,907
...perhaps misogynistically so,
with Verdoux's dandyish elegance.
624
00:45:48,007 --> 00:45:52,309
The next thing is followed by the comic
refrain of the counting of the money.
625
00:46:04,316 --> 00:46:08,019
But it takes you by surprise because
what seems simple with this man...
626
00:46:08,219 --> 00:46:13,022
...is suddenly translated into something
so eloquent and elegant...
627
00:46:13,122 --> 00:46:17,224
...and absolutely horrendous behavior,
but it's done absolutely beautifully.
628
00:46:18,225 --> 00:46:21,327
A friend has told him of a poison
that leaves no trace.
629
00:46:21,527 --> 00:46:23,128
He decides to try it on someone...
630
00:46:23,328 --> 00:46:26,430
... with whom he has no connection
the police might discover.
631
00:46:26,630 --> 00:46:31,133
It is one of the moral turning points in a
film that took him four years to write.
632
00:46:31,333 --> 00:46:33,934
And now for the experiment.
633
00:46:34,135 --> 00:46:36,936
Even when he says, "Now
for the experiment," with the poison...
634
00:46:37,136 --> 00:46:41,439
...when it dissolved to the young
woman in the street, I was shocked.
635
00:46:41,639 --> 00:46:44,741
He had the ability to shock you,
slap your face, then pull you back.
636
00:46:44,941 --> 00:46:47,943
You went with it because
you didn't want to see him kill her...
637
00:46:48,043 --> 00:46:49,744
...and you knew he wouldn't do it...
638
00:46:49,844 --> 00:46:53,046
...but I was shocked by him
thinking that way, "An experiment. "
639
00:46:53,146 --> 00:46:57,749
The first person you see is beautiful.
My goodness, he's going to kill her.
640
00:46:59,050 --> 00:47:01,751
-Quite a shower.
-Yes, it is.
641
00:47:01,952 --> 00:47:05,554
-Can I escort you anywhere?
-Oh, thank you.
642
00:47:05,753 --> 00:47:10,157
It's beautiful, but it's also a very
ugly film in a way. It's very disturbing.
643
00:47:10,357 --> 00:47:13,959
It's almost as if he was pushing the
audience, particularly after World War ll.
644
00:47:14,159 --> 00:47:15,860
The worst war in recorded history.
645
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:21,764
"If I play a character like this, how far
could I push you and you still love me?
646
00:47:21,964 --> 00:47:25,466
Will you still accept me? Am I even
relevant in a world like this right now?"
647
00:47:25,666 --> 00:47:29,168
The criminal is eventually caught.
He will accept his fate.
648
00:47:29,368 --> 00:47:31,970
But not before he broadens
the indictment against him...
649
00:47:32,070 --> 00:47:34,471
... to include most of humanity.
650
00:47:34,571 --> 00:47:37,173
Humanity was profoundly uninterested.
651
00:47:37,272 --> 00:47:41,175
Have you anything to say
before sentence is passed upon you?
652
00:47:43,376 --> 00:47:46,078
Oui, monsieur, I have.
653
00:47:46,178 --> 00:47:49,480
However remiss the prosecutor
has been in complimenting me...
654
00:47:49,681 --> 00:47:52,882
...he at least admits that I have brains.
655
00:47:52,983 --> 00:47:55,584
Thank you, monsieur, I have.
656
00:47:55,784 --> 00:47:58,786
And for 35 years,
I used them honestly.
657
00:47:58,886 --> 00:48:02,588
After that, nobody wanted them.
658
00:48:02,789 --> 00:48:05,490
So I was forced to go
into business for myself.
659
00:48:05,690 --> 00:48:09,592
As for being a mass killer,
does not the world encourage it?
660
00:48:09,793 --> 00:48:14,996
Is it not building weapons of destruction
for the sole purpose of mass killing?
661
00:48:15,196 --> 00:48:20,499
Has it not blown unsuspecting women
and little children to pieces...
662
00:48:20,699 --> 00:48:24,101
...and done it very scientifically?
663
00:48:24,701 --> 00:48:28,003
As a mass killer,
I'm an amateur by comparison.
664
00:48:28,204 --> 00:48:30,205
It was a very interesting...
665
00:48:30,405 --> 00:48:33,707
...disturbing touch as he walks out.
666
00:48:33,907 --> 00:48:37,809
It's like, if you watch him walk,
his stomach is a little extended...
667
00:48:38,010 --> 00:48:41,112
...the walk is awkward, like a grotesque
of the Little Tramp's walk.
668
00:48:41,312 --> 00:48:43,413
It really is.
They lead him to the guillotine.
669
00:48:43,513 --> 00:48:46,215
It's the end of the Little Tramp,
the real end.
670
00:48:49,617 --> 00:48:52,819
I can only imagine what it must
have received when it came out.
671
00:48:56,721 --> 00:48:58,021
No one liked it.
672
00:48:59,822 --> 00:49:03,825
You know, as a man gets on in years,
he wants to live deeply.
673
00:49:04,026 --> 00:49:08,628
A feeling of sad dignity comes upon him,
and that's fatal for a comic.
674
00:49:08,828 --> 00:49:10,629
Sad dignity.
675
00:49:10,830 --> 00:49:14,032
It was a feeling that Chaplin knew
all too well in the late '40s.
676
00:49:14,132 --> 00:49:17,133
He would turn 60 in 1949.
677
00:49:17,233 --> 00:49:19,235
His old genius for inventing gags...
678
00:49:19,434 --> 00:49:23,637
...and developing them in sustained
sequences had largely deserted him.
679
00:49:23,838 --> 00:49:27,139
His audience was older too
and standing on its dignity.
680
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:30,641
They were lost to him, as he
had always feared they might be.
681
00:49:30,842 --> 00:49:34,444
Calvero, his character
in Limelight, directly...
682
00:49:34,544 --> 00:49:40,047
... wearily projected his most
despairing vision of himself.
683
00:49:40,247 --> 00:49:43,549
What a sad business, being funny.
684
00:49:43,649 --> 00:49:46,451
Very sad if they won't laugh.
685
00:49:46,551 --> 00:49:51,655
But it's a thrill when they do.
To look out there, see them all laughing.
686
00:49:51,854 --> 00:49:55,256
To hear that roar go up,
waves of laughter coming at you.
687
00:49:55,457 --> 00:49:57,858
But let's talk of something
more cheerful.
688
00:49:58,058 --> 00:50:00,459
Besides, I want to forget the public.
689
00:50:01,059 --> 00:50:02,961
Never. You love them too much.
690
00:50:03,161 --> 00:50:05,763
I'm not sure. Maybe I love them,
but I don't admire them.
691
00:50:05,863 --> 00:50:07,064
I think you do.
692
00:50:07,264 --> 00:50:10,565
As individuals, yes,
there's greatness in everyone.
693
00:50:10,666 --> 00:50:13,768
But as a crowd, they're like
a monster without a head...
694
00:50:13,968 --> 00:50:16,969
...that never knows which way
it's going to turn.
695
00:50:17,170 --> 00:50:19,271
It can be prodded in any direction.
696
00:50:20,071 --> 00:50:23,474
Chaplin 's has-been character,
depressed and drunken...
697
00:50:23,674 --> 00:50:27,176
...meets the dancer Thereza
when he rescues her from suicide.
698
00:50:27,376 --> 00:50:29,977
She is in despair
because she cannot walk.
699
00:50:30,178 --> 00:50:35,081
Old man and young woman
will conspire to inspire one another.
700
00:50:35,181 --> 00:50:38,182
It still to me is amazing that at 20...
701
00:50:38,282 --> 00:50:44,086
...I worked with the greatest genius in
movies and had been chosen by him.
702
00:50:44,887 --> 00:50:47,888
It was certainly he that found me.
703
00:50:47,988 --> 00:50:52,291
I was a young actress. I was 19.
I was in a play in London.
704
00:50:52,391 --> 00:50:55,193
And then I got a wire
from Harry Crocker saying...
705
00:50:55,293 --> 00:50:58,495
...would I send photographs
to Chaplin?
706
00:50:58,594 --> 00:51:00,796
And it seemed so unbelievable to me...
707
00:51:00,996 --> 00:51:03,298
...and I was so frightened by it,
I did nothing.
708
00:51:03,398 --> 00:51:06,499
And then about two weeks later,
I got a telegram saying:
709
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:08,801
"Where are the photographs?
Charles Chaplin. "
710
00:51:10,402 --> 00:51:14,305
So I sent them off as quickly as I could,
and, of course, from that moment on...
711
00:51:14,404 --> 00:51:16,906
...I wanted to be in Limelight
more than anything.
712
00:51:18,207 --> 00:51:20,308
Every day was a miracle.
713
00:51:20,508 --> 00:51:22,509
I woke up every morning,
could not believe...
714
00:51:22,710 --> 00:51:24,711
...that I was going to go
and do this part.
715
00:51:24,911 --> 00:51:27,312
On the other hand,
I had no film technique whatsoever.
716
00:51:27,512 --> 00:51:31,014
I didn't know anything.
So he eased me very gradually into it...
717
00:51:31,114 --> 00:51:34,417
...by starting the scenes
where I was comatose on the bed.
718
00:51:34,517 --> 00:51:38,018
I got very quickly used to being filmed
and being in a film.
719
00:51:38,219 --> 00:51:41,120
I liked the intimacy of it
compared with the theater. I still do.
720
00:51:41,221 --> 00:51:44,423
His way of directing, from the beginning,
was to demonstrate...
721
00:51:44,623 --> 00:51:46,924
...and he would demonstrate everything.
722
00:51:47,424 --> 00:51:51,327
My hand here, there, look up,
say the line, how to say the line.
723
00:51:51,427 --> 00:51:53,528
It was fine with me
because I worshipped him...
724
00:51:53,729 --> 00:51:56,130
...and I would have done
anything that he wanted.
725
00:51:56,330 --> 00:51:58,531
And also,
when he played the young girl...
726
00:51:58,731 --> 00:52:02,033
...he was more young and girlish
and feminine and charming...
727
00:52:02,133 --> 00:52:04,135
...than I could ever have been.
728
00:52:04,435 --> 00:52:07,237
Sometimes he got very angry.
It's his prerogative.
729
00:52:07,437 --> 00:52:10,638
Once, very much,
but I think it was deliberate.
730
00:52:10,839 --> 00:52:13,140
I had this very difficult scene.
731
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:16,042
I now look at it and marvel
that I could do it at that age.
732
00:52:16,142 --> 00:52:18,543
I'm walking, Calvero.
I'm walking.
733
00:52:18,743 --> 00:52:21,445
I was terrified of it,
as anybody would have been.
734
00:52:21,545 --> 00:52:24,547
So he called me into his dressing room
and he said:
735
00:52:24,647 --> 00:52:27,649
"Claire, we'll just go over the words.
I don't want any acting.
736
00:52:27,749 --> 00:52:29,049
Let's go over the words. "
737
00:52:29,250 --> 00:52:32,552
So I kind of went over the words
with him, the scene, and he said:
738
00:52:32,652 --> 00:52:36,354
"What is that supposed to be?" I said,
"That's what you asked me to do. "
739
00:52:36,554 --> 00:52:40,256
"No, I didn't ask you to do that.
I want you to do the scene! I can't--"
740
00:52:40,356 --> 00:52:42,758
Whatever it was.
Of course, I started to cry...
741
00:52:42,958 --> 00:52:46,260
...which is what he was waiting for.
So we went out on the floor.
742
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:47,761
Everybody was ready.
743
00:52:47,861 --> 00:52:52,164
They'd obviously been clued in to what
was going to happen to this poor child.
744
00:52:52,263 --> 00:52:55,065
And we did the scene.
It was wonderful.
745
00:52:55,266 --> 00:52:57,467
Now is the time to show them
what you're made of.
746
00:52:57,667 --> 00:52:59,668
Now is the time to fight!
747
00:52:59,868 --> 00:53:02,970
Remember what you told me
standing there by that window?
748
00:53:03,070 --> 00:53:06,873
Remember what you said
about the power of the universe...
749
00:53:07,072 --> 00:53:12,175
...moving the Earth, growing the trees,
and that power being within you?
750
00:53:12,376 --> 00:53:16,779
Well, now is the time
to use that power and to fight!
751
00:53:18,980 --> 00:53:21,782
Calvero, look, I'm walking.
752
00:53:22,282 --> 00:53:23,782
I'm walking!
753
00:53:25,084 --> 00:53:26,985
I'm walking!
754
00:53:28,386 --> 00:53:30,387
I'm walking!
755
00:53:30,687 --> 00:53:31,988
Calvero!
756
00:53:32,088 --> 00:53:35,190
He'd worked me up
into that emotional pitch.
757
00:53:35,390 --> 00:53:38,792
He knew what he was doing
when he was angry.
758
00:53:38,992 --> 00:53:42,594
I think he, at that point,
was an older man...
759
00:53:42,694 --> 00:53:47,397
...and had many things he wanted to say
in the film about love and about death...
760
00:53:47,597 --> 00:53:50,399
...and about his background in London...
761
00:53:50,599 --> 00:53:53,901
...about the music hall,
about something he knew well:
762
00:53:54,101 --> 00:53:56,203
A young girl falling in love
with an older man.
763
00:53:57,503 --> 00:54:00,905
Chaplin, Oona and their growing family
sailed for London...
764
00:54:01,005 --> 00:54:05,308
...and Limelight's world premiere
in September, 1952.
765
00:54:05,509 --> 00:54:09,911
I went before he did to set up
some publicity things and everything.
766
00:54:10,111 --> 00:54:11,612
He was going to come later.
767
00:54:11,812 --> 00:54:15,615
Then he got from the State Department
the right for a re-entry permit...
768
00:54:15,814 --> 00:54:18,316
...because his whole life he was English.
769
00:54:18,516 --> 00:54:21,218
But the day he and Oona
got on the boat, they said:
770
00:54:21,418 --> 00:54:25,120
"We're not going to honor it. " Well,
of course, he got to London furious.
771
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:28,522
He sent Oona back to America,
and he said, "Sell everything.
772
00:54:28,722 --> 00:54:30,924
Sell the house, sell the studio,
everything.
773
00:54:31,123 --> 00:54:32,624
We're not going back there. "
774
00:54:32,924 --> 00:54:36,027
We have an idea of touring
beautiful England...
775
00:54:36,227 --> 00:54:38,828
...and going to all
the historical spots.
776
00:54:39,028 --> 00:54:42,030
Naturally, we'll go to Stratford-on-Avon
and elsewhere...
777
00:54:42,230 --> 00:54:45,532
...up to Scotland and Edinburgh
and all that.
778
00:54:45,633 --> 00:54:50,335
This is the first time that my wife
has ever been abroad.
779
00:54:50,435 --> 00:54:54,538
And so naturally, we're going to try
and cram in as much as we can.
780
00:54:54,638 --> 00:54:57,340
Grand. One other thing.
Would you comment, sir...
781
00:54:57,540 --> 00:55:01,042
...on this proposed ban on your
re-entry into the United States?
782
00:55:01,242 --> 00:55:04,544
I've already-- I can only reiterate
what I said before.
783
00:55:04,744 --> 00:55:09,247
I suppose-- I presume
that that's already been published.
784
00:55:09,447 --> 00:55:11,048
-Thank you very much.
-Thank you.
785
00:55:11,248 --> 00:55:15,650
As the late Calvin Coolidge said
when he terminated his presidency...
786
00:55:15,851 --> 00:55:21,454
...embarking to go home, waylaid by one
of the pressmen who said:
787
00:55:21,654 --> 00:55:25,657
"Mr. President, won't you say
a few farewell words...
788
00:55:25,756 --> 00:55:27,258
...to the American people?"
789
00:55:27,458 --> 00:55:29,459
He said, "Yes, goodbye. "
790
00:55:32,061 --> 00:55:34,962
Eventually, Charlie and Oona
would have eight kids.
791
00:55:35,162 --> 00:55:38,265
The last four of them born in exile.
792
00:55:38,965 --> 00:55:41,766
Probably didn't work
as hard as he did in America...
793
00:55:41,867 --> 00:55:44,468
...but I don't think he could be idle.
794
00:55:44,668 --> 00:55:47,670
He definitely slowed down,
and he'd go traveling.
795
00:55:47,770 --> 00:55:52,073
He took us on trips to Africa,
to the East.
796
00:55:57,176 --> 00:56:02,879
The Chaplins settled in the Manoir
de Ban in Switzerland, in 1953.
797
00:56:02,979 --> 00:56:06,281
He would live out his life here,
24 more years.
798
00:56:06,381 --> 00:56:08,483
He was never idle.
He wrote scripts...
799
00:56:08,683 --> 00:56:12,385
...rescored older films,
wrote his autobiography.
800
00:56:12,485 --> 00:56:16,787
And thumbing his nose at America,
fellow-traveled with the Communists.
801
00:56:16,887 --> 00:56:19,689
He even accepted a peace prize
from the Soviet Union...
802
00:56:19,890 --> 00:56:23,291
... then distributed the cash
that came with it to the poor.
803
00:56:25,293 --> 00:56:29,095
He created his own demise
with America, I think, over time...
804
00:56:29,195 --> 00:56:33,298
...and was quoted as saying
in a very embittered way:
805
00:56:33,497 --> 00:56:38,101
"The only thing I miss about America
is Almond Joy bars. "
806
00:56:38,601 --> 00:56:41,903
Almond Joy and Mounds candy.
807
00:56:43,904 --> 00:56:46,706
Uncle Sydney, he was great.
He was our funny uncle.
808
00:56:46,905 --> 00:56:50,208
He was very, very eccentric,
or we thought he was very eccentric.
809
00:56:50,308 --> 00:56:51,909
He was married to Gypsy...
810
00:56:52,109 --> 00:56:55,611
...and they lived in a caravan because
Uncle Sydney never wanted a house...
811
00:56:55,811 --> 00:56:58,913
...because he thought if he got in a
house, he would die there.
812
00:56:59,113 --> 00:57:03,116
And that depressed him. He would get
very depressed about a lot of things.
813
00:57:04,016 --> 00:57:07,118
And he was extremely nostalgic
for the past.
814
00:57:07,318 --> 00:57:09,120
And he would watch the sunset
and cry.
815
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:13,822
And he would look at little babies
and say "Oh, if only I were that age. "
816
00:57:13,922 --> 00:57:16,524
He was really terrible.
817
00:57:18,625 --> 00:57:21,327
And he and my father
had a fantastic relationship...
818
00:57:21,427 --> 00:57:25,929
...extraordinary relationship.
The ideal relationship between brothers.
819
00:57:27,730 --> 00:57:29,832
He twice interrupted his exile
to make films.
820
00:57:31,233 --> 00:57:34,435
A King in New York in 1957...
821
00:57:35,635 --> 00:57:37,536
...and A Countess from Hong Kong
in 1966.
822
00:57:38,937 --> 00:57:41,339
His son Sydney worked
with Sophia Loren.
823
00:57:41,839 --> 00:57:44,040
Chaplin 's daughters
also appeared in it.
824
00:57:44,241 --> 00:57:48,142
But like A King,
it was a critical and popular failure...
825
00:57:48,243 --> 00:57:50,445
... which deeply depressed Chaplin.
826
00:57:50,645 --> 00:57:54,147
He loved public and his kids
were a great public for him.
827
00:57:54,246 --> 00:57:57,048
And if we went to a restaurant,
he had an even bigger public.
828
00:57:57,248 --> 00:58:00,751
So in Switzerland we used to go to a
restaurant, and he would always order...
829
00:58:00,951 --> 00:58:04,753
...truite au bleu.
It's a trout, and it's boiled live...
830
00:58:04,953 --> 00:58:09,356
...so it sort of looks at you.
And we would be horrified.
831
00:58:09,556 --> 00:58:13,458
And he'd pick up the plate
and he'd take this trout and he'd say:
832
00:58:13,658 --> 00:58:17,561
"Emma, Emma, darling. " And he'd kiss
the trout on the lips, and we'd go:
833
00:58:17,761 --> 00:58:19,362
"Oh, Daddy, how horrible! "
834
00:58:19,562 --> 00:58:21,864
And by then, the whole restaurant
would be looking.
835
00:58:21,964 --> 00:58:24,865
So he was an entertaining father.
836
00:58:29,568 --> 00:58:32,570
His audiences now
were mainly accidental.
837
00:58:32,670 --> 00:58:34,871
His most faithful camera
was Oona's.
838
00:58:34,972 --> 00:58:37,372
But the old man would take
what he could get...
839
00:58:37,573 --> 00:58:40,375
...and do the old bits
from his glory days.
840
00:58:56,584 --> 00:58:59,787
It was as though he was surprised
at his own work and would say:
841
00:58:59,987 --> 00:59:02,788
"But he's good. " He would talk
about him as "him. "
842
00:59:02,888 --> 00:59:08,591
"Oh, that's very good. Oh, but that's,
that's very good. Oh, he's funny. "
843
00:59:44,013 --> 00:59:49,316
I never met Chaplin. And only time
I saw him in person was in Cannes.
844
00:59:49,416 --> 00:59:53,819
When he was towards the end of his life,
he was honored with a special award.
845
00:59:54,419 --> 00:59:59,723
I was there. The theater was packed!
Packed to the roof!
846
01:00:00,023 --> 01:00:01,724
Electricity was enormous...
847
01:00:01,924 --> 01:00:05,426
...because nobody saw Chaplin
in person for years.
848
01:00:05,626 --> 01:00:07,927
And the award is given to him...
849
01:00:08,128 --> 01:00:11,630
...by French Minister of Culture,
Monsieur Duhamel, who, at this time...
850
01:00:11,830 --> 01:00:15,832
...was also a very sick man
who was walking with a cane.
851
01:00:16,033 --> 01:00:19,434
So then suddenly the light
goes out...
852
01:00:19,534 --> 01:00:22,236
...spotlight on the curtain,
curtain opens...
853
01:00:22,437 --> 01:00:24,438
...and then
they are standing there.
854
01:00:24,638 --> 01:00:27,940
Theater explodes!
Bravo, standing ovation, bravos...
855
01:00:28,140 --> 01:00:30,141
...one minute, two minutes,
five minutes!
856
01:00:30,341 --> 01:00:35,044
Chaplin was visibly so moved
by this reaction...
857
01:00:35,244 --> 01:00:39,447
...that he felt that he has to reward
the audience somehow.
858
01:00:39,647 --> 01:00:42,649
So he's looking around and suddenly
he sees Monsieur Duhamel...
859
01:00:42,849 --> 01:00:44,550
...next to him with a cane.
860
01:00:44,750 --> 01:00:47,752
So he grabs his cane
and does few steps.
861
01:00:47,952 --> 01:00:51,755
But in that moment, Monsieur
Duhamel, being stripped of the cane...
862
01:00:51,954 --> 01:00:56,857
...starts to St. Vitus Dance
because he couldn't--
863
01:00:56,957 --> 01:01:01,760
Now, Chaplin sees it,
and he just-- They just...
864
01:01:01,961 --> 01:01:06,263
...clasp each other like that,
embrace, just to keep standing.
865
01:01:06,363 --> 01:01:10,065
People in the audience who knew
about Monsieur Duhamel's condition...
866
01:01:10,165 --> 01:01:13,168
...were petrified.
But most of the audience didn't know...
867
01:01:13,267 --> 01:01:16,369
...and they thought that this
is a comic number to entertain them.
868
01:01:16,569 --> 01:01:19,271
And they started to applaud
and laugh!
869
01:01:20,472 --> 01:01:26,175
It was so surreal.
It was like Chaplin's films.
870
01:01:28,877 --> 01:01:32,479
As the years wore on, more and more
honors were heaped on him.
871
01:01:32,579 --> 01:01:35,281
The world was bent on reconciliation.
872
01:01:35,481 --> 01:01:39,483
Even the United States
wanted to forgive and forget...
873
01:01:39,583 --> 01:01:41,084
...and remember.
874
01:01:41,584 --> 01:01:43,486
That process was completed...
875
01:01:43,686 --> 01:01:48,088
... when he received an honorary
Academy Award in 1972.
876
01:01:48,289 --> 01:01:52,391
He did come for the Academy Award,
but that was only for financial reasons.
877
01:01:52,491 --> 01:01:56,493
Because he's rereleased his pictures,
and he came back and said:
878
01:01:56,694 --> 01:02:00,495
"Oh, that's very kind of everybody. "
Two days at the Beverly Hills Hotel...
879
01:02:00,596 --> 01:02:02,297
...he says,
"When are we going home?"
880
01:02:02,497 --> 01:02:05,299
I can only say...
881
01:02:05,399 --> 01:02:10,201
...thank you for the honor
of inviting me here...
882
01:02:10,302 --> 01:02:16,506
...and, oh, you're wonderful,
sweet people. Thank you.
883
01:02:16,705 --> 01:02:22,109
Chaplin had five more years to live
in declining physical and mental health.
884
01:02:22,809 --> 01:02:25,912
But one has to believe
death held few terrors for him...
885
01:02:26,111 --> 01:02:29,113
...because he'd long since
imagined his triumph over it.
886
01:02:29,313 --> 01:02:34,917
His artistic immortality as well as
the hard, simple fact of his passing.
887
01:02:35,117 --> 01:02:37,718
Both occurred in the same
Limelight sequence...
888
01:02:38,219 --> 01:02:42,021
... which he shared with his great rival
Buster Keaton.
889
01:02:42,922 --> 01:02:45,123
I think he must have known
he was the greatest.
890
01:02:45,323 --> 01:02:48,825
But I think he had a problem wondering
if everyone else still thought so.
891
01:02:48,925 --> 01:02:52,527
I remember once, he was then very old,
and I came with a boyfriend of mine...
892
01:02:52,727 --> 01:02:55,329
...very interested in cinema.
Not so interested in Chaplin.
893
01:02:55,529 --> 01:02:58,631
He preferred Buster Keaton,
which was not the thing to do.
894
01:02:58,731 --> 01:03:02,233
We arrived, and he spoke with my father
a bit about the silent films.
895
01:03:02,433 --> 01:03:06,236
And then he went on to talk about
Buster Keaton, and my father just....
896
01:03:06,436 --> 01:03:09,938
He got smaller and smaller
and he shrunk, and he was so hurt.
897
01:03:10,138 --> 01:03:13,741
It was like someone had stabbed him.
And he just became very, very quiet.
898
01:03:13,941 --> 01:03:15,641
He didn't say a word
during dinner.
899
01:03:15,741 --> 01:03:18,844
And after dinner, he was thinking
and he was looking into the fire...
900
01:03:19,043 --> 01:03:21,244
...and suddenly he peeped
in a little voice.
901
01:03:21,345 --> 01:03:25,848
He looked at my friend in the eyes
and he said:
902
01:03:26,048 --> 01:03:30,550
"But I was an artist. " And no one knew
what he was talking about.
903
01:03:30,751 --> 01:03:33,953
And then he said,
"You know, I gave him work. "
904
01:03:41,157 --> 01:03:45,160
It's so moving, with Buster Keaton and
him together. He's in the foreground.
905
01:03:45,359 --> 01:03:48,561
Your eye's on him.
But he has Keaton perfectly placed.
906
01:03:48,761 --> 01:03:51,963
He doesn't diminish him at all.
And it goes on and on....
907
01:03:52,164 --> 01:03:56,767
The two of them are going.
It's like jazz musicians taking off.
908
01:04:07,473 --> 01:04:08,974
It was beautiful.
909
01:04:09,074 --> 01:04:12,576
It was two men who had the greatest
respect for one another.
910
01:04:12,776 --> 01:04:16,578
I personally was moved because I knew
that Buster had seen some hard times...
911
01:04:16,779 --> 01:04:18,780
...and here was Charlie,
a multimillionaire...
912
01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:22,582
...still with his own studio and all that.
And there was Buster...
913
01:04:22,782 --> 01:04:25,784
...had had all that and lost it.
914
01:04:26,084 --> 01:04:27,785
David Thomson once called Chaplin:
915
01:04:27,985 --> 01:04:32,688
"The looming, mad politician
of the century, the demon tramp. "
916
01:04:32,888 --> 01:04:34,589
A harsh judgment.
917
01:04:34,790 --> 01:04:39,792
Yet there was something demonic in
him, quite visibly so in this sequence.
918
01:04:39,993 --> 01:04:42,594
He was still driven
by his relentless ego...
919
01:04:42,794 --> 01:04:45,896
...by his helpless need
to dominate his audience...
920
01:04:45,997 --> 01:04:48,498
...now indifferent, even hostile.
921
01:05:08,610 --> 01:05:13,012
If you're not curious anymore, you're not
anxious to know how to grow...
922
01:05:13,112 --> 01:05:18,016
...as a filmmaker or a writer,
artist, or whatever, that's death.
923
01:05:18,216 --> 01:05:22,418
He, I think, felt that, and I think
you have the results in Limelight.
924
01:05:22,618 --> 01:05:27,322
There's something brave, sublime
and without precedent in movie history...
925
01:05:27,421 --> 01:05:31,424
...about a man contemplating
his own death on-screen.
926
01:05:31,824 --> 01:05:34,926
He makes a peace with it too.
He accepts the passage.
927
01:05:35,126 --> 01:05:38,128
Doesn't like it, but accepts the transition
of being old and dying...
928
01:05:38,328 --> 01:05:40,730
...but also of him no longer
having the energy of youth.
929
01:05:40,929 --> 01:05:44,131
When that sheet is put over his face,
with that beautiful music at the end...
930
01:05:44,231 --> 01:05:46,533
...that is the final image
of Chaplin's there.
931
01:05:46,633 --> 01:05:49,735
I was fortunate enough
to be in that scene, silent.
932
01:05:49,935 --> 01:05:53,437
And Buster was there.
And we're pulling back...
933
01:05:53,637 --> 01:05:57,840
...and Buster is muttering to Charlie,
not moving his lips:
934
01:05:57,940 --> 01:06:01,042
"Good, Charlie. Stay just where you are.
You're right in the center.
935
01:06:01,242 --> 01:06:06,245
Hold it. Don't move. Yeah, yeah,
that's it. We've made it. Yeah. "
936
01:06:06,445 --> 01:06:07,846
And I thought:
937
01:06:08,046 --> 01:06:13,249
"Boy, you, Norman, have been present
at a moment in history. "
938
01:06:14,150 --> 01:06:16,251
And it was just--
939
01:06:16,551 --> 01:06:21,154
It made you embrace
your whole profession, so to speak.
940
01:06:21,454 --> 01:06:26,557
You say, "This is what real greatness
in this profession is. "
941
01:06:32,961 --> 01:06:37,364
The last years of his life,
he very much withdrew into himself.
942
01:06:37,564 --> 01:06:39,665
It was very hard for my mother.
943
01:06:39,865 --> 01:06:44,068
She had a very hard time, really, looking
after a man who'd been so vital...
944
01:06:44,168 --> 01:06:48,971
...and such a strong presence,
suddenly, really, vanishing away.
945
01:06:49,371 --> 01:06:52,173
But he seemed to be very much
at peace with himself.
946
01:06:52,373 --> 01:06:56,275
He kind of slowly drifted,
drifted away...
947
01:06:56,375 --> 01:07:00,078
...and his death was just at the end
of a very slow drifting away.
948
01:07:00,678 --> 01:07:03,279
His was the face of his century.
949
01:07:03,479 --> 01:07:06,181
His was the life of his century.
950
01:07:07,082 --> 01:07:11,685
Through his will and energy,
and yes, genius...
951
01:07:11,885 --> 01:07:15,486
...he encompassed,
as much as one man can...
952
01:07:15,987 --> 01:07:20,089
... the joy and the anguish
of his times...
953
01:07:20,290 --> 01:07:22,791
... their romance, their horrors...
954
01:07:22,991 --> 01:07:26,293
...and, of course, what laughter
we could find in them.
955
01:07:26,693 --> 01:07:32,097
He was a flawed man,
a haunted man, a tormented man.
956
01:07:32,697 --> 01:07:36,299
Which is to say,
he was only human...
957
01:07:36,899 --> 01:07:42,103
...but with this uncanny ability
to reflect and refract...
958
01:07:42,303 --> 01:07:45,805
...our humanity back at us.
959
01:07:46,305 --> 01:07:52,903
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