100 Movies Every Catholic Should See #124: City Lights (1931)
Directed, written, produced, edited, and music composed by Charlie Chaplin
In 1927, Hollywood was revolutionized by the introduction of “talkies” in The Jazz Singer, and nearly overnight the entire industry transitioned to moving pictures with sound. Great directors like D.W. Griffith were doing sound; legendary comics like the Marx Brothers were doing sound; but one man stood his ground and deliberately chose not to chase this trend. That man was Charlie Chaplin, perhaps the most famous name in cinema at the time, and if he were to prove the enduring power of silent films in the era of talkies, he would have to create a bona fide masterpiece.
He did.
City Lights is an enduring classic because it displays Chaplin’s mastery of storytelling, artistic film-making, and human emotion all in one simple yet glorious package. It is simultaneously an outrageous side-splitting comedy and also cinematographically a visual feast and also one of the most tender romances on film and also a biting yet never mean-spirited piece of social commentary and also one of the most charmingly acted movies I’ve ever seen. Chaplin’s multi-faceted genius has perhaps never again been seen in Hollywood, a Renaissance man aging into an era of increasing specialization. But his many talents exerted such an influence on cinema that you can see homages and parallels to City Lights and Chaplin’s other work even today, not because film-makers are into outdated movies that no one has ever seen, but because Chaplin’s works are timeless, entries into the canon of cinema that will be enjoyed and appreciated for hundreds more years to come because of their deep insight into the human soul.
And also because they’re absolutely hilarious.
City Lights follows Chaplin’s famous Little Tramp as he makes his way through life in the big city. He meets and falls in love with a flower girl, who is blind and through a series of misunderstandings believes the the Tramp is a rich benefactor out to help her. The Tramp, playing along with her misconception, takes menial jobs to provide food for her, pay her rent, and ultimately to send her to Austria to a doctor who can cure her blindness. He also saves the life of a drunken millionaire on the verge of suicide, and the millionaire becomes the Tramp’s best friend and benefactor (but only when he’s drunk). Hijinks escalate until the millionaire gives the Tramp $1000 when he’s drunk, which the Tramp takes to the flower girl to pay for her treatment, but accuses him of stealing when he’s sober, and the Tramp spends several months in prison. Upon his release, he finds the girl, now able to see, in a flower shop and wonders whether she will still appreciate him now that she can see what he truly is. Can love survive when it is no longer blind?
The comedy scenes in this film are riotously funny. The Tramp ruins a statue unveiling by sleeping in it’s lap; he almost falls into a manhole several times while admiring a statue; he and the millionaire continuously fall into the river and haul each other out; they go to a nightclub, both utterly sloshed, and cause mayhem; the Tramp foils a couple of burglars but gets the rap for the theft; and finally, a legendary boxing sequence choreographed more like a dance than a fight where the Tramp competes for the prize money to pay his lady-love’s rent. Chaplin’s physical comedy and priceless reactions are hysterical, and the humor and absurdity of the situation is enhanced both by our understanding of the Tramp’s motivations and the inherent dignity Chaplin gives his character throughout. As absurd as the situation gets and as tattered as his clothing is, the Tramp still always acts like a perfect gentleman and imbues the comedy with a pathos which both makes it funnier but also more relatable at the same time.
Where this movie crosses from excellent to masterpiece, however, is in its heart. The Tramp is, to state the obvious, poor. He seems incapable of working in his own self-interest, maintaining a state of destitution as much through willful idleness as incompetence. However, he constantly serves as a benefactor to those who are, in some way, less well-off than himself. Though he barely has two coins to rub together, he buys a flower from the blind girl and then does not retrieve his change. Upon coming into a little money through the millionaire, he buys her whole basket of flowers and drives her home in a Rolls Royce. He works as a poop scooper at the zoo to earn money for her, even going so far as to compete in a prizefight though he knows he will lose. He sacrifices everything, including his freedom, to ensure that the girl can get her blindness cured, even though he knows that if she can see, she is likely to reject him as a lowlife tramp. The final shots of the film, which I shall not spoil, are so full of pathos, so subtly acted, so brilliantly conceived that they leave every viewer changed upon impact. The Tramp works so selflessly on the flower girl’s behalf with no real expectation of return that all of the clownishness is charming rather than buffoonish, and despite all his setbacks we root for him to the very end.
Same with the Tramp’s interactions with the millionaire; he springs into action to convince this man, who has everything life has to offer while the Tramp has little to none, that life is indeed worth living and that he has a duty not to throw it away. In a scene reminiscent of It’s a Wonderful Life, the Tramp falls into the water and the suicidal millionaire has to save him, curing his suicidality in the process. It’s these continuous selfless actions that make us love the Little Tramp, rather than simply laugh at him as a ridiculous clown. Selflessness is part of his character, whether it be in City Lights or other Tramp films like The Kid or Modern Times, and this selflessness shines a light on the better angels of our nature, keeping Chaplin’s comedy and even his satire from becoming mean-spirited and instead inspiring his viewers (even now, 100 years on) to show a similar selflessness and generosity towards our less-fortunate neighbors, even if we sometimes look ridiculous in the process.
City Lights has been named by many world-renowned directors as among their top ten films, and rightly so. Chaplin’s genius elevates and transcends its genre, not only creating a very funny slapstick film but also adding so much more to it that you come away from the film remembering not the gags but the pathos. Cinema has gone in various different directions over the years, each with its masterpieces, but for an utterly simple and sympathetic window into the human condition you can do no better than Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, and City Lights is perhaps the Tramp’s finest appearance.
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