Chaplin, USA 1992

Richard Attenborough and Robert Downey Jr.

Richard Attenborough explained

“My wish is that people will come away from Chaplin with a greater feeling for what a wonderful medium the cinema is: a deeper understanding of the human foibles and frailties exemplified in this man who was a genius: and the reasons why he finds himself at such odds with what is accepted as proper and appropriate behaviour.”

This film was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough. The production company was Carolco (Tri-Star) with collaboration from Japanese Television, the French Canal and a video company. It is based partly on Charles Chaplin’s 1964 My Autobiography and David Robinson’s 1985 Chaplin, His Life and Art. Chaplin died in 1977 but his family, especially his widow Oona, resisted attempts to make a biographical film. Attenborough visited her in Switzerland and she agreed, partly it seems because she had liked his earlier Gandhi. The basic story was written by Diana Hawkins, and then several writers worked on the screenplay: William Boyd, Bryan Forbes and William Goldman. A continuing hurdle was fitting Chaplin’s life into a reasonable length film. It seems that Goldman added a fictional character, editor of Chaplin’s autobiography, as a structuring and linking device. The idea for this originated with Attenborough. It took some time to get the production going because of hesitations among the funding producers. A key aspect was casting Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role; Chaplin was his first major role.

The film opens with a relatively young Chaplin removing the make-up and attire of his famous creation, ‘the Tramp’. The scene starts in black and white and gradually changes to colour. A voice is hear on the soundtrack; it will later become apparent that this is the editor of My Autobiography, George Hayden (Anthony Hopkins) in 1963. It also becomes apparent that he has a list of questions regarding a manuscript of the intended book by Chaplin; his questions relate to issues that are not treated in detail in the book or are missed out almost completely.

Thus, apart from brief glimpses of Chaplin and Hayden at the Swiss mansion, the rest of the film is in flashback. First we get Chaplin’s childhood, with a particular emphasis on his mother Hannah; the father is almost completely absent. Starting to suffer from mental problems Hannah is booed off stage in a Music Hall; but the young Charlie takes her place  and wows the vocal audience. Charlie and his half- bother Syd are put in a workhouse and then separated. Later Hannah is committed to a mental asylum. Syd reappears and assist Charlie in joining the Music Hall troupe of Fred Karno (John Thaw). He soon becomes a star turn.

The troupe tour the USA and Charlie receives an offer from the Max Sennett film studio, already located in the developing Hollywood suburb of Los Angeles. Sennett (Dan Aykroyd) is at first sceptical of Chaplin’s youth, but Charlie convinces him and is soon starring in the typical one reeler films made at the studio; running about fifteen minutes each. Here Chaplin develops his on-screen persona of ‘the tramp’. Chaplin’s career in the teens of the C19th is severely compressed. But we see him evolving as a major star: becoming a director of his own films: acquiring his own studio: and earning increasingly large salaries. The only characters we see in this period are Max Sennett and one of his stars, Mabel Norman (Marisa Tomei): the cameraman who worked most frequently with Chaplin,  Roland Totheroh (David Duchovny): a young actress who becomes a regular leading lady Edna Purviance (Penelope Ann Miller): and Syd who joins Chaplin in Hollywood and acts as a sort of manager.

We move into the 1920s when Chaplin, like other comics, moved onto feature length films. He becomes friendly with Douglas Fairbanks (Kevin Kline), and the his wife-cum-star Mary Pickford (Maria Pitillo). An amount of attention is given to his first marriage to Mildred Harris (Mila Jocovich). An issue here is that several of Chaplin’s relationship are with young women under legal age in the USA. In Mildred’s case there is a divorce with her lawyers attempting to seize Chaplin’s latest film, The Kid. There is sequence, shot like a Sennett comedy, as Chaplin and his aides edit the film in secret.

There is also a scene of a dinner party attended by the future director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover (Kevin Dunn). Hoover indulges in his racist and homophobic views and Chaplin makes fun of him. For the film this provides the motivation for a long-running witch hunt by Hoover of Chaplin; though he was doing the same to countless other liberals and lefties.

In 1921 Chaplin visits England and gets a massive reception, though some people are still angry that he spent World War I in the safety of the USA. From this point Chaplin makes his home in the USA. The rest of what was a world tour is missing from the film.

The 1920s are also compressed though we gets references in the studio scenes to The Gold Rush. We also see and hear debates about the advent of films with sounds, ‘the talkies’. Chaplin resists following the almost total turnover of Hollywood to sound production; the example here being City Lights, which follows an argument between Chaplin and Syd over sound.

The 1930s bring his marriage to Paulette Godard (originally Marion Levy – Diane Lane) and his film Modern Times. Here Chaplin uses a soundtrack but not dialogue. There are several scenes with Chaplin supervising the recording of the soundtrack and the music. We do not see either Alfred Newman or David Raksin, both involved in the arranging and scoring. Chaplin plays the tramp for the last time and Goddard appears as ‘The Gamin’.

Wold War II arrives though the USA is isolationist. There is a scene where Chaplin refuses the hand of the German Ambassador. This is followed by the filming of The Great Dictator; there are scenes of the production and the filming of a scene where Chaplin makes a political but also sentimental speech.

There is the affair with a young actress Joan Barry (Nancy Travis). This later leads to a court case over claimed paternity of child. Chaplin’s case rests on blood tests that show he is not the father, but these are deemed inadmissible. There is a trenchant and deliberately rude portrayal of Chaplin by the prosecuting attorney, Joseph Scott (James Wood). In a film with many short scenes this is an extended declamation; designed to show how Chaplin was maligned in the USA, by such as Hoover.

A title, ‘Seven years later’ has Chaplin at a première for Limelight. By this time he has married Oona O’Neill; much younger than Chaplin but the partner in a successful marriage. She is played by Moira Kelly, who also played an earlier romance, Hettie Kelly; the film clearly trying to explore Chaplin’s romanticism with this parallel. Chaplin then finds that his visa for the USA, [he never took out citizenship] has been withdrawn. Ten years later Oona accompanies Chaplin when he travel to Los Angeles to be presented with an honorary Academy Award. First we see him waiting in a dressing room, now tied to a wheelchair. Then he sits on a darkened stage watching a montage of excerpts from his silent films, ending with the final shot from The Circus. The end credits follow. Characters appear alongside mini-biographies. The film is dominated by Charlie Chaplin, and his portrayal by Robert Downey Jr.. This won universal acclaim, and he and the film received nominations at different award ceremonious. But the only major award was for Downey at the BAFTAS. The supporting cast are generally very good. There are popular star sin many minor roles, most more than a cameo but not that developed. Paul Rhys Sydney and Geraldine Chaplin’s Hannah do both get developed. And to varying degrees Chaplin’s amours and wives are developed. In the 1920s Kevin Kline’s Douglas Fairbanks has a number of scenes. Kevin Dunn’s Hoover gets a number of scenes and is suitably malevolent. And Anthony Hopkins editor is frequent and important in structuring the narrative, but the scripted questions lack depth.

Sven Nykvist, Stuart Craig and Richard Attenborough

The production values are very good. The cinematography is down to the internationally acclaimed Sven Nykvist. The British Anne V. Coates is editor and clearly had her hands full with the complexity of scene changes and cuts. There are some very well done ‘classical’ techniques, such as the wipes in the Keystone sequences: and a brilliant pastiche of Keystone in the sequence as Charlie and his team flee the lawyers hired by Mildred Harris. The music by John Barry is also very well done. He makes use frequently of the music from Chaplin’s films, much composed by Chaplin himself. The most frequent is ‘Smile, a theme in Modern Times later turned into a song.

The film did suffer in pre-production by changes in the production company, Universal pulled out of the project, with the original idea of the project severely reduced and preparatory work, including sets being wasted. Presumably the long gestation period affected the final outcome.

Two criticisms of the final film were that it was ‘overly glossy’ and that it took ‘dramatic licence’ with some of Chaplin’s’ biography. The film really focuses on Chaplin’s personal life and his many romantic and sexual involvements. There are presented alongside his film work. But Chaplin himself always regarded his film work as the most important aspect of his life. At one point he says to the editor that one is ‘judged by what you did.’

And much of Chaplin’s film work is missing from the film. The teens are presented through Keystone, increasing earnings and Chaplin moving until he had his owns studio. However, between Keystone and United Artists Chaplin was contracted to Essanay, Mutual and First National. Moreover we only a see a few of the Chaplin titles of that period. Yet this is when his stardom and his career were established. So the film does not really justify the world-wide stardom that he achieved.

Missing from the 1920s is A Woman of Paris, a film that Chaplin directed but in which he did not star. That role went to Edna Purviance, but the film does not develop her at all; apart from a companion of Chaplin she played the lead in numerous of his fine silent shorts.

And in the 1940s  another missing film is Monsieur Verdoux. This film was not a success. But it revealed a particular sardonic streak in Chaplin and was his most direct attack on the social system in which he worked. Missing again is the later A King in New York; not a particularly good Chaplin feature but one in which he attacked HUAC, which was a public extension of the repression that Hoover organised through the FBI.

The overall film has the episodic form that is also found in the earlier biopics. But Chaplin also has an important difference. Young Winston, Gandhi and Cry Freedom all focused on the public face of their subject with the personal story given less emphasis. In Chaplin it is the personal that takes precedence over the public face.  As is demonstrated by the series of questions of the editor this is the opposite of Chaplin’s focus in his autobiography; and one that the film gives insufficient attention. Whilst this biopic addresses Chaplin’s personal character and ‘foibles’ it does not really illuminate cinema as a medium. Interestingly whilst David Robinson offers several pages on the film in the Dossier he does not offer a comment on how effectively the film presents Chaplin as a great film director.

In Eastmancolor with black and white sequences, 1.85:1, running time 143 minutes, with English, Italian and German and some sub-titles