I Understand Charlie Chaplin Now

                                                             I Understand Charlie Chaplin Now

Till the age of 66 years I would have seen no more than two films of Charlie Chaplin, thanks to my parents. I used to consider them something like Laurel and Hardy films, slapstick comedy and more of the same. My parents were of no help in making me understand better; perhaps they themselves did not understand anything more than I did. Ouch, that would hurt, but both are dead for nearly 25 years. But, over the past nearly five years I have increased the count by 150%! 

Many evenings, now that I am retired from professional life, I sit in front of the idiot box for three to four hours if a Bond movie or Chaplin movie is running on the screen. No, please do not take that I consider a Bond movie is as good/bad as a Chaplin movie. They are of two different genres, and each is perhaps the best in its own. 

I would be writing about Bond movies, particularly about why I enjoy them later. For now, though my mind is focused on Charlie Chaplin’s movies; particularly the five films that keep coming up on TV.

The movies of Chaplin that run repeatedly on TV are Modern Times, City Lights, The Circus, The Great Dictator, and The Gold Rush. There could be some more but I do not recall. 

I am no cine critique (all of you know that) but I find Modern Times as the best reflection of society changing, not knowing how those changes are going to affect them. This was in the 1930s, well into the modern, automated, Ford’s moving assembly line (the workers did not move from station to station to do the work they were trained for) industrialisation (started in the second decade of the 20th century), yet it carried the emotions and emotional trauma of individuals in the initial decades of industrialization.

Yes, every one of the movies of Chaplin that I have seen in recent years opened my eyes to what life was and how people coped with. City Lights has so many scenes that would find parallels in Indian movies; yet, the difference is the absence of maudlin sentiments though there were enough opportunities.

The Great Dictator is a satire that intimates things that would happen subsequently in Germany and imitates them (if something in the future could be imitated). There is just one year difference between Hitler’s occupation of Poland and the release of the movie. The interval between reality and the movie was merely six months. I would dare any astrologer to be anywhere near that specific in his/her prediction.

Charlie Chaplin was left-leaning but never a Communist. He seems not to have believed in God, but was more of an agnostic than an atheist−I do not know whether he cared very much whether He existed. That is a point in his favour in my book, as though you could not have been aware of this without my telling!

My only wish is I would get to see many more of his movies, even those that I might not appreciate or agree with the thoughts behind them. But, which channel would devote two hours time for an audience of one? My understanding has come some six decades too late.

Raghuram Ekambaram