Essays On Chaplin by Andre Bazin

essays on chaplin —
andre bazin
truffaut/ tenet) rohmer
edited and translated by jeanbodon

preface by francois truffaut oe .
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2023 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/essaysonchaplin0000andr
Essays on Chaplin
ESSAYS ON CHAPLIN
André Bazin
Francois Truffaut
Jean Renoir
Eric Rohmer
Edited and Translated by Jean Bodon

Preface by Francois Truffaut
| / UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAVEN PRESS

Senior Editor: Thomas Katsaros
Production Editor: Jean Bodon
Designer: Rachel Mathieu
Line Editor: James Paty
Photographs from private collections:
Tom Gniazdowski
Kathy Milani
Jean Bodon
Copyright © 1985 by
The University of New Haven Press
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 84-052687
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To the Memory of Francois Truffaut
Contents
Introduction
Hime: V alidates ANG Bazi <6) 66 eee ecteoke oly deudeten: Xi
Preface
Chaplin and Bazin, by Francois Truffaut ........ XIX
1. Modern Times
OL SOIS eek. eh eet a ee ke ee 3
Time Validates Modern Times,
DYCATIUPOOS ATID nc oiSaree WER eyogtie boone” 2)
2. The Great Dictator
SCI Gs ENE Oe Pa Fe hme eee ocd eae 13
Pastiche or Postiche, or Nothingness
over a Mustache, by André Bazin ........ 15
TReC IMIG WIARKVNG Say Sry. oe nea oo oie 22
3. Monsieur Verdoux
ROOTS ae recente eater Coser Pore nie oe. ae
Monsieur Verdoux or Charlot Martyred,
by Andre Bazi... ck sant se a oe ee le 29
No, M. Verdoux Has Not Killed
Charlie Chaplin! by Jean Renoir ......... 35
4. Limelight
ROROUU Gee eles ere gs eet yet tnto 49
If Charlot Hadn’t Died, by André Bazin ..... Sy!
5. A King in New York
RSPR Ae Oe 4 Man a cease Nn anctaBate Yokct a 61
A King in New York, by André Bazin ....... 63
. A Countess from Hong Kong
MOTT Ceen Wit Soc ee ee ee eer hk behead of
A Countess from Hong Kong,
Dae ROUNDER on 508 eee operate se ey a see 73
7. Necrology
Charlie Chaplin Was a Man Just Like Any
Other Man, by Francois Truffaut ......... 93
Immortal Charlot! by André Bazin ......... 98
Appendix
Working with a Friend, by André Lafargue ..... 103
DEICCIOM BIDMOSUADUY nies ke cack es care oh ae 107
Pilmsiby Chases Chaplin: 7 co 21... 2s hoes oan ee 123
Introduction
Chaplin invented an alter ego which best represented our intrinsic
needs in a more and more demanding society, an alter ego on the
scale of 20th century man: a simple character facing the complexity of
the industrial world.
Time Validates André Bazin
André Bazin was right when he said time would re-

store the status of Charlie Chaplin. Indeed, under the aus-
pices of IBM, the little tramp has returned to entertain a
generation unfamiliar with Chaplin’s alter ego. The
tramp’s new-found popularity, now measured in terms of
computer sales, should be no surprise considering the
compelling nature of the character. In his time the little
tramp’s popularity was unmatched and immeasurable.
This homage grew as the tramp moved from situation to
situation in some 55 short films over a two-year period.
His audience, who called him the funniest man on earth,
knew the tramp well; this adulation was so complete that
finally Chaplin could not with impunity be allowed to let
the character mature. However, Chaplin took the risk and
let the little tramp begin a metamorphosis on the screen.
Meanwhile, controversies arose, his popularity de-
clined and Chaplin left the country embittered. It has
taken two generations of film critics, yellow journalists,
politicians and moviegoers to forget some of the little
tramp’s questionable behavior on the screen and Chap-
lin’s in his personal life. Now that Chaplin the artist is
gone and forgotten, the little tramp has returned.
Born almost a century ago in the *“‘mendicant class’’!
of London, Chaplin rose to fame faster than any inventor
or innovator that flourished at the turn of the century.
Like those creations of Edison, the Wrights or Ford, his
character added a new concept to help the evolution of
mankind. Chaplin’s new product entertained people; they
Xi
did not question its mechanism, just as people every-
where were learning to consume without questioning. In
fact, his creation was so appealing that even Chaplin
could not understand it:
‘‘My character was different and unfamiliar . . . even
to myself. But with the clothes on I felt he was reality, a
living person . . . he ignited all sorts of crazy ideas that I
would never have dreamt of, until I was dressed and
made up as a tramp.’”’
In retrospect, Chaplin invented an alter ego which best
represented our intrinsic needs in a more and more de-
manding society, an alter ego on the scale of 20th century
man: a simple character facing the complexity of the in-
dustrial world.
Unlike the inventions of Edison, the Wrights or Ford,
which could and would be replaced or improved in time,
Chaplin’s had to follow biological rules: it had to grow,
then die. The invention was doomed with its inventor. If
the public understood, they nonetheless refused any ex-
planation from its creator, wanting the little tramp to en-
tertain forever.
Unlike most people, Bazin not only understood but ac-
cepted that there was a man behind the creation; he un-
derstood the dramatic relationship between Chaplin and
the little tramp. Unlike most, Bazin defended the man
and not the product. Bazin understood that from Modern
Times to Limelight Chaplin was showing that his own
aging meant the irrevocable death of the little tramp.
Though fame eluded Bazin during his lifetime, he is
the greatest film critic in the history of cinema. He influ-
enced not only cinephiles but filmmakers and triggered
the birth of a new school in cinema: The French New
Wave. Indeed, some of these filmmakers and critics
showed their recognition of his influence by organizing a
Xi
tribute to him at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival on the
25th anniversary of his death.
During his short career as a critic, Bazin’s primary
concern was not to answer questions but to raise them,
not to establish cinema as art but to ask ‘‘What is art?’’
and *‘What is cinema?’ Through this collection of essays
Bazin asks *‘Who and what is Charlie Chaplin?’’ and
*“Who and what is the little tramp?’’
Bazin’s writing, just as Chaplin’s films, can still stim-
ulate cinephiles. Unlike other critics or filmmakers, both
of their works have an essence of timelessness. While ev-
ery filmmaker tries to produce, act, direct and compose
as did Chaplin, every film critic writes, analyzes and the-
orizes, using Bazin’s groundwork.
* OKok
Essays on Chaplin is a unique collection of articles on

Chaplin’s most polemical films. These essays show not
only the common admiration that Francois Truffaut, Eric
Rohmer, Jean Renoir and André Bazin shared for
Chaplin’s personae, but retrace the parallel evolution of a
mythical character, the little tramp (Charlot), and his cre-
ator (Chaplin).
Led by Bazin’s methods of criticism, these articles
help resolve some inadequacies and conflicts that critics
have seen in Chaplin’s career. The authors are in effect
presenting exhibits in defense of Chaplin before a skepti-
cal world that had accused him of crimes ranging from
having communistic tendencies to imitating himself.
Bazin and his collaborators are not saying the charges are
false, only that they are unimportant. They are attempting
to lift Chaplin to a level where individual time and geog-
raphy are only familiar metaphors serving as symbols for
communication between artist and audience.
Xi
Essays on Chaplin, which is based on the content of
Charlie Chaplin’ in French by André Bazin and Eric
Rohmer, offers some improvements in the arrangement
and the selection of the articles. It includes two articles,
hitherto unpublished in book format, namely, ‘Immortal
Charlot!’’? by André Bazin and ‘‘Charlie Chaplin Was a
Man Just Like Any Other Man’’ by Francois Truffaut.
Along with the others, these two articles retrace the
chronological evolution of Chaplin’s work from 1936 to
his death. This arrangement, with respect to Chaplin’s
films, facilitates reading and makes the material suitable
for students. Moreover, it is also interesting to compare
the evolution of Bazin’s writings by following the se-
quential order of his reviews and to contrast his style with
those of Renoir, Truffaut and Rohmer. This approach is
well supported by André Lafargue’s article on Bazin’s
style and methods of working. The Lafargue piece is set
apart from the rest of the text in an appendix, as it deals
directly with Bazin and not with Chaplin.
Additionally, film credits, editor’s notes and selected
bibliographies on Chaplin and Bazin‘ have been included
for quick reference and to help clarify the text.
* kK Ok
Essays on Chaplin is dedicated to the memory of

Francois Truffaut who worked to see this book published
in English. Truffaut had planned to write a new preface
for American readers. However, he said recently in a let-
ter that he could not write a new text because he had
undergone a very serious brain operation. Since his death
last October, I fear that interest in Bazin’s work will suf-
fer without his support . . . I would like to thank him for
his wonderful generosity.
XIV
I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. André
Lafargue, Mrs. Janine Bazin, and Dr. James Dudley An-
drew. Through their discussions, interviews, letters and
research, they helped me find André Bazin, a man that I
could admire and love beyond his work.
I will never be able to help someone the way Mr.
James Paty helped me. His assistance, encouragement,
editing and criticism were invaluable. Without Jim, my
best friend and colleague, this project would have been
truly impossible.
I would like to again express my love for Rachel, my
companion, who tolerated my frustration—and who did
marvelous work in designing the book cover.
Essays on Chaplin is an abridged version of my doc-
toral dissertation. Accordingly, | am immeasurably in-
debted to my major professors, Dr. Wayne Minnick and
Dr. Antoine Spacagna, who both provided encourage-
ment and guidance in the completion of this work.
I am indebted to my publishers, Dr. Thomas Katsaros
and Dr. M.L. McLaughlin, for their assistance and kind-
nesses. I am grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Norman Botwinik,
whose grant made it possible to do research in France.
Special thanks and love go to my parents for their sup-
port and for sending me valuable information from
France.
I also want to express my appreciation for helping on
numerous occasions to Steven Raucher, Woody and
Nancy Goulart, Kay and Ric Long, Janet Mowry, Robert
Singer, Paul Falcone, Carl Barratt, Donald Ungurait,
Stuart Willinger, Sally Devaney, Kathy Milani, Tom
Gniazdowski, Ed Wotring, and Nancy Katsaros.
The final word goes to Barbara Tomaso who can still
smile after typing this manuscript.
IEBe
XV
NOTES
1. Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography (New York: Simon &

Schuster, 1964, p. 51.
2. Ibid., p. 147.
3. André Bazin and Eric Rohmer, Charlie Chaplin (Paris: Les Edi-
tions du Cerf, 1972).
The following articles, which appeared in Charlie Chaplin, are not
included in Essays on Chaplin: ‘‘Charlie Chaplin’? was published in
What is Cinema? I. ‘‘The Myth of Monsieur Verdoux’’ and *‘Gran-
deur of Limelight’’ were printed in What is Cinema? II.
4. Bazin’s bibliography was compiled from an unpublished list of
Bazin’s works by James Dudley Andrew.
XVI
Preface
Chaplin was not the only filmmaker to describe hunger, but he was
the only one who knew it, and this is what audiences all over the
world felt when his two-reelers began appearing in 1914.
Chaplin and Bazin*
by Francois Truffaut
Charles Chaplin is the most renowned filmmaker in the

world, and yet his work has become almost the most
mysterious in the history of cinema. Chaplin’s films have
become less available not only because his exhibition
rights expired but also because he began prohibiting their
distribution (in anger over a career-long problem of pi-
rated releases).' It has come to pass that new generations
of moviegoers knew The Kid, The Circus, City Lights,
The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight by
reputation alone.
In 1971 Chaplin decided to redistribute the majority of
his works,’ and it is thus timely to publish André Bazin’s
writings on Chaplin. This collection of Bazin’s essays
will let the reader follow a process, as if he were walking
step by step over the ties which join the rails of a track,
the path of two thoughts: the filmmaker’s and _ the
writer’s.
Bazin understood Chaplin’s works thoroughly, which
we will realize in reading this book. I would like to men-
tion the marvelous memories of the numerous showings
at the ciné-clubs*’ where I saw Bazin presenting to fac-
tory workers, seminarists, or students The Pilgrim, The
Vagabond, or other three-reelers which he knew by heart
and could describe in advance without altering any sur-
*Charlie Chaplin, 1972.
XIX
prise effects. Bazin spoke about Chaplin better than any-
one else, and his astounding dialectic added to the
pleasure.’
As opposed to Eric Rohmer, I would never cast doubt,
either in writing or speech, on the special status granted
Chaplin in the history of film. In any case, I admire with-
out reservation Rohmer’s essay on The Countess from
Hong Kong which he agreed to undertake in order to
bring this book up to date.
During the years preceding the invention of the talkies
people all around the world, especially writers and intel-
lectuals, had disdain for the cinema because they only
saw it as a funfair, or at best a minor art form. They
made only one exception in that they torerated Charlie
Chaplin. And I understand that this attitude annoyed all
those who understood the films of Griffith, Stroheim or
Keaton. Out of this grew a quarrel which centered on the
question: is cinema an art? But this debate between two
intellectual groups had no effect on an enthusiastic public
which never even entertained the question. Such broad
enthusiasm is difficult to imagine nowadays: one would
have to think of a cult like that of Eva Peron in Argentina
carried to the corners of the earth. By the end of World
War I, the public had made Chaplin the most popular
man on earth.
If I am amazed by all this, 58 years after the first ap-
pearance of Charlot’ on the screen, it is because I see a
great logic in his career and in this logic a great beauty.
From its beginnings cinema was practiced by privileged
persons even though it was not practiced as an art until
1920. Without going so far as to sing the famous verse of
May 1968 about ‘‘cinema/the art of the bourgeoisie,’’® I
would like to point out that there has always been a great
difference, not only cultural but biological, between
those who make films and those who watch them.
XX
If Citizen Kane seems such a unique first film, it is be-
cause, among other things, Citizen Kane is the only first
film made by an already known person.’ (I am referring
to the great popularity Orson Welles enjoyed after his ra-
dio broadcast of The War of the Worlds which provoked
a great panic across the USA that has become legend. It
also brought Welles to the gates of RKO’s Hollywood
studios.) It is obvious that this acquired celebrity allowed
Welles to make a film about an already renowned man
(Hearst). Also, I would like to add a biological element,
namely, the precocity that allowed him at 25 to plausibly
retrace a whole lifetime, including death.
For me there is yet another genius whose unique first
film, Breathless—the complete opposite of Citizen Kane
—1is full of the despair and energy of one who has noth-
ing to lose. When making Breathless, Godard did not
even have enough money to buy a métro ticket. He was
as broke, or rather broker, than his cinematographer on
whom Michel Poiccard’s life depended as much, I be-
lieve, as Jean-Luc Godard’s identity depended on
Breathless.*
Let me return now to the subject of Charlot, from
whom I have not really strayed that much because great
men, like beautiful things, have many common points.
Charlie Chaplin was abandoned by his alcoholic father
and lived his first years in the anguish of finding his
mother being sent to a mental hospital. He himself was
picked up by the police. He was then a little nine-year-
old tramp wandering aimlessly along Kennington Road,
living ‘‘in the lower strata of society,’’ as he writes in his
memoirs. If I am redundant about his youth, which has
been described so often and commented on at such length
that the value of its rawness is lost, it is because I feel
one should see what explosiveness there really is in total
misery. When Chaplin started making chase films at the
XX1
Keystone Studios, he ran faster and farther than his
music-hall colleagues. Chaplin was not the only
filmmaker to describe hunger, but he was the only one
who knew it, and this is what audiences all over the
world felt when his two-reelers began appearing in 1914.
I keep thinking that Chaplin, whose mother died crazy,
came close himself to being put in an asylum and escaped
thanks to his talent as a mime, a talent he inherited from
her.
In-depth psychological case studies have been made re-
cently on children who have grown up in isolation, in
moral, physical or material distress. The specialists de-
scribe autism as a defense mechanism. Bazin’s examples
from Chaplin’s work clearly point out that Charlot’s ac-
tions, his movements, in short, everything he does is a
defense mechanism. When Bazin explains that Charlot is
not anti-social but asocial and that he aims to enter so-
ciety, he has defined Charlot in almost the same terms
used by Kanner who defined the differences between
the schizophrenic and autistic child. Kanner writes:
‘“Whereas the schizophrenic tries to resolve his problem
by leaving the world that he was part of, our children
arrive progressively at a compromise which consists of
carefully exploring a world that has been strange to them
from the beginning.’””
To take a single example of displacement (the word re-
curs constantly in Bazin’s writings as well as in Bruno
Bettelheim’s work on autistic children, The Empty For-
tress), | will quote from both. Bettelheim said: ‘‘The au-
tistic child is less afraid of objects and may even act
against people since it is people and not objects who
seem to threaten his existence. However, the use he
makes of objects is far from their intended purpose.”’
And Bazin wrote: “‘It seems that objects work against
Charlot in the uses society has assigned them. The best
XXil
example of such displacement is the famous dance of the
rolls, where their complicity explodes into gratuitous
choreography.”’
In today’s vocabulary, one would say that Charlot is a
‘‘marginal’’—and the most marginal of marginals. Chap-
lin became the best known and richest artist on earth,’
and he compelled himself, because of his age or perhaps
his modesty but in any case with a clear mind, to aban-
don the character of the tramp. He understood that the
roles of the ‘‘well-established’’ were forbidden to him.
He had to change the myth by staying mythical. So he
plans a Napoleon or a Life of Christ, then renounces
them, making instead The Great Dictator, then Monsieur
Verdoux and A King in New York via Calvero from Lime-
light, a clown so broken down that he asks his manager,
‘And what if I continue my career under a false
name?’’!!
What is Charlot made of? Why and how did he come
to hold sway for over 50 years of motion pictures to the
point that one can see his persona superimposed behind
Julien Carette in The Rules of the Game," or Henri
Verdoux behind Archibaldo de la Cruz,’ or again be-
hind the little Jewish barber who watches as his house
burns in The Great Dictator, and who is reincarnated 26
years later as the old man in Milos Forman’s The Fire-
men’s Ball?'* This is what André Bazin saw and
showed.
NOTES
1. Keystone’s 1914 films were never copyrighted. Small scenes

from these 35 films were often edited together and released as *‘new
Chaplin films.”’
XXII
Films such as Shoulder Arms (1918) were sometimes shown in two
parts. In Europe this film was shown as a |,772-foot version instead
of the 3,143-foot original.
Triple Trouble, an Essanay film dated 1918, was a re-edited version
of Carmen (1916), released as a ‘‘new Chaplin film.”
In addition to this partial listing of forgeries, Chaplin had to con-
tend with numerous imitators who were supported by clever advertis-
ing. (A drawing of Chaplin’s face, the use of the name **Charlie,”’ or
a film title named closely after the previous Chaplin production.)
Finally, distributing companies often used different titles for the
same film: Uno Asplund in Chaplin’s Films notes that for 81 Chaplin
films, there were 214 titles in England and the U.S. and 170 in
France.
In addition to the expiration of Chaplin’s exhibition rights, his later
films were frequently banned or boycotted. Modern Times was banned
in Germany and Italy for ‘“‘communist statements’? and was not
widely distributed in the U.S. for the same reason. The Great Dictator
was banned in Chicago in 1936, the year Germany also began banning
all American films for economic reasons when Joseph Goebbels na-
tionalized the motion picture industry. This film was also banned in
Italy, and later in France when the Vichy Government came to power.
Monsieur Verdoux ran for a short time in New York, and only ap-
peared across the entire U.S. for three weeks following its premiere
on April 11, 1947. In October of that year Chaplin stopped its distri-
bution in order to build a new promotional campaign. Because the Le-
gion of Decency as well as other pressure groups judged Monsieur
Verdoux to have communist overtones, it was boycotted by numerous
theater owners. Finally in 1949, Chaplin stopped its distribution alto-
gether. Limelight failed in the U.S. mainly because of Chaplin’s di-
minished popularity brought about by the poor financial showing his
previous films had made for more than a decade. This film was not
shown either at the Fox theaters on the West Coast or at Loew’s in
New York.
2. That year Chaplin decided to redistribute nine of his feature
films. In 1972 Chaplin sold his rights to Blackhawk Films, the same
year the British Broadcasting Corporation bought the right from
Blackhawk to televise Chaplin’s films. Also that year, the American
television networks obtained the right to broadcast any of the nine
films.
3. It was at a ciné-club, the ‘‘cinémathéque francaise,’ ’ that
Truffaut met the future New Wave directors Jacques Rivette, Jean-
Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer.
XX1V
In 1948 Truffaut first met Bazin at this cine-club ‘‘Objectif 48,””
which Truffaut felt was interfering with his own club ‘‘Cercle
Cinémane.’’ They became fast friends because of their mutual interest
in cinema.
Truffaut pays homage to Bazin whose first ciné-club, ‘‘Studio des
Ursulines,’’ is shown in Truffaut’s Jules et Jim (1961). It was at that
club that Bazin first met Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
4. Pierre-Aimé Touchard, one of Bazin’s collaborators at Travail et
Culture and at Esprit, describes Bazin as having great descriptive abil-
ities for explaining the complexities of art and culture. Bazin always
used terms in their precise etymological sense. Ironically, Bazin, who
had wanted to be a professor, failed his oral examinations because of
a stuttering problem which was aggravated by a constant nervousness.
5. Charlot, the French equivalent to Charlie. Chaplin became so
popular in France that French distributors added the name *‘Charlot’’
to the title of most of Chaplin’s films. /n the Park became Charlot
dans le Parc; The Bank became Charlot a la Banque, and so on.
Eventually the French expression for a motion picture comedy was ‘‘a
Charlot,’’ which flattered Chaplin very much. Max Linder, his **pro-
fessor’? as Chaplin calls him, was the first to tell Chaplin that his
nickname in France was Charlot and his brother Sidney was called
Julot. Charlot was the most popular name for the little tramp charac-
ter, even more than the English and American *‘Charlie,’’ the German
“Von Charlotte,’’ or the Brazilian “*Carlito.”’
6. A reference to student riots which started at the Sorbonne and
the University of Nanterre in May 1968.
The 1968 Cannes Film Festival was abandoned halfway through be-
cause it displayed *‘too much commercialism.’’ This movement was
strongly supported by Jean-Luc Godard and Truffaut.
7. Truffaut wrote an article on this film in 1967 especially for his
book The Films In My Life. He explains that the film opened in Paris
in 1946, six years after its release in the U.S. The film was subtitled
in France ‘“‘Rosebud’’ because of the journalistic persuasiveness of
Bazin and Denis Martin. In his Foreword to Bazin’s Orson Welles,
Truffaut says that ‘‘this film has inspired more vocations in cinema
throughout the world than any other . . . . Everything that matters in
cinema since 1940 has been influenced by Citizen Kane and Jean
Renoir’s The Rules of the Game.”
8. Michel Poiccard, alias Laszlo Kovacs, is the role played by
Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless. Poiccard’s identity exists only in
XXV
relation to cinema, the printed image, the image recorded by cinema-
tographer Raoul Coutard.
9. During an interview (Dec. 31, 1982) Truffaut said that he was
well aware at the time of writing of the ‘‘autistic’’ child syndrome. In
February 1970, he had just completed filming The Wild Child.
10. Chaplin’s personal fortune in 1972 was approximately $15
million.
11. No longer *‘Charlot’’ but *‘Calvero.”’
12. A film by Jean Renoir (1939). Julien Carrette (1897-1966)
played Marceau, a clown in this ‘“‘comedy drama.”’
13. Archibaldo de la Cruz (Archibald of the Cross), was the sub-
ject of Luis Bunuel’s film Ensayo de un Crimen (Mexico, 1955). The
film’s theme revolves around killing one’s wife and was inspired by
Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1948) and Chaplin’s Monsieur
Verdoux (1947) as well as Preston Sturges’ Unfaithfully Yours (1948).
14. Milos Forman’s 1967 film in which Josef Svet plays the role of
an old fireman who is dying.
XXVI1
l
Modern Times
Modern Times
(85 minutes)
First shown : February 5, 1936
Producer : Charles Chaplin
Director : Charles Chaplin
Story/Screenplay : Charles Chaplin
Cinematography : Roland Totheroh; Ira Morgan
Music : Charles Chaplin

Main Titles: ‘*The Factory Machine,”’
“*Charlie at the Assembly Line Belt,’’ ‘*The
Gamine,”’ *‘Smile,’’ ““The Toy Waltz;”’
Leo Daniderff
“‘Je cherche apres Titine.”’
Art Director : Charles Hall; J. Russell Spencer
Assistant Directors : Henry Bergman; Carter DeHaven
Production : Alfred Reeves: Jack Wilson
Distributor > Chaplin—United Artists
Cast : Charles Chaplin (a worker), Paulette Goddard

(the gamine), Henry Bergman (cafe owner),
Chester Conklin (mechanic), Louis Natheaux
(burglar), Allan Garcia (president of steel
corporation).
Time Validates Modern Times*
by André Bazin
Modern Times was received in 1936 with few reserva-

tions. It was with this film that the perennial complaint
began about the mistake that successful clowns make
when they start philosophizing about man and society.
Similar unreserved reproaches were formulated against
Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight.' | do not know if it
should be attributed to looking back, which always puts
things in their proper place, but this critique will seem to-
day like a bad misreading compared to the bulk of the
criticism. It is possible that right after the world crisis, at
the dawn of the Popular Front,* the socio-political innu-
endo seemed to be a direct satire, free-wheeling though
confused. What is revealed now, on the contrary, is the
depth that Chaplin undertakes to reach and the unshake-
able priority he puts into his art. Let’s understand that I
do not want to say that this story has lost some of its in-
terest but rather that the strength and accuracy of the
maxim come out more clearly today removed from the
polemics of the period. To criticize the kingdom of the
machine and the division of work does not, in effect,
make sense if the film can be used against both capital-
ism and Soviet stakhanovism’ for the same reason; it cre-
ated, it seems, a certain cold spell in Moscow as well.
*Arts, no. 485, October 13, 1954.
5
6 Essays on Chaplin
It is nothing less than a film a thése and if Chaplin as-

serts himself in it effectively by portraying the individual
against society and its machines, his assertion does not
approach either the political or sociological plane, but
rather aims at the moral plane and as always through his
artistry. The creative process moves forward through
comic expression, and the awareness developed is the
perfect mise-en-scéne of the situation.’
One should see in effect that a film a thése which
systematically favors the worker over the boss should not
continue to ridicule the former, even though episodically;
now, except for the unemployed worker, the father of the
gamine, who is more the result of melodramatic than of
political tradition, workers are never portrayed as essen-
tially likeable. The strike, which interrupts Charlot’s
work which he has just started, is rather obtrusive.
Charlot is not aware of class structure, and if he is on the
side of the proletariat, it is objectively because he also is
a victim of society and its police. (The repression of the
strike in the film, though brutal, does not surpass the
events of that time.)
Rather than seeing Charlot on the side of the poor, it
would be better to say that the poor are on Charlot’s side;
that is to say, in effect on the side of mankind, but it is,
however, the tramp’s integral individualism which re-
mains the pivot of all situations.
Modern Times is therefore only a series of comical sit-
uations where the hero is Charlot and the common theme
is industrial life and its consequences. In that, it is true
that this film is rather different from the preceding full-
length features, especially City Lights, often considered
his masterpiece; but this difference is perhaps precisely
why Modern Times can be regarded as superior. What is
praised generally in City Lights is the control of senti-
Time Validates Modern Times i
ment as well as the psychological depth of the plot—his

best orchestrated film (except for Limelight). It remains
to be seen whether psychology and sentiment are valid
indicators of progress. One does not cry at Modern
Times, however, it brings back the purity of style of the
First National films such as Shoulder Arms and The Pil-
grim which themselves originated directly in the bur-
lesque school of Mack Sennett. Modern Times goes be-
yond the psychological evolution that began after A
Woman of Paris and the United Artists productions; psy-
chology and sentiment played no part in his early films:
the sole demand of the comic style and the logic of the
character was that they both preside over the develop-
ment of the gags. Likewise, one would not find in Mod-
ern Times a single scene ‘‘illustrating’’ a previous ab-
stract idea; on the contrary, the idea emerges from a
situation which breaks loose in all directions. Can we re-
ally talk about ideas? They are only the by-products, the
residue of this mythology of the modern world which ex-
presses itself in the struggles of man with industrial soci-
ety. Modern Times shows this conflict much better than
the ornamental machines of the German expressionists
(and even better than René Clair’s film’ which had style
but no personality), and is the only cinematographic fable
equal to the dimension of the human distress of the 20th
century facing social and industrial mechanization. One
can therefore see that this returns to the origins of bur-
lesque (witnessed moreover by the presence of old
friends such as Chester Conklin and Henry Bergman).° It
is by no means a regression because the comic technique
is purified within it and grows to classical fullness’ and
strictness through the great theme it orchestrates.
In most of his films Charlot has already made us laugh
at his struggle with objects—the shifty animosity of a
8 Essays on Chaplin
ladder, of an alarm clock, of a staircase, and of a collaps-

ible wall-bed. Against their hostility Charlot also used a
spiritual trickery: he found uses for them different from
what fate had decreed. To disconcert, and thus to abash
the wickedness of the things, he pretended they were an-
other kind of object. We have in Modern Times a residue
of this technique when he proposes to the foreman to use
the oil can as a scooper after having squashed it. But in-
stead, the entire film should be considered a conflict be-
tween mankind and the objects he has created and which,
on the scale of the History of Society, is sustained by ma-
chines. What had been simply the source of specific gags
now becomes the general and moral theme of the entire
film.
From The Pilgrim and even Shoulder Arms, which
does not treat the war with adequate gravity, so to speak,
to Modern Times, the evolution of his style is
evident—as if moving from the pantomime to the ballet.
It seems astounding that some have criticized the mise-
en-scéne Of Modern Times, seeing in it some awkward-
ness and clumsiness, when what strikes us today is, on
the contrary, the starkness, the mgor, and the facility.
The cigar scene after the arrest for pilfering (with the shot
framed to hide the policeman from the salesman’s eyes)
or the roast duck scene in the restaurant (with the slightly
elevated camera showing the full tray floating on the
surge of people dancing) are unsurpassably precise. No
need to mention the music which always maintains a rig-
orous and constant rapport with the mise-en-scéne.
It is true that by 1936 new comic styles had asserted
themselves with the advent of the talkies: on one hand,
the American comedy (Frank Capra) and on the other,
the delirious absurdity of the Marx Brothers and W.C.
Fields. Chaplin’s films, being moreover absolutely silent,
Time Validates Modern Times 9
seemed obsolete and anachronistic at the time. But in

looking beyond these perspectives, time hasrestored it to
its classical fullness and revealed clearly that beyond
styles, the importance lies in the style—and more than
the style—in the work of a genius.
NOTES
1. From Modern Times to Limelight, Chaplin’s popularity declined

partly because of charges made by the Congressional Un-American
Activities Committee, FBI and others about his communistic tenden-
cies. As a result, on September 17, 1952, Chaplin and his family went
into “‘exile’’ in Switzerland. His popularity also decreased because
““Charlot’’ did not appear in Monsieur Verdoux or Limelight.
2. The Popular Front (Front Populaire) was an alliance of the PCF
(French Communist Party), the SFIO (Socialist Party) and the Radi-
cals, formed in 1935 to fight both fascism and capitalism. In 1936 the
French Parliament with its Front Populaire majority asked Léon Blum
to be prime minister, the first socialist prime minister of France.
3. The ‘‘stakhanovite’’ is a prize awarded to a worker for high pro-
duction. This award, popular in the Soviet Union between 1930 and
1940, was named after Aleksei Stakhanov who produced 700 percent
more than the factory’s monthly individual quota. The Soviets felt
Chaplin was making fun of stakhanovism because of the scene in
Modern Times of the assembly lines designed for high production.
4. Bazin felt that the mise-en-scéne should give, as Leenhardt says
in ‘‘Le Rythme Cinématographique,’’ “‘the impression that there is no
mise-en-sceéne.”
5. A nous la liberté (1932), screenplay and direction by René Clair
and produced by Tobis (German production company Tonbild
Syndicat AG). This film takes the same theme and story as Modern
Times including the scene of the assembly line. In 1936 Tobis sug-
gested that Clair file a suit against Chaplin for plagiarism. ‘‘Of course
not,’’ Clair said, ‘‘after all, I’ve taken plenty from him.”’
10 Essays on Chaplin
6. Chester Conklin (1888-1971) was a member of Mack Sennett’s

‘‘slapstick’’ group along with Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, Fatty
Arbuckle and Mack Swain. He started working for the Keystone Stu-
dio when it opened in the summer of 1912. He played the role of a
policeman and of a tramp most often. Conklin appeared in 15 of
Chaplin’s Keystone films. He played the role of the foreman in Mod-
ern Times and also appeared in The Great Dictator. Henry Bergman
did not appear in any of Chaplin’s Keystone films but played in seven
of Chaplin’s Mutual films for which he was Chaplin’s assistant di-
rector. He also appeared in all of Chaplin’s United Artists films
through Modern Times in which he played the role of a cafe owner.
7. The three classical unities for drama, according to Aristotle,
were the unity of action, time and place. The unity of action dictates a
single plot and tone. In Modern Times the plot revolves around the
victimization of Charlot’s life by modern technology while the tone ts
a satiric view of this victimization. The unity of time, according to
Aristotle, should comprise a period between dawn and dusk of the
same day. Though this is not exactly the case for Modern Times, it
does symbolically represent a specific period of Charlot’s life which is
composed of the same dawn-to-dusk again and again. Each day’s ac-
tion is repeated to emphasize life’s daily routines which is the unity of
modern times. The unity of place is observed broadly through the
lower-class setting around the workplace. Nicolas Boileau (1636-
1711) arrived at classical ‘‘fullness’’ by requiring, in addition to the
doctrine of classical unities, the need to express pursuit of truth in re-
lation to nature and reason. The last scene of Modern Times shows
Charlot and the gamine walking away from society (toward nature and
reason), accompanied by Chaplin’s theme *‘Smile.”’
Z
The Great Dictator

QE
<
Chaplin succeeds perfectly only once, during the dance with the globe.
The Great Dictator
(126 minutes)
First shown : October 15, 1940
Story/Screenplay : Charles Chaplin (from an idea by Alexander

Korda)
Cinematography : Roland Totheroh; Karl Struss

Main Titles: ‘‘Napoli March,”’ *‘Falling
Star,’’ ‘‘Zigeuner,’’ *‘Ze Boulevardier,”’
‘*Marche Militaire;”’
Wagner
Brahms.
Art Director : J. Russell Spencer
Assistant Directors: Daniel James; Wheeler Dryden; Robert Meitzer
Distributor : Chaplin—United Artists
Cast : Charles Chaplin (Hinkel and the barber),

Paulette Goddard (Hannah), Jack Oakie
(Napaloni), Reginald Gardner (Schultz),
Henry Daniell (Garbitsch), Billy Gilbert
(Herring).
Pastiche or Postiche,
or Nothingness over a Mustache*
by André Bazin
For those who grant Charlot, within the framework of

mythology and universal aesthetics, an importance at
least equivalent to that accorded Hitler in relation to his-
tory and politics; for those who find no less mystery in
the existence of this extraordinary black-and-white insect
whose picture has haunted humanity for 30 years than in
that of the man with the broken wrist who still obsesses
our generation, The Great Dictator has inexhaustible
significance.
Since the beginning of the century two men have
changed the face of the world: Gillette, who invented the
safety razor and made it popular through mass produc-
tion, and Charles Spencer Chaplin,’ who created ‘*Char-
lot’s Mustache’? and made it popular through motion
pictures.
We know, since his first successes, that Charlot has
spawned numerous imitators,” ephemeral imitators
whose traces are only present in esoteric histories of cin-
ema. One of them, however, does not appear in the al-
phabetical index of these works. His fame, moreover, has
not stopped growing since the years °32 and °33; soon it
*Esprit, no. 12, November 1, 1945.
15
matched the fame of the ‘‘littlke man’? from The Gold

Rush, and it could even have surpassed it—if greatness is
still measurable at this level. The person in question was
an Austrian political agitator named Adolph Hitler.
Amazingly, no one saw the imposture, nor at any rate
took it seriously. Charlot, however, wasn’t fooled. He
must have immediately felt a strange sensation in his up-
per lip, something like that produced by the usurpation of
our tibia by a being from the fourth dimension in Jean
Painlevé’s films.* I do not suggest, however, that Hitler
did it on purpose. It is possible in fact that he committed
this imprudence only under the effects of subconscious
sociological influences and without any ulterior motives.
But when one is named Adolph Hitler, one should be
careful how one wears one’s hair and mustache.* Absent-
mindedness is no more an excuse in mythology than in
politics. The ex-building painter here committed one of
his biggest mistakes. In copying Charlot, he had begun
an embezzlement of Charlot’s existence? which the other
would not forget. He would pay a high price for it a few
years later. For stealing his mustache, Hitler gave himself
up bound and gagged to Charlot. The small amount of
existence that he took from the little Jew’s lips would al-
low the little Jew to take back from him much more, that
is, to drain him entirely of his biography for the benefit
of, not exactly Charlot, but an intermediate being, a be-
ing of pure nothingness.°
The dialectic is subtle but irrefutable, the strategy in-
vincible. First phase: Hitler takes Charlot’s mustache.
Second round: Charlot takes his mustache back. Mean-
while, however, it is no longer only a Charlot mustache
but has become a Hitler mustache. By taking it back,
Charlot takes out a mortgage on Hitler’s own existence.
He drags along with it this existence that he could dis-
pose of as he likes.
Pastiche or Postiche i)
Out of it he fashioned Hinkel. For what is Hinkel but

Hitler reduced to his essence’ and deprived of his exist-
ence? Hinkel does not exist. He is a puppet, a mario-
nette, in which we recognize Hitler by his mustache, by
his size, by the color of his hair, by his speeches, by his
sentimentality, by his cruelty, by his rages, by his mad-
ness, but also as an empty and senseless amalgamation,
deprived of all existential justification.* Hinkel is the
ideal catharsis for Hitler. Charlot does not kill his oppo-
nent by ridicule—to a certain extent when he tries to, the
film truly fails. He annihilates him by recreating in front
of him a perfect, absolute, necessary ‘‘Dictator’’ from
whom we are absolutely free of any historical and psy-
chological engagement.’ We have actually freed our-
selves from Hitler through our contempt as much as by
having won the war. This liberation, however, implies in
its principle another form of subjection: we suffer from it
at this very moment because the uncertainty of Hitler’s
death is still haunting us. We will free ourselves from
him only when we no longer feel engaged because of
him, when hatred has lost its meaning. However, Hinkel
does not inspire hatred, nor pity, nor rage, nor fear.
Hinkel is Hitler’s nothingness. Having disposed of his
existence, Charlot took it back in order to destroy it
utterly.
Until now I have been speaking in the abstract. It is
unfortunately inexact to say that Charlot was always able
to succeed in this transfusion of personality. For me, he
succeeds perfectly only once, during the dance with the
globe. He approaches perfection during the phonetic
mime of the speech,' but the memories we have about
Hitler at his Munich grandstand are much more explosive
than the parody; he (Hitler) defuses the performance. It is
because in some instances Hitler imitates himself with
more genius than Charlot that he once again owns the
matrix of his personality. In Capra’s montages, Hitler has

incontestably a more ideal reality, even less accidental
than Hinkel’s. We clearly see that ridicule has nothing to
do with this matter. We laugh about Hitler in Capra’s
montages but this laugh excludes neither our fear nor our
hatred; it does not free us from our engagement. There-
fore, I feel it is a mistake to pretend that the weakness
comes from its anachronism or from the fact that we can-
not laugh heartily at a man who made us suffer so much.
It is true that in 1939-1940, the gags seemed funny, but
only because Charlot missed his mark to the extent that
the parody, which does not transcend ridicule, still re-
mains at the level where Hitler can defend his existence
against Hinkel. It is not the comedy that one should con-
test but the origin of the comedy and its metaphysical al-
titude. The origin can remain in the region of our histor-
ical feelings—the origin of the caricature, the ridicule or
the irony—but it can also rise to the Olympus of the Ar-
chetype.''! Like Jupiter, who is metamorphosed into Di-
ana and who appropriates for himself the feelings of the
nymph Calypso, Charlot appropriates for Hinkel our be-
liefs about Hitler. Such transfers are only possible in the
mythological confusion of the persona and the person.
The artist is generally a demiurge” to the original crea-
tion. Phaedra, Alceste, or Siegfried definitely come into
existence, and no god can take that away from them. The
relation of Charlot to Hitler is an exceptional phenome-
non,'* perhaps unique in the history of universal art.
With Hinkel, Charlot has attempted to create a person not
less idealistic or definitive than the ones of Racine or
Giraudoux, a person who is even independent of Hitler’s
existence and by an autonomous necessity. In the ulti-
mate sense Hinkel could exist without Hitler because he
was brought to life by Charlot; but Hitler cannot avoid
Pastiche or Postiche 19
the fact that Hinkel exists on the screen all over the
world. It is he who becomes the accidental, contingent
being, alienated, to sum it up, from an existence on
which the other nourishes himself without owing it to
him and whom he annihilates by absorbing him. In the
last analysis, this ontological burglary rests upon the theft
of the mustache. Consider that The Great Dictator would
have been impossible if Hitler had been glabrous" or if
he had trimmed his mustache like Clark Gable. In that
case all of Chaplin’s art would not have succeeded be-
cause Chaplin without his mustache is not Charlot, and it
was necessary for Hinkel to behave no less like Charlot
than Hitler, that he become at once as much one as the
other—to be nothing. It is the very clash of the two
myths that annihilates both beings. Mussolini is not anni-
hilated by Napaloni;’ he is only caricatured. And it 1s
possible that he has only a minor existence anyway and
therefore cannot be killed with ridicule. Hinkel’s case is
different: he depends on the magical properties of this
hairy pun that would have been impossible had Hitler not
committed the first imprudence of looking like Charlot by
having a similar mustache.
It was not mime talent or even genius that allowed
Chaplin to make The Great Dictator. It was nothing more
than the mustache. Charlot waited for just the right time
to take his property back.
Mythical power: Hitler’s mustache was a real one!
NOTES
1. Bazin sees three different persons in Chaplin: Charles Spencer

Chaplin, the artistic creator of ‘‘universal art,’’ Chaplin the film-
maker, and ‘‘Charlot,’’ the product created by both Charles Spencer

Chaplin and Chaplin.
2. The Scotsman Billie Ritchie, the Russian-born Billy West, the
Englishman Billy Reeves, the Mexican Charles Amador, called
Charles Aplin, and the German Charlie Kaplan, all made a living by
imitating Chaplin.
3. Jean Painlevé made scientific films which went far beyond doc-
umentary style. Bazin was interested in all kinds of films and consid-
ered scientific films the forerunner of the New Wave’s cinematic
technique.
4. Hitler was actually very aware and careful of this resemblance to
Charlot. In 1936 (four years before the release of The Great Dictator),
all of Chaplin’s films were banned in Germany because of this resem-
blance to Hitler.
5. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre explains “‘being in itself’ as
inauthenticity (bad faith) which is based on the failure to recognize the
difference between ‘‘being-for-ourselves’’ and ‘‘being-for-others.”’
Charlot suffers from Hitler’s inauthenticity because Charlot is now
forced to share his own authenticity.
6. The intermediate being is Hinkel who possesses characteristics
of both Charlot and Hitler. A being of pure nothingness is for Sartre a
“third man,’’ used as the point of reference in a relationship with
“the others.’
7. A reduction to the essence is for Sartre an in-itself, that is, a
person deprived of choice (for-itself). Hinkel is thus a static object
made in the image of Hitler.
8. At death the ‘‘for-itself’’ becomes an ‘‘in-itself’’ and has only
“‘essentialist’’ justification for others.
9. The for-itself changes the world by its presence and by choos-
ing. Therefore, man is ‘‘responsible’’ for all of his actions and must
‘“‘engage’’ himself in a cause. Hinkel, being neither Charlot nor
Hitler, implies a ‘‘disengagement’’ which is psychological (Charlot)
or historical (Hitler).
10. Chaplin imitates Hitler’s speech at the Nuremberg Party Rally
of 1934. The rally was set up for Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des
Willens. Chaplin certainly copied Hitler’s style from this film. Hinkel
speaks in a guttural voice which is voiced over by a translator. When
Hinkel says: ‘*‘Demokratischen shtunk! Libertads shtunk! Frei
sprachen shtunk!’’ the translator interprets it: ‘‘Free speech is
objectionable.”
11. For Plato, *‘things’’ share the nature of ‘‘the’’ ideal thing more
Pastiche or Postiche 21
a
or less imperfectly. ‘‘Hitler + Charlot = Hinkel’ is the formula in

this case for the perfect form residing in the Olympus of the
Archetype.
12. The name used by Plato to designate the deity who fashions the
material world.
13. The relationship is the phenomenon, that is, Hinkel. Chaplin,
like a god, created a ‘‘form’’ whereas Giraudoux borrows Siegfried
from the Archetypes of German mythology, and Racine’s Phaedra and
Molhiere’s Alceste come from Greek mythology.
In his essay *‘De la politique des auteurs,’’ Bazin quotes Giraudoux
as saying *‘There are no works; there are only auteurs.’’ A postulate
would be that ‘‘auteurs only create forms at the level of the
Archetype.”’
14. Bazin is making a pun where the English ‘‘glabrous’’ is
“‘glabre’’ in French: “‘glabre’’ is to ‘“‘Gable’’ as Hinkel is to Hitler.
15. Because there is no direct relationship between Jack Oakie (as
Benzino Napaloni) and Benito Mussolini, Jack Oakie did not resemble
Mussolini in real life nor in the film. There is a resemblance between
Billy Gilbert (Herrring) and Hermann Goering. There is no resem-
blance between the handsome Henry Daniel (Garbitsch) and Joseph
Goebbels, who was club-footed.
It is interesting to note that Hitler never attacked Chaplin on a per-
sonal level but by stealing his mustache he attacked Charlot on the
mythical level. Chaplin did not stand for this. However, Chaplin
would have been more justified in attacking Goebbels in the film,
through the character of Garbitsch on a personal level since he had
been responsible for banning Chaplin’s films. The fact that Charles
Spencer Chaplin made Garbitsch more pleasant than Goebbels indi-
cates that he was more interested in protecting Charlot than Chaplin.
a Essays on Chaplin
Recruiting Mankind *
by Charlie Chaplin
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That's

not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone.
I should like to help everyone—if possible—Jew, Gentile,
black men, white.
We all want to help one another. Human beings are
like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not
by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and de-
spise one another. In this world there is room for every-
one. And the good earth is rich and can provide for
everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have
lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barri-
caded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into
misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we
have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance
has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical;
our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and
feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity.
More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be
lost.
The airplane and the radio have brought us closer to-
gether. The very nature of these things cries out for the
*The concluding speech of The Dictator.

Recruiting Mankind in)(Se)
goodness in man, cries out for universal brotherhood, for

the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching mil-
lions throughout the world, millions of despairing men,
women, and little children, victims of a system that
makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To
those who can hear me, I say: ‘‘Do not despair.’’ The
misery that has come upon us is but the passing of greed,
the bitterness of men who fear the way of human prog-
ress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and
the power they took from the people will return to the
people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers! Don’t give yourself to these brutes who de-
spise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you
what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you,
diet you, treat you like cattle and use you as cannon fod-
der. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, ma-
chine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You
are not machines! You are men! With the love of human-
ity in your hearts! Don’t hate! Only the unloved hate, the
unloved and the unnatural!
Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In
the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the
Kingdom of God is within man—not one man nor a group
of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the
power, the power to create machines. The power to cre-
ate happiness! You, the people, have the power to make
this life a wonderful adventure. Then, in the name of de-
mocracy, let us use that power, let us all unite. Let us
fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a
chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age
a security.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to
power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They
never will! Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the
people. Now let us fight to free the world, to do away

with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate
and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a
world where science and progress will lead to the happi-
ness of us all. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us
unite!
Hannah,' can you hear me? Wherever you are, look
up! Look up, Hannah! The clouds are lifting! The sun is
breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness
into light! We are coming into a new world, a kindlier
world where men will rise above their greed, their hate
and brutality. Look up, Hannah! The soul of man has
been given wings and at last he is beginning to fly. He is
flying into the rainbow, into the light of hope. Look up,
Hannah! Look up!”’
NOTE
1. Chaplin’s mother was named Hannah.

°
Monsieur Verdoux
The secret of M. Verdoux is that he is the metamorphosis of Charlot
into his complete opposite.
Monsieur Verdoux
(122 minutes)
First shown : April 11, 1947
Story/Screenplay : Charles Chaplin (from an idea by Orson Welles)
Cinematography : Roland Totheroh; Curt Courant; Wallace

Chewing
Editor : Willard Nico
Music : Charles Chaplin.

Main Titles: ‘A Paris Boulevard,’’ ‘Tango
Bitterness,’’ ““Rumba”’
Art Director : John Beckman
Associate Director : Robert Florey
Assistant Directors : Rex Bailey; Wheeler Dryden
Distributor : Chaplin—United Artists
Cast : Charles Chaplin (Verdoux), Martha Raye

(Annabella), Isabella Elsom (Marie), Mady
Correll (Mona), Allison Rodell (Mona’s son),
Robert Lewis (Maurice), Audrey Betz
(Maurice’s wife), Helen Heigh (Yvonne),
Margaret Hoffman (Lydia)
Monsieur Verdoux
or Charlot Martyred*
by André Bazin
We will not miss seeing in Monsieur Verdoux afilm a

thése nor asking what its significance is. Some will see in
it a political message, others a moral message.' Some
will even worry about the abandonment of the classic
character’ with the little mustache and will find that
Chaplin has tried to make himself an actor without being
able to detach himself completely from his former styl-
ized self, sunk midway between poetry and the realism of
character comedy.’
I would not want to make any presumptions about
Charles Spencer Chaplin’s conscious intentions. It is pos-
sible after all that he conceived his last film as a social
lampoon with some political overtones, but his films are
great enough for the author’s intentions to be considered
secondary. Every masterpiece is an inexhaustible source,
justifiable on all accounts. Mr. Chaplin’s opinions have
no more importance than those of Mr. Homer or Mr.
Shakespeare because their works reveal just as many.
To critique Monsieur Verdoux through the usual bias
of the art form would be seemingly to set our own trap.
*L’Ecran francais, no. 131, December 30, 1947.
29
In this case it is not a matter of form nor of politics or

psychology but of myth: it is only a matter of Charlot.
The secret of M. Verdoux is that he is the metamor-
phosis of Charlot into his complete opposite. . .
Charlot was resigned to his destiny as a victim. It was
sufficient for him to slip out of the policeman’s hands so
that we find him free in the following film. His ingenious
passivity finally triumphed over the wicked objects, over
men and society, like a cork which always finds its way
to the surface. M. Verdoux is a Charlot who would dare
to challenge the world. A rich, elegant, seductive Charlot
is able to play the game of social success as easily as so-
ciety which, through its awareness of his game, con-
demns itself by sending him to the guillotine. Indeed,
what is this irrelevant sentimentality, this inconsequential
morality which lets society justify its sudden alarm at the
specific modality whose application of the fundamental
postulate incessantly proclaims: **Business is business.’”*
The disappearance of the women, moreover, legitimately
married, does not change anything in the course of
events.
But M. Verdoux does not need to argue in order to jus-
tify this war strategy as the Charlot of old would. The
film’s tour de force is precisely that this Bluebeard-Don
Juan does not cease to be likeable. For example, his suc-
cessive failures in attempting to assassinate Martha Raye,
that indestructible poisoner of so many American come-
dies, are as funny as Charlot’s unfruitful efforts to catch
the tram in Pay Day. If he were to poison the whole
earth, we would still feel compassion, laughing all the
while at his unfruitful attempt. Consequently, M.
Verdoux has nothing to do with Charlot’s satanic
counterfeit, the Dictator. No speech by the prosecution
could prevail against the evidence of our love for him,
Monsieur Verdoux or Charlot Martyred 3]
and if it is so easy for Verdoux to turn us against society,

it is because we do not stop—even for an instant—being
on his side. Between those whom he kills and himself, it
is still M. Verdoux for whom we feel sorry.
When Verdoux gives himself up to the police, it is
only because he no longer wants to escape from them. He
is tired of playing the game.
He is old and broke. Once again fortune smiles on
him, which he would know how to take advantage of, but
this opportunity is given to him by the only woman he
does not care to kill.° The police always scared Charlot
to death, and he ridiculed them by slipping through their
fingers. After having coldly poisoned the inspector be-
cause he was on his tracks, M. Verdoux triumphs over
the police, but this time, by coming forward, it is the po-
licemen’s turn to be scared.
Early in the morning on the day of his execution, a
cigarette and a glass of rum are offered to Verdoux, this
new Socrates’ who does not smoke or drink and who me-
chanically refuses ... and then changes his mind: “‘I
have never tasted rum,’’* and his last wish is to taste it.
Then, the assistant ties his hands before his execution.
For a split second, a fabulous second that will not be for-
gotten in motion pictures—across Charlot’s face passes
the wish to die, to leave them, to leave us. Soon you will
have the chance to see this face. It is the face of a skepti-
cal martyr suddenly enlightened by a bright indifference
that must shine beyond contempt and even death.
We know now how the story ends which began a little
more than 33 years ago. Charlot, M. Verdoux, and
Charles Chaplin are one and the same. It is this little man
in a short-sleeved shirt, with a bouncy walk, whom two
executioners take to his death. The walk to the guillotine
is the path that crosses all of Chaplin’s work, an endless
ee)tO Essays on Chaplin
road crossing Sunnyside, The Pilgrim, and Modern

Times, a road that seems to extend on the screen up to
the sky, beyond the scaffold that he climbs holding his
head high with the Kid’s white downy wings: Saint
Charlot, alias M. Verdoux.
But before dying, M. Verdoux gets perfect revenge on
Chaplin. This final ironic indifference, disquieting even
menacing, will trouble the dreams of Society which bul-
lies the poor devil with the little mustache and condemns
M. Verdoux to death without realizing that it is also
asSassinating Charlot.
As for the women, M. Verdoux is only taking back,
with that straightforwardness psychiatrists have accus-
tomed us to, the alimony that the American courts have
forced Mr. Charles Spencer Chaplin to pay for 20 years.
It would seem very naive to reduce this story to the di-
mensions of a miscarriage of justice, even if it was an
‘‘Affaire Dreyfus.’’ Hundreds of millions of people are
going to witness the death of the greatest hero of modern
mythology. It will echo in their hearts and minds for a
long time.
We understand that Mr. Johnson,’ the spokesman for
the Legion of Decency, and all the American women’s
clubs, found that the last of Chaplin’s films smacked of
heresy. Next to it, Scarface is just a child’s tale.
M. Verdoux, the martyred Charlot, has been avenged.
Will Charlot’s next film take place in heaven?
NOTES
1. Two days after Monsieur Verdoux premiered in New York

(April 11, 1947), Chaplin held a press conference at the Gotham
Monsieur Verdoux or Charlot Martyred =](oS)
Hotel to justify himself vis-a-vis some accusations made by the press.

The following are some of the questions and answers dealing with po-
litical and moral issues:
A reporter: “‘Are you a communist?”’
Chaplin: *‘No.”’
9
Someone: “We of the Catholic War Veterans. . .
Chaplin: *‘I am not here to answer any Catholic War Veter-
ans; this is a meeting of the press.”’
Another voice: ‘*‘Why haven’t you become a citizen?”’
Chaplin: *‘I see no reason to change my nationality. | con-
sider myself a citizen of the world.”’
A reporter: “‘Do you know Hanns Eisler? Do you know he
is a communist?”
Chaplin: *“Yes, he’s a very dear friend of mine, and a great
musician.’ (My Autobiography)
Other attacks were made by U.S. Rep. John E. Rankin of the
House Committee on Un-American Activities: ‘‘Chaplin’s character is
detrimental to the moral fabric of America; by deporting him, he can
be kept off the American screen and his loathsome pictures can be
kept from the eyes of American youth.”’ (Tino Balio’s United Artists)
2. Because of the controversies surrounding the character of
Verdoux, Russell Birdwell, Chaplin’s publicity agent, decided to ad-
vertise the film using the slogan “Chaplin changes! Can you?’’ But
actually, Chaplin’s Charlot, as the little Jewish barber in The Great
Dictator, had already undergone a metamorphosis.
3. A type of play popular in France in the 17th Century in which
characters are caricatured but remain human. Moliére’s character
comedies include: Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope (Alceste), L’Avare
(Harpagon), Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (M. Jourdain), Don Juan.
The Great Dictator derives directly from the character comedy as
Hinkel is a victim of his obsession (which is caricatured much like
Tartuffe, Don Juan, Harpagon and M. Jourdain). Contrary to
Moliére’s characters, however, Hinkel has more human characteristics
because the character is clearly identified.
‘‘Mythical power: Hitler’s mustache was real,’’ says Bazin in
‘‘Pastiche or Postiche. . .”’ Bazin compares Modern Times with
poetry because it is the ‘‘only cinematographic fable.’” Verdoux sank
midway between poetry and character comedy because he is more real
than the Charlot of Modern Times but less than Hinkel (v. note 5
below).
4. M. Verdoux says, *‘I am in the business of ‘liquidating persons
of the opposite sex,’ which unfortunately is considered illegal. “Mass

killing’-—does not the world encourage it? I am an amateur by
comparison.”’
5. Chaplin does not look like Henri-Desiré Landru, the real-life
person on whom Verdoux was based. Except for Landru and Verdoux
having the same first name, there is no real similarity between either
character as there was between Hitler and Hinkel.
6. Marilyn Nash (the girl). Verdoux could use this wretched girl as
a guinea pig for the poison he had just bought. But Verdoux is
touched by her life: she just got out of prison after serving time for
stealing, which she had done to take care of her crippled husband. He
had just died from wounds suffered in the Spanish War when she met
Verdoux. Chaplin shows in this scene that he is on the side of the
poor who are always victimized by society, a thematic residue of City
Lights, Modern Times, and the Jewish barber in The Great Dictator.
7. After he has been found guilty, Verdoux says to the court and to
the world: “‘I shall see you all soon—very soon.”’
Similarly, after being condemned and then rejecting exile as an
alternative, Socrates told the court and the world: ‘‘And I prophesy to
you, who are my murderers, that immediately after my departure,
punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await
VOU 2 =.
8. Bazin gives the quote in English.
9. General Hugh S. Johnson was director of the National Industrial
Recovery Agency (enacted June 1933) which was designed to protect
the public good by controlling selfish interests in industry (with au-
thority to regulate the relationships between film producers, distribu-
tors and exhibitors).
The Legion of Decency, founded in 1934, supported by diverse re-
ligious organizations especially Roman Catholic, became a powerful
influence over theater owners to boycott films which the Legion found
objectionable. Thus filmmakers began censoring themselves in order
to get their films distributed. The Legion’s standards were based on
the “‘Hays Code’’ (1930) which found *‘criminal’’ and ‘‘adulterous’’
themes objectionable.
In My Autobiography, Chaplin points out some objections made by
his censors. An example from Monsieur Verdoux:
‘Please rephrase Lydia’s line: ‘Well, forget about him and
come to bed’ to read ‘and go to bed’.”’
Chaplin re-edited part of Monsieur Verdoux but evidently not
enough.
No, M. Verdoux Has Not
Killed Charlie Chaplin! °
by Jean Renoir
‘There is only one thing that interests man: it is man.”’

Pascal!
Last night, I had a funny dream. I was in my dining

room carving a leg of lamb. I was doing it the French
way, that is, lengthwise. This method gives you very dif-
ferent slices. For those who like it well-done, you give
the first slices. You wait to get closer to the bone for the
ones who like it rare. As I was inquiring about my
guests’ preferences, they were disappearing into a sort of
white fog that exists only in sleep. I recognized the peo-
ple whom I admire and love. The couple from The Best
Years of Our Lives’ were there sitting at my table and
smiling kindly. I served them, and they ate with hearty
appetites. Next to them, the priest and the pregnant
woman from Rome, Open City showed themselves a bit
more reserved, but not less friendly. At the head of the
table, the lovers from Brief Encounter were holding
hands. This audacity was proof that they trusted me, and
I was flattered. As I started to talk about the mysterious
truth of Children of Paradise, the doorbell rang.
*L’Ecran francais, no. 126, July 15, 1947.
ee)
When I opened the door, I was facing a distinguished-

looking man. At first, he reminded me of someone I
knew well, a kind of tramp who had made the entire
world laugh. But I understood right away that this resem-
blance was only physical. Even with the gold miner's
fur-lined coat, the other one still remained a product of
the gutter. We all knew well that he would never be com-
pletely presentable. However, this one was certainly
‘‘well-bred.’’ His parents have taught him good table
manners and to kiss a woman’s hand. And all of his per-
sonality emanated the impression of contained passion, of
terrible secrets—a bourgeois prerogative from the old
school of Western civilization.
I introduced myself. With an exquisite politeness that
exhaled his old province and a strong Catholic education,
he told me that his name was Verdoux. Then he placed
his hat and cane on a chair, with a fillip removed a little
dust from his jacket, adjusted his cuffs, and proceeded to
the dining room. Immediately, the guests scooted their
chairs closer to each other to make room for him. They
seemed happy to see him. Of course, they belonged to
the same society.
After dinner, we went outside. But word about my fa-
mous guests had spread, and the street was packed with
people. When we stepped down the porch stairs, their en-
thusiasm exploded. We were shaking hands, jostling each
other, and asked to sign autographs. Suddenly, a severe-
looking lady, wearing an aggressive little hat,’ recog-
nized M. Verdoux and pointed at him. And curiously, the
enthusiasm turned into furor. People hurled themselves at
him, raising their fists.
I was trying to understand and shouted the same ques-
tion in vain: ‘‘What did he do? .. . What did he do?
... But I was not able to distinguish anything from the
No, M. Verdoux Has Not Killed Charlie Chaplin! By
answers because everyone was talking at once, and the

blows of their canes, which were inflicted on the unfortu-
nate, made a deafening sound. So deafening that I woke
up with a start and closed the window that was slamming
violently from the thunderstorm.
Chaplin like Moliére . . .

I do not think that the critics who attacked Chaplin so
violently over this last film did it for personal or political
reasons. In the United States, we are not at that stage yet.
I believe rather that it has to do with panic before a com-
plete transformation, before a brusque advance in the ev-
olution of an artist.
It is not the first time that his has happened, nor the
last. Moliére was a victim of the same misunderstand-
ing. And the Hollywood critics’ who refuse to see the
strengths of Monsieur Verdoux find themselves in good
company. Indeed, Moliére’s enemies were La Bruyére,
Fénelon, Vauvenargues.* They accused him of writing
poorly. They reproached him for his ‘‘crudeness of lan-
guage,’ his jargon, his forced phrases, his improprieties
and mistakes, his mass of metaphors, his tiresome repeti-
tions, his inorganic style. This animosity coming from
some critics is not the only common point between
Moliére’s and Chaplin’s careers.
Truth behind a mask

At the outset of his career, the former enjoyed great
success by simply following the traditions of the Italian
Comedy. His characters wear familiar clothes and names,
their ‘‘occupations’’ are the ones which the public is used
to. Simply, under Sganarelle’s makeup® and behind
Scapin’s shiftiness, the author adds a rare element: a little
human truth. But on the surface, there are no very appar-
ent changes. When the situation drags, a good shower of

blows provokes a sure laugh. The sentimental side is as-
sured by recipes that do not vary, if not by the mastery of
the author, from the ones commonly used at that time: a
young aristocrat loves a young servant in spite of his
family’s opposition. But in the end, everything works out
for the best. We realize that the ingenuous girl is of noble
birth, and as a baby, she was kidnapped by pirates.’
In the beginning, Chaplin simply followed the tradition
of the most fashionable style: the English vaudeville.* He
trips on the staircase and juggles with flypaper. In his
films, the sentimental side is represented by abandoned
babies, prostitutes mistreated by life, and the heritage of
good, old melodrama. Nonetheless, he never submits to
the worst vulgarity of our time: that false, tearful good-
ness.’ Behind the livid mask of his character as well as
behind the false beards of his companions, we soon dis-
cern men made of flesh and blood. By growing, like
Moliére, he introduces in the conventional framework,
which he made his own through talent, the elements of an
ever sharper observation and an increasingly bitter social
satire. However, the appearance remains the same: no
one is shocked; no one protests.
One day Moliére decides to give up the form that made
his success, and he writes L’Ecole des jemmes.' The ac-
cusations fly. He is called a practical joker. People grow
angry because he is a director, a comedian, and an
author.
One day Chaplin writes Monsieur Verdoux. He gives
up the external forms that he had accustomed his public
to. There is a great wave of indignation: he is dragged in
the mud.
After L’Ecole des femmes, Moliére, instead of giving
up, continued to strike harder and harder. His next play
No, M. Verdoux Has Not Killed Charlie Chaplin! 39
was Tartuffe, which attacked false religion and bigots.

What will Chaplin’s next film be?
Every artist evolves

It seems unnecessary to explain why I like the old style
of Chaplin because everyone shares this opinion. It is
even likely that some detractors of his new film had to
write dithyrambic articles on The Gold Rush or The Kid.
I would like to try to put together a few reasons which
made Monsieur Verdoux a delight.
Like anyone, I have my ideas on what we have agreed
to call “*Art.’’ I strongly believe that since the end of the
cathedral era, since the time when faith was supposed to
give birth to the modern world and give artists the
strength to lose themselves in a boundless choir glori-
fying God, human expression of quality can only be indi-
vidual. Even when there is collaboration, the work has
value only if the personality of each author emerges in
the work. Now, in this film this presence is as clear to
me as the one of a painter in his painting or of a com-
poser in his symphony. Besides, every man matures, his
knowledge of life increases, and his creations must
evolve with him. If we do not allow these truths in our
profession, we had better admit that it is just an industry
like any other, and that we make films just as we would
refrigerators or shaving cream. And let’s stop bragging
about the title artist and constantly calling upon the great
traditions. Fine, some say that Chaplin has made a per-
sonal work, and we agree that he has evolved. We simply
claim that he made it the wrong way. Some add that M.
Verdoux’s greatest crime is to have killed the charming
tramp we liked so much. His creator should not only
have preserved him intact but leaned upon him in the
quest for new expression. I cannot share this opinion.
M. Verdoux and our times

By giving up the worn-out shoes, the bowler hat and
the cane once belonging to this poor little devil in rags
whose pathetic stare would break our hearts, Chaplin de-
liberately enters a more challenging world since it is
closer to the one in which we are living. This new char-
acter, with his well-pressed pants, his perfectly knotted
tie, his well-dressed appearance, and without any hope of
calling upon our pity, is out of place in the good old
sketchy situations where the rich oppress the poor in such
obvious ways that the most childish public is able to im-
mediately grasp the moral of the action. We could have
thought earlier that Charlot’s adventures were taking
place in a world reserved for motion pictures, which in a
way were fairy tales. With Monsieur Verdoux, there is no
longer any possible ambiguity. The matter is really set in
our time, and the problems exposed on the screen are
truly our problems. By leaving a simple formula that
gave him security, by criticizing outright the society in
which he himself lives, which is one of the most danger-
ous routes to take, the author lifts our trade to the rank of
great classical expression of the human mind, and forti-
fies our hope of seeing it become more an art.
From weakness to cynicism

Let me allow myself to add a purely personal com-
ment: by withdrawing the terrible weapon, the weakness
of his old character, Chaplin had to look for another one
for his newborn to use. The one that he chose particularly
pleases the Frenchness in me, impassioned by its 18th
Century'' characteristic: cynicism.
I understand perfectly the suspicion that some con-
formists have with this approach which seems to belong
to a bygone aristocratic time. Let them forgive a reader
of Diderot, Voltaire and Beaumarchais for the pleasure

that he got from Monsieur Verdoux.
Besides, even when he is not seasoned by paradoxical
logic, the genius often has something shocking, subver-
Sive, and in a certain way, something of Cassandra.”
This is caused by the fact that he sees better than the
common man, and that the simple truths he discovers
temporarily remain only errors for most of us.
Another reason to like Monsieur Verdoux: | love to
have a good time at the movies, and this film made me
laugh to tears.
The work of a man

I think I see growing around me a kind of taste for col-
lective productions, in which the sad anonymity is a trib-
ute to the worship of a new fetish. I cite at random some
of these false idols: public opinion surveys, organization,
technique. They are only saints of a terrible god whom
one tries to cunningly substitute for the one of our child-
hood. This new god is scientific progress.'’ Just as any
respectable god, he attracts us with some miracles. What
else could we call electricity, anesthesia, or the decompo-
sition of matter? But I am strongly suspicious of this
newcomer. I am afraid that, in exchange for refrigerators
and television sets which he lavishes so generously upon
us, he is trying to steal from us a part of our spiritual her-
itage. In old times every object was a work of art in the
sense that it was a reflection of the one who made it. The
most humble colonial-American style buffet is the work
of one carpenter and no one else. This personal trade-
mark was evident in everything—houses, clothing, food.
When I was young in my village in Bourgogne en-
joying a glass of wine, I was told, “‘It comes from the
vineyard Terre a Pot at the top of the hill behind
Sapiniére, or Sarment Fountain, or any other such dis-

trict.’’ Some bottles left a distinct taste of that vineyard’s
silex in my mouth; others were like velvet, and we knew
that they came from a green and somewhat humid valley.
In closing our eyes, we could evoke a particular gray hill
with its small and crooked oaks and the hoof prints of the
wild boar that we noticed last fall before the grape-
gathering. And later the young women bent under the
weight of their baskets filled with ripe grapes. Mostly we
evoked the wrinkled face of the wine-grower who dedic-
ated himself to the respect of this rugged soil."
All the manifestations of life touched us deeply be-
cause some men left their marks on it. We felt as if we
were in the center of a boundless prayer that the workers,
regardless of their tasks, addressed to heaven with their
ploughs, with their hammers, their needles, or simply
with their minds. Today we live in a desert of anonymity.
The wines are mixed together. The stainless steel pipes in
my bathroom, the wood of my inlaid floor, the fences
around my yard, evoke in me only the uniform humming
of the machines which produce them.
We still have some shelters toward which we hasten. A
painter is still able to tell us about himself through his
painting, a chef through his dish. This is certainly why
we are ready to pay a fortune for a good painting or for a
good meal. We also have our trade, which is ours and
will remain one of the greatest expressions of the human
personality, if we know how to maintain our artisan
spirit, luckily still very much alive. Chaplin possesses
every inch this spirit. We feel it through the modest ap-
proach of the scenes, in the thrift of the peasant-like sets,
in his suspicion of technical methods, in his respect for
the actors’ personalities, and by his inner richness that
makes us think each character has so much to say.
Monsieur Verdoux will one day go down in history to

join the artists’ creations of our civilization. It will have
its place beside Urbino potteries and French impressionist
paintings, between a Mark Twain tale and a Lulli minuet.
However, the films so rich in money, in technique, in ad-
vertising, that delight their contemptuous viewers, will
join, God knows where, say in oblivion, the rich mahog-
any chairs coming from the beautiful stainless steel fac-
tory assembly lines.
NOTES
1. Renoir, in ‘‘André Bazin’s Little Béret’’ from Bazin’s Jean

Renoir, compares Bazin to Pascal: **The frail figure of Bazin, with-
ered with sickness, was like Pascal’s ‘thinking reed’.’’ Both quotes
are from Blaise Pascal’s Pensées.
2. One of the last scenes in The Best Years of Our Lives is a
welcome-home dinner similar to Renoir’s description of his dream. At
the head of the table is Al Stephenson.
3. The lady wearing ‘‘an aggressive little hat’’ is the one who ac-
cuses Garance (Arletty) in Children of Paradise of picking pockets,
which creates a disturbance in the crowd on Paris’ Boulevard of
Crime.
4. Some press reactions after the opening on April 11, 1947:
New York Daily News (Kate Cameron): “*But the joke, I am afraid,
is on him, as Martha Raye, who plays an important part in several
long sequences, furnishes the only hearty laugh which the audience
PIVESTOUtn |
The Sun (Eileen Creelman): ‘‘The film is staged like an early talkie
with fairly immobile camera, self-conscious dialogue, acting that
looks like the late *20s.. .”
New York Post (Archer Winsten): ‘‘It may not be great, but it’s
funny at times, then honest, and at the end, quite earnest. . .”’
New York Herald Tribune (Howard Barnes): ‘“‘In Monsieur Ver-

doux, Charles Chaplin has composed what he likes to term *‘a com-
edy of murders’? with a woeful lack of humor, melodrama or dramatic
tastes ©
Chaplin quotes a conversation with Brad Seers of United Artists in
My Autobiography:
Chaplin: ‘‘But surely, the general public has a sense of
humor?”’
Seers: ‘‘Here!’’ He showed me the Daily News and
Hearst papers. ‘‘And that goes all over the country.”’
In 1974 Chaplin said that the film was ‘‘too cerebral and more ac-
tion and pantomime would have served me better.”’
5. La Bruyére accused Moliére of literary jargon and barbarism in
Les Caractéres (1688). Fénelon attacked Moilére for galimatias in his
Lettre a L’ Académie (1716). Vauvenargues attacked Moliére over his
use of bizarre, hence, improper expressions in his Réflexions critiques
sur quelques poétes, IV. Bossuet also criticized Moliére for similar
reasons as did Boileau in his Art Poétique (1974).
6. In 1660, Moliére created the character Sganarelle, the “‘ugly
person who makes the spectators laugh’’ and who has a Fu Manchu
mustache. Sganarelle appears in Le Médecin volant, Le Cocu
imaginaire, L’Ecole des maris, Don Juan, L’ Amour médecin, and Le
Médecin malgré lui.
Moliére usually wore two mustaches: a thick brown one and a Fu
Manchu. When Moliére did not wear a mustache in 1666 in the role
of Alceste in Le Misanthrope, the public was upset. Moliére would
come on stage (as Sganarelle) with his feet spread apart (much like
Charlot’s famous walk). Charlot’s mustache in his first film, Making
a Living, was also a Fu Manchu. With Limelight, Chaplin no longer
wore a mustache. (See Isabel Quigley’s Charlie Chaplin’s Early
Comedies in which she showed sketches of the evolution of Charlot’s
mustache.)
7. L’Avare (1668).
8. In 1907 Charles and Sidney Chaplin joined the Fred Karno
Company, a vaudeville troupe, where Chaplin’s first part was in The
Football Match at the London Coliseum.
Karno’s sketches were silent and included clowning, pantomime,
custard pies, drunkenness, trick cycling, etc. Other members of the
Karno company included Stan Laurel and Fred Kitchens, two of the
most famous clowns of vaudeville. Slapstick comedy, an extension of
vaudeville, was developed by Karno (whose real name was Wescott).
Karno’s troupe made two tours of the U.S. (1911, 1913), during the
second of which Laurel and Chaplin stayed behind in the U.S.
Karno’s influence is especially apparent in A Night in the Show
(1915), which is based on an act Chaplin played in Karno’s Hum-
mingbirds which was renamed A Night in an English Music Hall dur-
ing the second American tour.
English vaudeville, the music hall, was devoted to comic songs,
varied with acrobatics, conjuring, juggling and dancing, and began in
small London taverns in the early 18th century.
9. Renoir may mean the Hollywood ‘‘romantic melodrama’’ as
represented by Max Ophuls, Minelli or Sirkin in the late ’40s and
early ’5Os.
10. This five-act comedy (1662) contained Moliére’s first fully de-
veloped comic character: Amolphe. This success provoked some at-
tacks to which Moliére replied in his Critique de l’Ecole des femmes
(1663) and in his play L’/mpromptu de Versailles (1663).
L’Ecole des femmes was controversial because Amolphe is a reli-
gious zealot who believes that women should be locked up and kept in
submission. This brought attacks on Moliére’s religious views; he was
called a “‘libertine.’’ In his defense in the Critique de l’Ecole, Moliére
says that *‘an author portrays a hero, and an author can use his imagi-
nation, but when one portrays a man, he must paint him according to
nature.””
11. Voltaire, an apostle of human justice and political freedom,
bitterly attacked organized religion and the government, as well as
other institutions. Like M. Verdoux, Voltaire makes a judgment on
the society he is living in cynically and ironically, particularly in his
Correspondance and Candide.
Voltaire writes that “‘good and evil must be judged relative to social
criteria of usefulness;’’ Verdoux says that he is ‘‘an amateur in com-
parison to mass killings. . .’’ Voltaire was imprisoned for his bitter
lampoons and later exiled; Chaplin was forced into a voluntary exile.
12. ‘‘Ode to Cassandre’’ by Pierre de Ronsard (1524-85). The
poem’s theme is about time passing in which the aging Ronsard prop-
ositions the young Cassandre in an explicitly sexual yet poetic
manner.
13. In ‘‘André Bazin’s Little Béret’’ from Jean Renoir, Renoir ex-
presses similar ideas on scientific progress: ‘‘The modern world is
founded on the ever-increasing production of material goods. One
must keep producing or die. But this process is like the labor of Sisy-
phus. Forgetting Lavoisier’s dictum ‘‘In nature nothing is created,
nothing is lost; everything is transformed,’’ we convince ourselves

that our earthly machines will succeed in catching up with eternity.”’
14. In 1898 Auguste Renoir and his wife bought a home in Essoyes
(Aube). Frangois Fosca writes in Renoir: His Life and Work:
‘‘Essoyes was just the sort of place to delight a painter.’’ The wine-
growers of the region founded a society of free thinkers, including
Renoir, who wanted to close down a sawmill which had been built in
the area and which they felt destroyed the region’s natural character.
4
Limelight
JO]ADYD
S YSOUL
OU sa8Uuo] pasaypy kj4adodd
0} uydpy)
§ ‘aov{
Limelight
(143 minutes)
First shown peOctober2s lO 52,

Director > Charles Chaplin
Cinematography : Karl Struss
Cinematographic
Consultant : Roland Totheroh
Editor : Joseph Engel
Music : Charles Chaplin.
Main Titles: “‘The Theme from Limelight,”’
‘Ballet Introduction,’’ “‘Reunion,’’ ‘‘The
Waltz-))Temy s Themes ~ The Polka
Songs : Charles Chaplin; Ray Rasch
Choreography : Charles Chaplin; Andre Eglevsky; Melissa
Hayden
Art Director : Eugene Lourie
Assistant Producers Jerome Epstein; Wheeler Dryden
Assistant Directors : Robert Aldrich
Distributor : Celebrated—United Artists
Cast : Charles Chaplin (Calvero), Claire Bloom

(Terry), Sidney Chaplin Jr. (Neville), Nigel
Bruce (impresario), Buster Keaton (Calvero’s
partner), Wheeler Dryden (doctor and a
clown).
If Charlot Hadn’t Died*
by André Bazin
“*. . . My innocence explodes . . . but innocent or

guilty, this does not mean anything: the essential
is to know how to grow old with grace.”’
(Last words of Michael O’Hara (Orson
Welles) in The Lady from Shanghai)!
Limelight’ is a much more confusing work than Mon-

sieur Verdoux whose sole secret was easily discerned:
that is, Charlot’s true identity. A glance was sufficient.
Once we had recognized him, the rest took its course.
On the other hand, what is at first baffling in Limelight
is the complete removal of Chaplin’s ‘“‘makeup.’’’ Most
certainly, Chaplin was not absent from his last films, and
his transient or secret presence at Charlot’s side even
played an essential role in giving a new effectiveness to
the myth. Moreover, with the advent of panchromatic
stock,* Charlot’s mask no longer adhered properly to
Chaplin’s face. Or, we could say it adhered so well that
we discerned under the painted plaster the nearly imper-
ceptible wrinkles and the pathetic facial vibrations. Per-
*Cahiers du cinema, no. 17, November 1952.
51
a2 Essays on Chaplin
haps more than sound, it was the end of the pure black-
and-white cinema that determined Charlot’s evolution.
The arrival of the gray undermined the very essence of
the myth, just as the advent of oil painting, begetting an
obscure brightness, replaced a descriptive and psycholog-
ical art with the iconography’ of the metaphysical Middle
Ages. And, since City Lights, Charlot had already be-
come the chrysalis of Chaplin. With The Great Dictator,
no doubt remained, and the final closeup showed us the
dramatic moulting of the mask to reveal his face. Without
this dissociation, Monsieur Verdoux may not have been
possible. Even though the character can only be under-
stood in the light of Charlot, the myth of which he is the
negative image, or if you like, even though the role of
Verdoux is interpreted essentially by Chaplin, the latter
hides his complicity to better distract suspicions.
Whatever it is, we had up to this point two substantial
points of reference: Charlot’s mask and Chaplin’s face. It
is elementary psychology to say that actors grow old in-
versely to their fame. At the extreme, as Gloria Swanson
says in Sunset Boulevard, ‘‘Stars never grow old.’ A
few wrinkles touched up with makeup, a white lock of
hair in The Great Dictator, did not yet jeopardize the im-
age that we have kept through the photographs of a 30- or
40-year-old Chaplin. But the illusion was no longer pos-
sible. The first film interpreted by the great actor Charles
Spencer Chaplin without makeup is also precisely the
first where we do not recognize his face anymore. I mean
the first that forces us to give up the reference point of
Chaplin’s eternal maturity.
It is the grandeur and intelligence of the work to have
dared to base itself precisely on its first surprise: the ac-
tor’s age. He’s one person who knows how to grow old
with grace (and not just by retiring!) But without a
If Charlot Hadn't Died B,
doubt, he did not have any choice but to give up the style
of his previous works for the sake of dramatic realism the
instant that he took old age as the subject. Old age can
surely be a theme for comedy or even for buffoonery, but
not his own old age. By not being able to grow old, by
not even being able to deal with the problem of aging be-
cause of his essence, Charlot made it a must for Chaplin
to abandon the realm of stylization, to give up the dra-
matic system to which all of his work ascribes (except
A Woman of Paris) and which is the comedy of fixed
characters from the Commedia dell’ Arte.
However, by giving up stylization for realistic drama,
Chaplin himself cannot escape the gravitational pull of
his myth. Thus, a simple reading of the script would be
sufficient to pull us back within it. Though his auto-
biography does not quite parallel the script,°® the similar-
ity lies only in the presence of a common theme and not
in its dramatic development. In a sense, Chaplin is the
complete opposite of Calvero because the world has not
forgotten his name or that he is married to a very young
woman who has given him three children. But how could
we doubt that Chaplin, through Calvero’s decline, exor-
cises a sort of fear about his own old age. He has every-
thing that Calvero lacks: glory, wealth, love and health,
but not youth . . . which to regain would undo every op-
portunity for glory, wealth, love and health.
One should not forget that Monsieur Verdoux was a
big financial failure ($350,000 in box office receipts in
the U.S.) as well as a vehemently critical failure. If
Chaplin made himself the traveling salesman for Lime-
light, it may also have been for other reasons, but cer-
tainly because the success of the film, as much moral as
financial, is now a vital question for him.
Thus, this drama—we could even say this melodrama
if the word did not have a pejorative meaning—is, by its

style,* free from Chaplin’s comic work but different
from A Woman of Paris with which we could compare it
since it is part of the mythology. Whether we want to or
not, we cannot avoid more or less consciously comparing
Calvero’s life and performance with Chaplin or Charlot’s
stage. What is the nature of that uncertainty, as it seems
to me, into which film can legitimately take us at the first
viewing. Realistic, Limelight draws part of our emotion
into a comparison with contradictory works, a compari-
son not only unavoidable but necessary and one which,
nonetheless, misleads us. In this sense, the creation of
the clown Calvero was sheer genius. It forces us to evoke
Charlot and at the same time deprives us of all resem-
blance because nothing in his silhouette and even less in
his comic genre allows any confusion. Moreover,
Chaplin worked hard at it, in every detail of his film, in a
faithful and quasi-archaeological reconstruction of the
English music-hall’ of the turn of the century.
It seems to me that the essential of the respectful and
admiring reservations, which part of the critics if not the:
public have already shown for Limelight, proceed more
or less consciously from this equivocation which is the
film’s very principle. I would not deny that I too felt un-
easy about it, but what I am still wondering about is
whether it is a “‘weakness.’’ From a certain aesthetic
level, and for a work that necessarily presents a profound
unity (let’s take those of Corneille, Racine, Shakespeare,
or Moliere for reference), the critique of faults loses its
importance and almost its reason for being. It is no
*] mean the word “‘style’’ in the very precise sense, for example,
where there is a distinction between tragic style and comic style.
Thus, the ‘‘drama’’ defines itself, on the contrary, by the denial of a
style. [Bazin’s footnote]
If Charlot Hadn't Died 35
longer the critique but the beauty which has become sim-
ply an understanding of the necessities. Two or three
generations of professors had reservations about Théra-
méne’s tirade,* thinking perhaps that through this imper-
fection they could give more magnificence to the perfec-
tions of Racine’s work: a carefulness that is not only ri-
diculous but entirely false.’ If masterpieces are
overlooked by their own authors, then it is even more the
case for the critics.
I am pleased that the performance Chaplin was invited
to see in Paris was precisely Moliére’s Don Juan. Let’s
assume the opportunity of Théramene’s tirade and
Moliére’s dramatic digressions is first to respect the di-
vinity within the creation as well as to postulate that it is
impossible not to find in these faults a few necessities
and, therefore, a little harmony.
To the autonomous beauties of Limelight, one can add
more than one can subtract to what I call with pleasure
the beauty of his faults, which are only the perception of
their fatality. It is only to the mercenaries of cinemato-
graphic art and to the minor artists that a “‘constructive
critique’? can be applied. This constructive critique
implies that the work ‘‘could have been different.’” They
are the Christian Jacque’s who can ‘“‘succeed’’ just as
easily as they can ‘‘fail’’ in making Fanfan la Tulipe and
Adorable créatures. But what would be the meaning of a
‘‘constructive critique’’ of Stroheim’s work?'°
Thus, it seems to me that the apparent unbalance that
one may feel about Limelight and which comes from this
haunting style of the mythology, adds a pathetic dimen-
sion to the scenario, like the perception of Verdoux’s se-
cret identity, giving to his life and especially to his death
an explosive significance.
The realistic episode, the involvement in the drama of
Limelight, was certainly necessary for Chaplin to denude
himself of his double myth: his everlasting youth and

Charlot. Charlot died, guillotined under the false identity
of Verdoux; Chaplin’s old age died at the end of Lime-
light with Calvero. A new Chaplin is born from this dou-
ble assassination, a fabulous actor who obtained the right
to his own old face and the relief of being able to wear
new masks.
I know that some will raise objections against me be-
cause Chaplin promised to go back to comic films and to
his traditional character. Justly. It is for this reason that
he had to stop pretending, unlike Mistinguette'’ who
claimed that she was always 30. When he began
releasing his old films, Chaplin could only retire or re-
solve the contradiction between his myth and his old age.
This old actor remains, as we know, a fabulous mime.
Let’s bet that he will surprise us soon in what could be
the paradoxical summit of his career: the inimitable imi-
tation of Charlot.
NOTES
1. O’Hara’s last words were actually: ‘‘The only way to stay out of
trouble is to grow old, so I guess I’ll concentrate on that.’’ In Lime-
light Calvero says: ‘‘I must follow the road; it is the law.”’
2. Bazin generally uses the French title in his reviews. Here, how-
ever, he does not use the French title Les feux de la rampe.
3. Chaplin’s ‘‘makeup’’ is Charlot.
4. Black and white panchromatic film stock shows a gradation of
tones roughly corresponding to the visible spectrum. Before 1925
films were shot with orthochromatic film which is insensitive to red
and thus Charlot’s face appears as pure black and white. Chaplin’s
first film using panchromatic stock was Modern Times.
If Charlot Hadn’t Died 57
5. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, iconography was the

set of rules or conventions for representing subject matter in painting.
The art of iconography is based on strength of the spirit and expres-
sion of ideas in the language of painting. The subject was chosen for
its symbolic content. However, the symbolic content could be inter-
preted differently, thus there were different types of iconography.
Bazin compares Charlot to a myth, which is comparable to meta-
physical and symbolic content. With Limelight, Chaplin becomes de-
scriptive and psychological, similar to what happened in painting after
the Middle Ages and before the Romantic period. The advent of oil
paints allowed, like the development of panchromatic stock, a broader
reproduction of reality. (Symbolism can be imperfect, having no nec-
essary foundation in reality.)
In the ‘‘Ontology of the Photographic Image,’’ Bazin explains that
the decisive change in painting came from DaVinci’s camera obscura
not from oil paints. The camera obscura created the illusion of three-
dimensional space. The following quote from the ‘‘Ontology’’ de-
scribes well the duality between Chaplin and Charlot: *‘Painting was
torn between two ambitions: one, primarily aesthetic, namely the ex-
pression of spiritual reality where the symbol transcended its model;
the other, purely psychological, namely, the duplication of the world
outside.”’
6. One could argue that there is a parallel with Chaplin’s mother
(Lily ‘‘Hannah’’ Chaplin), and his father (Charles Sr.) and Calvero.
In My Autobiography, Chaplin says: “‘I remember standing in the
wings when Mother’s voice cracked and went into a whisper; the au-
dience began to laugh . . . But the noise increased until Mother was
obliged to walk off the stage .. . Mother’s friends said something
about letting me go in her place . . . that night was my first appear-
ance on the stage and Mother’s last.’’
This description could easily be compared to the last scene of Lime-
light. Chaplin also wrote about a similar event happening with his fa-
ther who ‘‘appeared on the stage breathing with difficulty, and with
painful effort made a speech. I stood at the side of the stage watching
him, not realizing that he was a dying man.”’
Chaplin says, however, in My Autobiography, that he got the idea
for Limelight from the death on stage of Broadway comedian Frank
Tinney.
7. It is precisely for this reason that the film can be compared with
his parents’ life as actors in the English music-hall at the turn of the
century.
8. Théraméne makes a lengthy speech in the fifth act of Racine’s

Phédre (1677).
9. This explains his preference for synthetic over analytic reason-
ing, the former being the basis of the auteur theory: looking at
Racine’s work rather than at a part of his work.
10. In ‘‘The Evolution of the Language of Cinema’’ from What Is
Cinema? I, Bazin writes: ‘‘In (Stroheim’s) films, reality lays itself
bare like a suspect confessing under the relentless examination of the
commissioner of police. He has one simple rule for direction: take a
close look at the world, keep on doing so, and in the end it will lay
bare for you all its cruelty and ugliness. One could easily imagine as a
matter of fact a film by Stroheim composed of a single shot as long-
lasting and as close up as you like.”’
11. Jeannes-Marie Bourgeois (1872-1960) was a popular dancer-
actress who worked at the Folies Bergeres. She helped Maurice Che-
valier get his start and lived with him when she was 34 and he 18. She
first appeared in French music-halls, at the Moulin Rouge and Casino
de Paris.
5
A King in New York

NS\
_ VO
O
Chaplin is still Chaplin, but now he is just Chaplin.

A King in New York
(109 minutes)
First shown : September 12, 1957
Cinematography : George Perinal
Editor : John Seabourne

Main Titles: ‘*‘Mandolin Serenade,’’ ‘‘The
o>
Spring Song, “Weeping Willows,’’ ‘*Bath-
tub Nonsense,”’ ‘‘Park Avenue Waltz,’’ *‘The
Paperhangers. ’
Art Director : Allan Harris
Distributor : Attica—Archway
Cast : Charles Chaplin (King Shadow),

Dawn Addams (Ann Kay), Oliver Johnston
(Jaume), Maxime Audley (Queen Irene),
Jerry Desmonde (prime minister), Michael
Chaplin (Rupert McAbee).
A King in New York*
by André Bazin
There are some circumstances in which my work as a

critic 1s painful. First, of course, is when I have to write
on films which do not merit being mentioned, and sec-
ondly is the contrary, when the work is so rich that it cre-
ates in me contradictory ideas and feelings. I then dream
about the happy rest of the spectator' who does not have
to judge what he sees for pleasure.
We already understand that A King in New York be-
longs in the second category, and I would rather let my
impressions grow by listening to others than by putting
my thoughts in order. Since, however, it is my duty, I
will make the effort.
Thus, I do not much like A King in New York, but I
must nonetheless express why my admiration is mixed
with reservations. To simplify things, we can say that the
film can be clearly divided into two parts. The first part,
exclusively burlesque using gags, 1s a satire on modern
American life. Nothing intellectual is suggested in it; all
of that part rests on recognizing a comic technique simi-
lar to the style of the Charlot of old. The second part,
stemming from the meeting with the child prodigy who
becomes the author’s spokesman, is thus more clearly
*F rance-Observateur, no. 390, October 31, 1957.
63
ideological, even though interrupted by two very long

gags woven into several comic scenes: one on the plastic
surgery and the other on the Un-American Activities
Committee.
Before going into depth, I will admit that I laughed
heartily in the first part, even though all the gags did not
seem to me equally good. I also got very bored one-
fourth of the way into the second part where Chaplin
stops putting laughter on his side.
An interesting coincidence is happening. Doniol-Val-
croze,’ who is sitting just next to me, is reviewing A
Face in the Crowd,’ the comparison of which with A
King in New York is imperative because of the opposition
of genre and style. But how much more convincing and
effective is the satire implied in Elia Kazan’s film, even
if its author not long ago collaborated with the Un-
American Activities Committee. It is, of course, because
both Budd Schulberg* and his screenplay are deeply en-
meshed in American reality, whereas Chaplin attacks it
from the outside with irritation if not sometimes with an-
ger. Objectively, that is, by seeing it as outside the realm
of the Chaplinesque phenomenon, which I will of course
come back to, the film is no better than a Georges
Duhamel or a Marcel Aymé.
Could it have been any other way from the instant his
satirical project was motivated by the need to settle his
own personal grievance? During his press conference in
London, Chaplin did not hide from it: ‘‘Will I let them
insult me without reacting?’’ He did in fact react, but
what is the meaning of Chaplin’s revenge with the histor-
ical importance of his phenomenon at stake?
In that case, the most ridiculous or the most involun-
tary, perfidious eulogy to do on A King in New York
would be to praise it for the effectiveness of its anti-
A King in New York 65
American satire. Its sole anachronism would suffice to

disarm it. Chaplin lost complete touch with America
when he left in 1952. Since that time, Hollywood has
produced 20 anti-McCarthy films.° But in between, there
was Budapest!* And it is certainly not America that one
thinks about upon learning that the idealism of the young
Rupert’ was broken in order to turn him into an
informer.
Definitely not. One need only look at the ideas ex-
pressed, even those in his own defense; all this is not se-
rious, and it even comes close to foolishness.
But it is a Chaplin film, and it is as absurd to make an
abstraction of it as it is to be blinded by idolatry.
Although derived from a different unity of technique
and scenario, The Great Dictator was not much more
solid ideologically, but it indicated the grandeur of its au-
thor’s power. It was already a matter of settling accounts:
for Hitler having dared to plagiarize Charlot, the film’s
bottom line was only a prodigious trial over the royalty of
a mustache. Monsieur Verdoux was also a personal mat-
ter between society and Charlot, disguised as his opposite
to take it by surprise. Charlot escaped between the cop’s
legs; Verdoux only looks through them. Limelight at least
marks the divorce and the end of the myth. Calvero
wipes off his chalk and charcoal mask: *‘Ecce Homo.’’
Age would have cracked his mask if Chaplin had not
had the ingenuity to make his decrepitude the matter and
even the subject of three masterpieces. But we under-
stand that beyond Limelight, this scenario is no longer
possible. Condemned to play without a mask but having
said everything about tearing it off, Chaplin again be-
came an actor, remaining a god figure in our memories.
Chaplin is in a false state of affairs, and I discern the re-
flection of his contradictions in A King in New York.
I can only see one way to like the film. It is to be en-

thusiastically carried through its spectacle; it is to identify
it with his myth. I mean that the very weakness of the
scenario helps the careful viewer discern his techniques
of mise-en-scéne and his directing of the actors. That it is
sublime does not surprise us, and of course still ravishes
us. Above all things that one can say about the pros and
cons in all the film’s parts—burlesque, pathetic, dra-
matic, or insignificant—the Chaplinesque universe re-
mains a fascinating beauty. The degree of denudation that
strikes at first is perhaps greater than that in Monsieur
Verdoux. The sharpness of gestures, the trenchant ele-
gance of performance, the concentration of irony, the
vivid economy of ellipsis, release a fabulous charm that
acts much like hypnosis. I felt it particularly on seeing
the film a second time, when the second part still seemed
to have endless tunnels. The sole element that subsisted
in me was the imperative contemplation of a sort of lumi-
nous geometry with a radiating presence of both a human
and abstract character at its center.*
I especially remember the open and closed doors, the
Stage entrances and exits, the hats purposely forgotten on
an armchair to allow a return to the field’—in short, a
sublimely ineffectual agitation, a dance. Thus, all de-
pends on how one watches the film. If it is through its
scenario or even its “‘message,’’ I think that it cannot
stand up under analysis and its value rests only on
Chaplin’s prestige to avoid being ridiculous. But if it is
through Chaplin and his ingenius directing, there is obvi-
ously more to admire and learn in A King in New York
than in one year of cinema."
Chaplin is still Chaplin, but now he is just Chaplin.
A King in New York 67
NOTES
1. In French Cinema of the Occupation and Resistance: Toward a

Cinematic Criticism, Bazin writes: ‘‘Film is not like the other arts,
aimed at an elite, but at several million passive spectators in search of
a couple hours of escape.’’ Bazin was not belittling audiences but
only establishing the need for film criticism.
2. Jacques Doniol-Valcroze co-founded Cahiers du cinéma with
André Bazin in April 1951. Doniol-Valcroze began his career as a
music critic. In 1946 he worked for La Revue du cinéma under Jean-
Georges Auriol. Bazin wrote two articles for Auriol: ‘‘The Myth of
Monsieur Verdoux’’ and ‘‘William Wyler, Jansenist of the Cinema.’’
Albert Camus also worked at the Revue and had his office next to
Doniol-Valcroze. In 1949 Doniol-Valcroze and Bazin began working
at L’Observateur, a cultural monthly. There they reviewed films,
which at the time was considered out of place in a cultural magazine,
a view not shared by Francois Mitterand, one of the monthly’s co-
founders. “‘A King in New York’’ appeared in L’Observateur on Oct.
31, 1957, a year before Bazin’s death. On November 14, 1958,
Doniol-Valcroze arranged for Bazin’s funeral with the help of the Ca-
hiers du cinéma’s resources.
3. 1957, directed and produced by Elia Kazan. Kazan’s, like
Chaplin’s film, points out the power of television and megalomania
humorously.
4. Schulberg satirized Hollywood life in his novels What Makes
Sammy Run? (1941) and The Disenchanted (1950), and New York life
in his script On the Waterfront (1954). He is also the son of B.P.
Schulberg, producer and executive at Paramount, Columbia and Selz-
nick studios. Schulberg admitted being a member of the Communist
Party during the period of blacklisting.
5. In ‘‘The Evolution of the Western’’ in What Is Cinema? II,
Bazin writes that Zimmerman’s High Noon put McCarthyism under
scrutiny.
Films such as Sidney Lumet’s Twelve Angry Men (1957) or Otto
Preminger’s The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell and other films deal-
ing with injustice could also be interpreted as anti-McCarthyism films.
6. On Feb. 14, 1956 at the 20th Soviet Communist Party Con-

ference, Nikita Khrushchev attacked the policies of the late Josef
Stalin. Insurrections in several central European countries followed
Khrushchev’s denunications.
Over 100 demonstrators were killed in Poznan, Poland while pro-
testing the economic conditions imposed by the Soviet government.
Hungarian students throughout October 1956 expressed their soli-
darity with the Polish protestors. On October 23 at Budapest’s Bem
Square, students holding a rally were joined by workers and crowds of
people demanding a democratic government. The rally turned into a
revolt which spread across Hungary, resulting in an invasion by
the Soviets (16 divisions and 2,000 tanks). The United Na-
tions General Assembly passed a resolution condemning the Soviet
intervention.
7. Played by Michael Chaplin, Rupert runs away from school when
he finds out his parents have been called before the Un-American Ac-
tivities Committee. Rupert, who must also testify, tries to help his
parents but gives the names of their political associates.
8. “‘luminous ... center.’’ The expression refers to the silver
screen, 1.e., the rectangle of light with Chaplin at its center. Bazin
considered Limelight so great that he lifted Chaplin’s art beyond the
gravitational pull of cinematographic art (the silver screen). With this
film, Chaplin re-enters the realm of cinema by being just a good
director.
9. Within the camera’s field of view.
10. In 1957, a year before his death, Bazin had to narrow his inter-
ests, knowing that he would soon die. Only two American filmmakers
interested him: Chaplin and Welles, perhaps because they were exiled
from Hollywood (which might explain such a strong statement from
Bazin).
6
A Countess from Hong Kong

_
Weg
Lo
So
an
Ch
Jr.
Si
A Countess from Hong Kong
(120 minutes)
First shown : January 2, 1967

Producer : Jerome Epstein
Cinematography : Arthur Ibbetson
Editor : Gordon Hales
Main Titles: ‘My Star,’’ “‘This Is My Song,”’
“‘A Countess from Hong Kong,’’ ‘‘The
Countess Sleeps,’’ “‘Chamber Music,”
“Tango Natasha.”’
Production
Supervisor : Denis Johnson
Production
Designer : Don Ashton
Art Director : Robert Cartwright
Set Decorator : Vernon Dixon
Assistant Director : Jack Causey
Color : Technicolor
Process : Cinemascope
Distributor : Universal
Cast : Marlon Brando (Ogden Mears), Sophia Loren
(Countess Natasha Alexandroff), Sidney
Chaplin Jr. (Harvey Crothers), Tippi Hedren
(Martha Mears), Patrick Cargill (Hudson),
Margaret Rutherford (Miss Gullswallow),
Oliver Johnston (Clark), Geraldine Chaplin
(girl at dance).
A Countess from Hong Kong*
by Eric Rohmer
I have some scruples, one might gather, about taking

the baton from Bazin. Even though I am always ready to
follow him, I must make one exception: that is, about
Chaplin. Far from being enthusiastic about Verdoux or
Calvero, I sincerely hated them and Shadow as well, on
whom we agree. But perhaps this aversion was only a
disguised homage; when I saw A Countess, it was love at
first sight. My ardor radiated towards the earliest Char-
lots, admittedly skipping the group of ‘‘talkies’’' that I
have not seen again and about which my reservations still
stand except for, perhaps curiously, A King in New York.
Contrary to Bazin, who explained Chaplin through
Charlot and his myth, I would like to study Charlot in the
light of Chaplin and his mise-en-scéne. The mise-en-
scéne presented us in this case—as in olden times in A
Woman of Paris—is quite pure, removed from the pro-
jected shadow created by the presence of the mythical
hero.’ It does not matter that my arguments take a course
opposite to Bazin’s nor that they are sometimes even
completely contradictory. I am happy to have this oppor-
tunity to meet with him because Chaplin was undoubt-
edly his favorite and because the film in the ’60s that
*Charlie Chaplin, 1972.
73
truly inspired my passion for the cinema with somewhat

new ideas was precisely A Countess.
Well, anyway, what more can I say since my thoughts
are inexpressible. In any case they are not even thoughts:
they are intuitions and presentiments. Intuition tells us,
for example, that if Charlot or Chaplin is not all cinema,
as too many fervent zealots have felt, then all cinema, for
those who know what to look for, is in Charlot in fili-
gree. Also, the cinema as of 1972 has not said its last
word. But to speak about this film, to analyze it, to dem-
onstrate its mechanism, is to do what? One cannot ex-
plain it because it is self-explanatory. One can explain
everything through the Countess but nothing about her.
The best way to study her is to analyze Chaplin’s films
one by one to discover how each moves in its own way to
a common intersection. A Countess is and doubtless will
remain the last in this series of points, which are
Chaplin’s sound films, including Modern Times, and thus
can be explained in its turn as simply that, contrary to
what Bazin would say.
And besides, how can one speak about a film when its
chief merit consists of the bad-mouthing made over it?
Now, in all the history of cinema, Chaplin’s films are the
ones which were the most talked about and the easiest to
talk about. Their gags create laughter ‘‘on paper’’
whereas, let’s say Buster Keaton’s cannot be reduced to
speeches. In Charlot’s conceptual universe, the object is
validated by the idea attributed to it no matter whether its
function, its form or dimensions is appropriate or misap-
propriated. On the contrary, these characteristics deter-
mine for Keaton where the comical can start without any
reference to the function, size or form of the motive
presented.
Chaplin’s critics do him a disservice by reducing his
films to a kind of odd and even game, involving us in the
A Countess from Hong Kong 75
agony and delights of speculating whether the mythical

character will come back to life, fulfilling or defrauding
us of our anticipation. They brought this comic’s intelli-
gence to life which is something the comic demands of
his viewers since laughter never comes from the same
thing but from the collision of ideas supported by intelli-
gence. But by their criticism they veiled precisely what
they wanted to bring to light: the cinematographic genius
of their idol. The originality, or more precisely, the
strangeness of the scenario in his last films in fact gives
him a monopoly over the minds of cinephiles and makes
subsidiary, in Bazin’s opinion, questions ‘‘of formal aes-
thetics of the narrative and mise-en-scéne.’”’ ‘‘Lime-
light,’’ he writes, ‘‘does not look like anything,’’ a sen-
tence that can just as easily apply to Verdoux and A King.
Summarized, A Countess is lost in the multitude of
Hollywood comedies where the false dignity of the male
character is battered by a woman’s fancy, cunning, wit
and charm.
Ogden Mears (Marlon Brando), man of good family
and a diplomat, who is returning to the United States on a
cruise, learns during the stop-over in Hong Kong that he
has been appointed consul in a remote Arabian city in-
stead of secretary of state as he had expected. To bury his
sorrows, he accepts the invitation of ‘‘Papa Clarke,’’ an
old friend of his father’s, and ends the evening in a bar in
the company of three ‘‘authentic’’ countesses who charge
sailors 25 cents for a dance.
Harvey (Sidney Chaplin), Mears’ aide, goes along on
the outing. One of the girls, Natasha (Sophia Loren),
seems to be very interested in our heir.
Until now no direct comedy has transpired in spite of
the droliness of certain lines and the “‘picturesque’’ Papa
Clarke: laughter is foreshadowed in the displacement be-
tween the outer characters and the roles they pretend to
play. The next day we find Ogden in his cabin dressed in

a tuxedo, sitting on the sofa, emerging from a heavy
hangover, and the liner has already weighed anchor. The
situation becomes gradually grotesque. Hudson, the valet
(Patrick Cargill), is busy restoring his master’s senses
and getting him undressed. Solemnly the valet takes off
his master’s pants as the master covers himself modestly
with his robe. First true gag: Ogden opens a closet,
closes it, and says, ‘‘Sorry,’’ steps back, stops, comes
back, opens the closet to find Natasha in a long dress.
She could find no other way to sneak into the United
States. As he attempts to explain to her that this is crazy,
their exchange is constantly interrupted by the untimely
coming and going of Hudson, Harvey and the waiter who
brings Ogden his breakfast (which Natasha enjoys with-
out worrying about its intended recipient who is still sup-
posedly under the influence of the too many glasses of
champagne). The confusion is repeated in the desperate
attempts of the clandestine passenger to get back to her
hiding place while the panicking diplomat finally ends up
ringing for the purser out of exasperation. But when the
purser arrives, Ogden can only ask him what the next
stop-over is and as soon as he leaves, he tells Natasha
that the next stop-over will be her last.
The bedtime scene gives us a few good sequences of
pure burlesque. Ogden offers his room to the countess.
He will sleep on the living room sofa. He gives her pyja-
mas which are ridiculously big.
With the same precipitation, intruders make new en-
trances during which there is an exchange of rooms and
beds. The next day the game continues with the valet.
They reach the next stop-over, but Natasha does not want
to leave in her long dress. Ogden goes to buy her a dress
from the ship’s boutique. The dress is obviously much,
much too large. Exasperated by her slowness, just as
Harvey comes to announce the arrival of a group of

journalists, Ogden threatens to take off her pyjamas by
force, chases her, corners her behind a door and tears a
sleeve... :
The countess will succeed in remaining on board but
not without having been discovered by Harvey who be-
lieves that he can get rid of her with money. Lost cause.
As the seas begin to swell, there is a comic sea-sickness
scene reminiscent of The Immigrant.‘ Chaplin makes a
brief appearance as a steward. The evening brings new
complications: a plumber’s visit. Natasha has no other
way out but to go upstairs and mingle with the crowd in
the ballroom. She dances with Ogden, then with the cap-
tain who mistakes her for a passenger who has stayed
locked in her cabin since the beginning of the cruise. A
shady character who knew her in Hong Kong approaches
her: she is able to elude him with the help of Ogden and
Harvey’s savoir faire. The scene shifts to the cabin of the
famous passenger who had locked herself in. She is an
adorable old woman (Margaret Rutherford) and because
of her sweet craziness, she remains indifferent to the
shower of presents destined for Natasha. Then we learn
that Ogden’s wife has come to meet him in Honolulu, the
next stop-over. The situation starts getting serious when
Ogden goes to announce the bad news to Natasha. He
holds her tenderly. It is a real declaration of love: he can-
not live without her; he will invite her to Arabia when his
wife goes shopping in Paris, etc. But, to make the count-
ess’ situation legal, Harvey suggests there is only one
way: that she marry an American—Hudson, for instance.
The valet accepts the subterfuge without a frown, and the
burlesque comes crashing back on the ‘“‘honeymoon
night.’’ Hudson lays down in one of the twin beds,
Natasha on the other. The surprised man makes semi-
astounded and semi-lewd faces, making a clown of him-
self and a mess of the bedding until Ogden decides to go

to bed, sure that his wife will not come aboard until the
next day. The valet leaves, the lovers remain alone . . .
The next day there are some new worries for Natasha.
The immigration people want to see her papers. Discour-
aged and panicking over the arrival of Mrs. Mears, she
puts on a pareu and, imitating the divers, jumps into the
sea. Later we see her hitch-hiking down a Hawaiian road,
but Harvey finds her soon enough shivering on the beach.
He buys her a dress which she puts on in a bathing hut.
He then drives her to the Grand Hotel and books her a
room, registering her as his wife. This time the dress is
too small: a button pops off.
Ogden and his wife join the “‘newlyweds.’’ Harvey
asks Mrs. Mears to dance so the lovers can be alone.
Ogden again asks Natasha to come to Arabia. So as not
to compromise him when he asks her to dance, she has to
put him off till the other two return to the table.
The liner is ready to weigh anchor. Ogden sits in his
cabin, watching vacantly as his wife hangs up her
clothes. She discovers the huge bra which was bought at
the ship’s boutique. This is the film’s last gag. The
spouses settle the dispute with a few cutting remarks; this
is the end, pathetic in its extreme simplicity. The scene
goes from the cabin to the Grand Hotel. It is nighttime.
Natasha sits at a bay window looking at the ship, bright
with all its lights and about to leave. Then we see Ogden
and Harvey at the far end of the immense hotel hall. Ask-
ing a maitre d’ to take him to the countess, Ogden makes
his way with Harvey into a crowd of people dancing to
the tremolos of violins. He finally gets to her, she turns
around, he takes her in his arms, and they begin to
dance...
This sentimental comedy resembles thousands of oth-
ers bearing Hollywood’s trademark. It is not a matter of a
fable anymore, as in his previous films, but a bare an-

ecdote where the psychology patterns itself on the moral.
The dialogue, until now spare and having only a didactic
role, flows along a normal course and shines as pure
comedy. We think of Lubitsch, Cukor, or more _pre-
cisely, Hawks (You Can’t Sleep Here), or Minnelli.
Should we think that Chaplin, tired of moving along
alone, lacking inspiration, finally resigned himself to fol-
low the taste he thought proper for 1966 but which actu-
ally represented the style of another era, or rather an era
even earlier than that? In this case, A Countess would be
a sad thing because one of the most obvious trademarks
of Chaplin’s genius since the talkies is that he owes noth-
ing to anyone and ignored beautifully the evolution of the
art of film. With this perspective we could justly re-
proach the filmmaker for having let himself be dragged
along in a venture which, if it could not hold to its past
glory, deprives his career of the beautiful ending he de-
served (an ending Bazin would have preferred for Lime-
light rather than A King). Let’s note, however, that even
if it is only a weak defense, the project of the Countess
dates from 1937,° and it is only one among other scripts
that Chaplin had in his files. He also wanted to do a se-
quel to A Woman of Paris, a film in which he would not
have been the protagonist.
But leaving these extenuating circumstances behind,
let’s take a candid approach to the question. Let us grant,
to the credit of the Countess, what people generally dis-
like about it. The strangeness of the previous works did
not seem to us to attain a sufficient degree of achieve-
ment; the Countess cannot be praised for its orginality.
The originality of Verdoux and Co. exists beyond their
strangeness, almost even in spite of it (which mainly ex-
presses a lack, a difficulty of adaptation). The Countess
does not detach itself from the American comedy any
more than Charlot detached himself from the Mack

Sennett style. The Countess stands beside, let’s say,
Sport favori de l'homme, just as The Gold Rush is beside
The General. That Chaplin in his old age indicated the
desire to return to the place he left and where he so bril-
liantly made his debut, is a sign certainly more of humil-
ity than of resignation.
One of the film’s merits is that it demonstrates that
Chaplin’s situation is less exceptional than people wanted
to admit. I’d rather make him one of the brightest jewels
(but not the only one) of an art which is perhaps (Bazin’s
dixit) that of the 20th century (and therefore the most
fruitful and richest in genius) than the fortunate exception
within a minor and stuttering form of expression as too
many literary men have thought. At any rate it would
render him a disservice to keep seeing in him the
superstar that he became under the internal influence of
his myth. Let’s thank him for helping us out and for pres-
enting himself for the last time under the furtive and
good-natured persona of a steward. Since he finally gives
us his pure mise-en-scéne, previously lost in the foggi-
ness of a message, let’s take advantage of the opportunity
instead of being picky.
It was good that the career of the strongest comic per-
sonality in the history of cinema ended by creating out-
bursts of laughter—frank, rich, and childlike—like the
Charlots used to. Chaplin again finds his comical vein
only at the expense of a now-total sacrifice. From Mod-
ern Times to Limelight, Charlot died step by step, still
wearing his mustache in the Dictator, trimming it for
Verdoux, not able to completely erase the memory of the
little man with a bowler hat from the glabrous face of
Calvero. And then in A King in New York, a Charlot rises
from the past, an Ombre, a Zombie. Under all these in-
carnations, the man of gestures and mimes in a world of

spoken words stopped the laughter.
Charlot disappeared, yet the gag remains; but there is a
new problem: we are far from the abundant richness of
the *20s. It is not that our laughter is solicited in many
ways, but only reluctantly could one remain cold since
the gag, sometimes overused, is introduced with a light-
ness, a casualness, an elegance that rejuvenates it. Most
of the time they aren’t really gags but rather whims or
jokes, creating an atmosphere of bon vivants (like the
tricks Harvey plays on the countess’ ex-friend, the drop
of water on the collar, or the ‘“‘encounter’’). But let’s
leave behind these details which are easily integrated in a
realistic context, and rather concentrate on the quasi-
prehistorical monster who jealously defends the last inch
of his territory against the assault of the hydra.° In fact,
there are only two true gags in the film, and both are
complacently repeated. The first, the least varied, is the
opening of the cabin door which automatically triggers a
reaction of overplayed escapes. The second, less rough in
appearance, is based on dressing and undressing. Both
are patterned on the same psychology: the fear of invaded
privacy, of an unveiled nudity because the setting does
not fit the situation nor the clothes the body.
What makes us laugh? It is not the physical effect in it-
self for in this case the gags would be very cheap, but the
way that it is interpreted by the character, and, on the re-
bound, by the spectator. The more the matter is simple
and equal to the task, the more the idea is revealed as
subtle and changing. The ‘‘psychologism’’ of Charlot’s
cinema, in which each visible element is subconscious,
unlatching in our minds a process of association that pops
up and runs through our heads parallel to the sensations
received from the screen, appears in this film in an obvi-
ous way and reconciles itself better with the tone, with
the dialogue and with the situations of the average com-
edy than with the moralism of his penultimate words in
which the moral was acceptable only at the expense of
the mise-en-scéne.
Chaplin’s destructive genius, having already elimi-
nated Charlot, will give the gags priority without moving
towards complete annihilation. Even when dismantled,
abused, dishonored, ridiculed, the gag seems to remain
the element that unlocks laughter; but once started, the
gag moves at its own pace, with more or less ease bounc-
ing back and forth between the abyss that separates the
burlesque world where it was born and the daily universe
where it emerges.
We see that Chaplin no longer considers himself
unique, and is far from proposing solutions that are valu-
able only to himself, or settling disputes between Chaplin
and Charlot, when the questions that interest us are the
relationships of cinema to itself, like that of talkies to si-
lent films. Now, he very humbly answers the question of
questions for those who practiced or loved the cinema be-
fore 1930 and who intend to continue practicing or loving
it: How can the soul of the gag, its phantasma, its poetry
fit in with the obligatory naturalism of today’s cinema?
The answer is not that the visual expression is diminished
by the presence of sound; there are some very effective
audio-visual gags, such as those of the Marx brothers.
There is no conflict between sound and image but be-
tween a space-time which is reconstructed and dominated
(if not faked) and a world which appears (even if it is
not) an exact reflection of reality, which in principle is
“not funny.’’ In summary, instead of being the general
rule, it is the exception; it screeches rather than sings, as
in times of old.
The Countess is at once more burlesque and more real-

istic than most American comedies, and better yet, it suc-
ceeds in uniting the irreconcilable. The burlesque does
not seem to flow from the will of the author (who could
suddenly change his mind) but from a caprice or even
from the necessity of circumstances which, under the ef-
fect of an unusual force, become ‘‘truly’’ burlesque.
Relying on burlesque is a sign of a scared man because
fear causes an abnormal rhythm of gestures: for instance,
the numerous thwarted escapes which start every time a
door opens. The overplaying’ does not derive from the
style but from a self-contradiction which, deprived of the
social mask which was his second nature, makes it diffi-
cult for Chaplin to find himself again. All the Countess’
humor rests upon the destruction of social conventions.
The theme is not new; it was even very fashionable dur-
ing Capra’s time. However, in this film the truth is hid-
den by the daily lies and made to look like a forgery to
which our eyes are well-accustomed. The fear, or the
lewdness, takes fabulous and unreal forms because all
natural things are unreal in our world of artifice.
Let’s go further. If they only originated in that contra-
diction, the gags would be brief and fall short, leaving
only a bitter taste, as in A King. But we have seen that if
the gag were tightened, shrunk, shortened (in space as
much as in time), it would not be prohibited from ex-
tending its limits to infinity: not materially by creating
new gags that cascade and cause cascades of laughter but
virtually by the not less cascading stream of thought that
stirs up in us a furtive image. This thought, expectant,
previsionary, prognostic, does more than just freeze a
constant smile on our lips. It incites a laughter in our
head, in our diaphragm but nevertheless physical and ex-
hausting. The structure of Chaplin’s films is monodical.
Its reading is done horizontally, following the course of a

melody, a scene for example in which a violin, Charlot’s
violin, would play. A melody at times sustained, at times
loose, at times slow, at times fast, at times bare, and at
times enriched with variations, rhythm, or élan. Yet here
we have a monody but drier and poorer. We are less sen-
sitive to the line itself than to the sound quality and the
richness of the natural harmonies. The laughter is not as
limpid, as sharp, or as determined as the laughter during
the Charlot films; (moreover, as André Bazin pointed
out, we have numerous instances of “‘reflection’’ laugh-
ter) but the laughter is not as shameful as it later became.
If it is often ‘‘painful,’’ it is because it requires an intense
tension of thought from us; but nothing gloomy radiates
from it. It gives us both a contradictory and a comforting
feeling that things go beyond us and are worth our atten-
tion and that we go beyond them and therefore we are
worthy of them. We laugh in Verdoux and A King, but
with a laughter that freezes and makes us feel ashamed, a
laughter which is inevitably brief since the gags fore-
shadow something tragic. Here, on the contrary, the
echo, even though far away from the gags, joyfully col-
ors the most routine gestures of our heros.
Thus, in the Countess one does not laugh all the time.
When he wants to, Chaplin can stop the laughter, as we
have seen in The Gold Rush or City Lights, and open
wide the floodgates of compassion. I do not use this last
word pejoratively. Why should one begrudge the author
anything because he makes us cry when he knew how to
maneuver us to laughter? And he does it so well, with
such subtlety, such progression, such good management,
that once again we are unable to demonstrate his mechan-
ics. This is because its persuasive strength and the pres-
ence of the music do not explain everything. In brief, just
as in the Charlot films, the character who had won our

hearts by making us accomplices in his tricks, reveals im-
perceptibly to us the drama of his solitude; so naturally
our eyes water.
But who is this ‘‘character’’ anyhow? It is the one no
doubt who is part of the film’s title: the countess, the
woman (a woman was also the protagonist in A Woman
of Paris). To say that Charlot was absent from A Count-
ess would be going a little too far: Charlot is Natasha. A
few precise gags in relation to the costumes prove it: the
little bowler hat that the heroine gets ready to vomit in,
the dresses either too large or too small, and above all the
pyjamas worn by Sophia Loren who openly parrots
Charlot, toes pointed out, feet spread apart. And these
grotesque disguises do not take away from the actress any
grace or any of the evident femininity which she has as-
serted as an actress. [t is not the woman who appears to
be masculine in the travesty but, in retrospect, it is
Charlot who appears to be feminine. This sexual uncer-
tainty is not an erotic allusion: its meaning is infantile
and gentle. But deeper, the androgynous personality of
Charlot (revealed in some mimes, modesties, contor-
tions)® aspires to be an almost ‘‘total’’ being which men
or woman cannot aspire to because of their predetermined
characteristics. This idea, moreover, is present in the
Anglo-Saxon puritanical mythology: the openness about
sexual characteristics is ridiculed whereas the Latins are
overly open about it. Charlot’s masculine partners, his
unhappy enemies, all give the appearance of virile
strength. On the other hand, the women, from the viragos
to the sweet fiancées, do not portray the exacerbated,
quasi-monstrous femininity which will be eminent in the
last ‘‘good old days’’ of Hollywood with the Jayne
Mansfields, the Jane Russells, the Marilyns, etc.
In the Countess Brando is the rough male Ogden,’ ri-

diculous with his close-minded arrogance, his bestiality
that perspires through his diplomatic garb. But Brando
brings a touch to the character which Gary Cooper, for
whom the scenario was originally written, could not give.
From the beginning the actor’s broad shoulders stereo-
type him, and all of his actions fit into a square just as
Sophia Loren’s role evolves with an equally plastic rigor
in the realm of curves.
But the ‘‘burden,’’ so precisely designed, is here only
to enhance (and this is the film’s miracle) the masculine
and feminine gracefulness of each comedian who fits pre-
cisely the physical and career characteristics of people
exposed to the perils of the ridiculous. The posture is al-
ways unpleasant; the gesture always beautiful. How ele-
gant and what an accumulation of ugliness! The woman
with her running around, with her outfits; the man with
his eructations, his yawning, his sad nudity. But going
beyond the bitterness of A King in New York, which left
us alone with our disgust, we again find the optimism of
the Charlot of old in A Countess, which points out for us
the inconveniences of our condition only to assert their
insignificance in a better way when seen with an impetu-
ous and serene eye from that profound vitality which dis-
perses and drowns in its high waves all the mustiness of
our life’s little miseries. It is for a purpose that we bor-
row our comparison from the transition shots that show
the sea breaking into foam on the liner’s prow. Such
shots, like the locomotive in Verdoux which is used to
mark the flow of time, already show that this last film
was less ‘‘abstract’’ than Bazin thought. As for me, I was
less sensitive to the very banal artifice of the narration
than to the very impressive eruption, music helping, of
the great Nature in the liner’s little world, which in turn
obviously ignores and deliberately turns its back on it.

This Nature will later make a second brief appearance in
the form of the Hawaiian beach; we have already met it
on Charlot’s peregrinations, and it is even in a particu-
larly forceful shot of it that he makes a final point of his
adventures in Modern Times.
Paradoxically, in his sound films Chaplin the actor pre-
vented our reconciliation with the world. Perhaps because
the presence of the fabricated hero, not yet accepted like
Charlot, aborted all the velleities of a seemingly natural
order. Either he assumed the odious character of human-
ity, or he tried to put all the weight on it without finding
anything to counterbalance the scale: to be ridiculous in a
ridiculous world. Through the woman’s intercession, the
character now once again finds his reality, his flesh, and
the world as well.
A glance at the supporting roles confirms this feeling.
Whereas Harvey never makes faces, Hudson stands com-
pletely on the comical side. And since their roles are ei-
ther simultaneous or immediately successive, they con-
tribute to maintaining the climate of exchange between
the natural and the artificial. As for the women, they are
all pretty and mistreated. The hero’s spouse is no longer
the hairy matron of Pay Day but the beautiful Tippi
Hedren. In this film the worst disgrace rises to grace, and
grace meets with pure disgrace. Another example is the
young, silly, peremptory woman who is able only to say
that ‘‘Daddy says that . . .”’ Its comedy is comical by its
words except for the brief, unpolished, effective gag with
the portable radio which creates the same panic reaction
in the sunbathers as the opening of the doors in the cabin.
If the film seems to condemn youth—despite the very
charming appearance of Chaplin’s four daughters—the
prize for gracefulness goes to the delightful octogenarian
who gets the gifts, the flowers, the chocolates intended

for the countess, because of a misunderstanding. She
does not give us the afflicting spectacle of a “‘return to
childhood’’ but a caprice only possible in the first age, a
madness that adult reason is unable to grasp. Like
Charlot, Mrs. Gullswallow lives in the world of pure de-
sire, where desire and reality are mingled together. She
makes a dream out of reality literally without having to
dream, like the hero of The Idle Class.
If there is a message in Chaplin’s last film, perhaps
one should look here. Suddenly, at 85, this solitary,
proud, selfish man, who did not believe in anything but
himself, a misanthrope (as the legend describes him),
gives us the proof that life is far from being as sad as he
thought and which he always wanted to prove until now:
only if one knows how to look at it with an indifference
like the old woman’s, the same sweet madness.
NOTES
1. Chaplin’s first sound film was City Lights. In Modern Times,

Chaplin’s voice is heard for the first time. Here Rohmer refers to
Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux, Limelight and
A King in New York.
2. In A Woman of Paris, Chaplin makes only a brief appearance as
a porter, in A Countess from Hong Kong, he briefly appears as a
steward.
3. In ‘‘Aesthetic of Reality,’’ from What Is Cinema? II, Bazin
says that “*As in the novel, the aesthetic implicit in the cinema reveals
itself in its narrative technique.”’
4. In a scene from The Immigrant, Charlot leans over the ship’s
rail as if he were throwing up. But he is just fishing and surprisingly
pulls up a fish.
5. In Charlie Chaplin, John McCabe writes that ‘for over 30 years

(Chaplin) had been reworking the story of a beautiful countess who
stows away in the cabin of an American diplomat on a liner outward
bound from Hong Kong.”’
6. In Greek mythology, Hercules killed the hydra, a nine-headed
sea serpent. When one head was cut off, two others would grow back
in its place.
Rohmer compares Chaplin to Hercules and his gags from the ’20s
to the hydra. Thus, it is a difficult task for Chaplin not to repeat some
of his original and abundant gags.
7. Rohmer uses the word *‘jeu’’ which means ‘‘game, play, acting,
action.’ It is not clear from the text whether he means ‘‘overacting”’
or “‘too many games’’ occurring in the film, such as the door gag.
““Overplaying’’ seemed a choice midway between the two.
8. Not only is Chaplin effeminate in some of his roles, as Rohmer
points out, but he also appeared frequently disguised in female dress.
Examples are: A Busy Day (1914): first female part; The Masquerader
(1914): female impersonization; A Woman (1915): dressed as a girl to
escape the police; Behind the Screen (1916): he puts himself in a posi-
tion such that he is mistaken for a homosexual.
9. Frequently in his films, Charlot’s character is reinforced by its
opposite: the rough male partners such as Eric Campbell, Thomas A.
Wood, Mack Swain and Chester Conklin.
;
Necrology
Charlie Chaplin Was
a Man Just Like Any Other Man*
by Francois Truffaut
For the last time, all of us around the world will speak
in unison about Charlie Chaplin, and obviously in glori-
ous terminology because Chaplin was the most, the best,
the only one who . . . Certainly, using such extreme vo-
cabulary will irritate some; we can therefore expect to
read in the near future calls for moderation by way of
simpler comparisons, etc. After all, what is a critic but a
type of writer whose best interest is to demonstrate that
Victor Hugo was just a man like any other man?
The best way one could salute this man Charlie
Chaplin—who was like any other man as his poor body
just finds the strength to open the door, marked ‘‘artists’
exit’’—is to set a projector on the dining room table and
show on the wall the moving stills of A Night in the
Show, The Immigrant or The Pilgrim. Here, everyone
agrees, Charlie Chaplin was the greatest mime. The dis-
agreements start later with his adaptation to full-length
features and talkies, with his political activities, his pri-
vate life, his fortune (what could now be called his as-
sets), with the quality of his technique and finally with
his book, My Autobiography.
*Le Monde, December 27, 1977.
Q2
It is not by any means out of love of contradiction that

I feel compelled to express my admiration for what peo-
ple have most criticized about his life and works: his po-
litical activism during WWII siding for the development
of a second front against Hitler; his last films, A King in
New York, A Countess from Hong Kong; and his book,
My Autobiography.
Those who criticized My Autobiography, if they read
it, did not understand it fully. Chaplin’s admirers or any
cinephile can find in it all the answers to any question
that one may have about the birth of an art, the growth of
Hollywood, the revolution of the talkies, the influences
of the Cold War on American life during the *50s, the re-
lationship between glory and wealth, the importance of
early childhood in the growth of personality, the distinc-
tions among the results obtained from one’s gift or one’s
work, and so on. In any case, if one had only one book
to read to understand a century of cinema, I would rec-
ommend My Autobiography.
‘“However, I did not have to read books,’’ Chaplin
writes, “‘to know that the theme of life is conflict and
pain. Instinctively, all my clowning was based on this.
My means of contriving comedy plot was simple. It was
the process of getting people in and out of trouble.’”!
This could be the theory of his art, but no one can keep
me from thinking that all of Chaplin’s work is autobio-
graphical. For example, filmmakers before and after him
described hunger, but if he did it better, it is perhaps be-
cause he knew more about it! When Chaplin started mak-
ing chase films at the Keystone Studios, he ran faster and
farther than his colleagues simply because his life de-
pended on it. He grew up, as he writes in My Autobio-
graphy, *‘in the lower strata of society’’—only a true
Englishman uses such an expression, thus, the impor-
A Man Like Any Other 95
tance of becoming Sir Charles—which triggered the crea-

tion and the composition of the personality of the
‘“‘tramp,’’ a personality which would be labeled today as
‘“‘marginal.’” Yes, a marginal personality, so marginal
that it made Chaplin the most famous of famous men. It
is difficult nowadays, because of the overproduction of
celebrities by television, to imagine how famous Chaplin
was. In the °20s a picture in //lustration showed him
waving from a balcony at Hotel Crillon to a crowd mas-
sed in the Concorde Square. They were celebrating him
and of course thanking him for being alive: ‘‘It seemed
that everyone knew me, but I knew no one,’”’ Chaplin
writes.
Chaplin shows pure introspective lucidity in My Auto-
biography: ‘‘Even though I was just a parvenu,’’ he
writes, ‘“‘people took my opinions seriously.’’
When referring to the art of acting he explains that the
most important point is to have a sense of orientation,
‘‘that is, knowing where you are and what you’re doing
every moment you're on the stage.’”*
Contrary to what some have said, Chaplin did not
preach resignation through his tragi-comic fables. First,
Chaplin brought a message of individual struggle: Char-
lot, the most deprived among the deprived, was able to
escape misery because of his mischievous cunning. Aft-
erwards it was obviously his celebrity that led him to
study other types of struggle relative to justice and injus-
tice. So many reproaches!
And again from My Autobiography an example of
great lucidity: ‘‘Now I felt | was caught up in a political
avalanche. I began to question my motives: How much
was I stimulated by the actor in me and the reaction of a
live audience? Would I have entered this quixotic adven-
ture if I had not made an anti-Nazi film? Was it a subli-
mation of all my irritations and reactions against the talk-

ing pictures? I suppose all these elements were involved,
but the strongest one was my hate and contempt for the
Nazi system.’”
No one could suggest today that Chaplin did not have
the right to engage his universal popularity in this fight,
and greater for this fight, he made a moral obligation at a
time when Hollywood was trying to dissuade him from
his course.
When the topic is about Chaplin or anyone who has
done as much good for others as he, every action be-
comes important. Indeed, Chaplin was the greatest mime
of his time; indeed, he had the talent to make people
laugh and cry, but more, he also had the strength and
courage to become his own screenwriter, his own director
and his own producer. If it took him longer than other
filmmakers to adapt to sound, it is because he also had
the responsibility to cast himself for the screen—a huge
step since his artistic ability had found its perfect expres-
sion in the non-spoken world. Then, we can see that
Monsieur Verdoux, Charlot being abandoned by Chaplin
for the first time, is an absolute success: the construction
of the script, the dialogue, the rhythm, the acting of the
supporting roles—all is outstanding in this film and
above all outstandingly new.
As I write about Chaplin, it seems natural that the
word *‘genius’’ takes form on the keys of my typewriter.
Let’s see what Littré says: ‘exceptionally great ability;
far above average.”’
Charlie Chaplin is dead. He made beautiful films and
beautiful children.
Long and happy life to Geraldine, Josephine, Victoria,
Jane and the others, and also all of our thanks and affec-
tion to Oona who made Charles Chaplin happy in his old
age.
A Man Like Any Other OF.
NOTES
1. Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography (New York: Simon &

Schuster, 1964), p. 211.
Z. lbid.a.p. 23.
Se Ibid esp 17S:
Am ibid py 2a":
5. Ibid., p. 416.
Immortal Charlot! *
by André Bazin
Early Charlots are more and more often redistributed

in movie houses. These Chaplin films, which were made
between 1915 and 1918, entertained our parents and
filled our childhood with joy. It is indeed a very good
sign that there is now a public that chooses its films in-
stead ofjust ‘‘going to the movies.’ The redistribution of
these early Chaplin films is also a proof of his genius.
His works, in an art in constant revolution, are without
any doubt the only ones that can pass the test of time. No
other films from that time could be redistributed in regu-
lar theaters; they could only be projected at ciné-clubs for
the informed public.
A Dog’s Life and Shoulder Arms, the two Charlots
which are shown today are among Chaplin’s best (I am
tempted to say that any Chaplin film is among the best).
Indeed, Chaplin had already mastered his art a year be-
fore he made these two films. With A Dog’s Life and
Shoulder Arms he adds to his mastery a humane density
that would attain its fullness in The Gold Rush; he keeps
a comic freshness and spontaneity that started earlier in
his vaudeville career with his gags and alter ego.
Already, with A Dog’s Life and Shoulder Arms Chap-
lin shows at least 10 examples that belong to the univer-
*Le Parisien libéré June 21, 1949.
Immortal Charlot! 99
sal art: such as the letter that Charlot reads over the
shoulder of a friend happier than he himself—a sublime
touch; also in a famous scene: invisible, Charlot terror-
izes German soldiers as his disguise blends perfectly with
the countryside—an endless perfection reminiscent of a
Moliére scene.
Appendix
Working with a Friend
by André Lafargue*
André Bazin was a film critic at Le Parisien libéré

when I started at the paper’s entertainment desk in 1953.
I had worked previously as a film critic for a rival paper
and already knew Bazin quite well—Bazin and I often
met at the Cannes or Venice Festival. So, I was very glad
to see him at Le Parisien libéré and have the opportunity
to work with him. Of course, I was not going to take his
place, even though he had proposed very gallantly to
share the column. No, Bazin had already acquired a great
reputation and I would never have thought to be involved
in any sort of turfing. Readers would not have understood
it and I would have been disappointed in myself to act in
such a way.
I must point out that Le Parisien libéré was a large cir-
culation daily tabloid with a lot of features and sports but
little politics. However, the director, Claude Bellanger
wanted cultural issues to be treated with special care—
“‘his little corner of good conscience,’’ as he called it.
‘“*Art,’’ ‘‘Literature,’’ and ‘‘Entertainment’’ formed a
special section in the newspaper: ‘‘Mirroir de Paris.’’
This section was managed with vigilance and treated its
readers with respect, shunning any sort of demagogy and
writing articles in simple style.
*André Lafargue is the Editor-in-Chief of Le Parisien libéré.
103
André Bazin, the man from Cahiers du cinéma, known

as the defender of quality cinema, was given complete
freedom to express his opinions. Bazin was well aware
that he was writing for the masses; he always succeeded
in finding the right way to communicate to his readers by
purposely omitting from his articles anything that could
appear pedantic, doctrinal or even too technical.
He thus became very influential and I am certain that
Bazin encouraged a lot of people to go to the movies. He
had the talent for finding the right arguments necessary to
convince the readers to become spectators. One can say,
without any doubt, that Bazin helped elevate the level
of understanding of the average movie-going public.
Through his reviews, he made films, which were consid-
ered esoteric, accessible to the public. He built a bridge
between the so-called commercial films and the auteur
cinema, and he triggered the formation of a new class of
cinephiles. I think that the work he accomplished at Le
Parisien libéré is as important as the work he did for spe-
cialized revues that were aimed at the already informed
public.
Indeed these two forms of criticism complement each
other. For Le Parisien libéré, he helped the public dis-
cover the new forms of cinema and, for Cahiers du cin-
éma, he warned filmmakers of the danger of straying
away from the public.
This is why, when I became entertainment editor, I
found Bazin to be a very reliable asset for Le Parisien
libéré. Furthermore, his articles corresponded exactly to
what I wanted for the newspaper: to elevate the level of
our readers instead of lowering our standards to please
them.
Besides his obvious talents and his power of analysis,
Bazin had a radiant personality that made these days mar-
Working with a Friend 105
velous. His simplicity, his modesty, his friendliness con-

tributed to create a warm atmosphere in our team. His se-
riousness in his work never stopped his appreciation of
humor, even when the joke was on him.
I will never forget his smile, a bit sad, that he kept de-
spite the illness that was slowly killing him. And I would
imagine that he would smile today if he saw the official
tributes honoring him in France and abroad. I know also
that he would be profoundly happy to see that in the
USA, cinephiles are very interested in his work and share
his passion for the seventh art—indeed, his ultimate aim
was to encourage people to love film and to open new
doors for cinema.
Yes, we miss André Bazin.
Selected Bibliography
I. Monograph by André Bazin
In French
Jean Renoir. Préface de Francois Truffaut. Paris: Editions
Champ Libre, 1971.
Orson Welles. Préface de A.S. Labarthe. Paris: Editions
duCert, 19%3:
Charlie Chaplin. Préface de Frangois Truffaut, avec un
texte d’Eric Rohmer. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1973.
Le cinéma de la cruauté. Préface de Francois Truffaut.
Paris: Editions Flammarion, 1975.
Le cinéma de |’occupation et de la résistance. Préface de
Francois Truffaut. Paris: Editions 10/18, 1975.
Qu’ est-ce que le cinéma? Paris: Editions du Cerf, derniére
édition, 1981.
Le cinéma francais de la libération a la nouvelle vague
(1945-1958). Préface de Jean Narboni. Paris: Cahiers
du Cinéma/Editions de l’Etoile, 1983.
In English
What is Cinema? Selected and translated by Hugh Gray.
Preface by Jean Renoir. Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1967.
What is Cinema? Vol. II. Selected and translated by Hugh
Gray. Preface by Francois Truffaut. Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1971.
Jean Renoir. Translated by W. Halselsey If and William
H. Simon. Preface by Frangois Truffaut. New York: Si-
mon & Schuster, 1973.
Orson Welles. Translated by Jonathan Rosenbaum. Pref-
ace by Francois Truffaut. New York: Harper and Row,
1978.
107
French Cinema of the Occupation and Resistance: ‘The

Birth of a Critical Esthetic.’’ Translated by Stanley
Hochman. Preface by Francois Truffaut. New York:
Frederick Ungar, 1981.
The Cinema of Cruelty. Translated by Sabine d’Estrée.
Preface by Francois Truffaut. New York: Seaver
Books, 1982.
Il. Monographs on André Bazin
In French
Andrew, Dudley. André Bazin. Préface de Francois Truf-
faut avec un texte de Jean-Charles Tacchella. Paris:
Editions de |’Etoile/Cahiers du Cinéma/Cinémathéque
Frangaise, 1983.
In English
Andrew, Dudley. André Bazin. Preface by Francois Truf-
faut. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Ill. Periodicals by André Bazin
Cahiers du cinéma
‘*Pour en finir avec la profondeur de champ.’ no 1 (avril
1951), 17-23,
“Un Saint ne l’est qu’apres (La fille des Marais).’’ no 2
(mai 1951), 46-48.
‘Le Journal d'un Curé de Campagne ei la stylistique de
Robert Bresson.”’ no 3 (juin 1951), 7-21.
‘“Le Pour et le contre (Orson Welles).’’ no 4 (juil.-aott
1951), 46-51.
‘“‘Néo-réalisme, opéra et propagande (Le Christ inter-
dit).”’ no 4 (juil.-aoaut 1951), 46-51.
‘‘A propos des reprises.’’ no 5 (sept. 1951), 52-56.
‘““L’Eau danse (Images pour Debussy).’’ no 7 (déc. 1951),
58-59.
‘*Coquelin nous voici: (Cyrano de Bergerac).’’ no 7 (déc.
1951), 61-62.
Selected Bibliography 109
“Mort tous les aprés-midi (La course aux taureaux).’’ no

7 (déc. 1951), 63-65.
“Responses a L’Age du cinéma et a Reflets du cinéma.”
no 7 (déc. 1951), 68-69.
‘Renoir frangais.”’ no 8 (jan. 1952), 9-29.
‘‘Le Ghetto concentrationnaire (Ghetto Teresin).’’ no 9
(fév. 1952), 58-60.
‘‘Livre de cinéma (Raimu).’’ no 9 (fév. 1952), 72.
**L’ Avant-garde nouvelle.’ no 10 (mars 1952), 16-17.
**Remade in U.S.A. (M le Maudit).’’ no 11 (avril 1952),
54-59.
‘‘La foi qui sauve (Cannes 1952).’’ no 13 (juin 1952),
4-11.
*‘Mouche: (Trois Femmes).’’ no 15 (sept. 1952), 13-19.
Le Trompe: loci: Venise 1952." “no 1 6a(oct. 1952),
60-62.
“**Si Charlot ne meure . . . (Limelight).’’ no 17 (nov.
1952)5 245:
‘‘Les Films changent, la censure demeure.”’ no 19 (jan.
1953), 26-29.
“Notes (Le Chemin de I’ Espérance—la Femme du Plan-
eur) no 20 fev. 1953) 761.
‘‘Mina . . . trop Boyle (Mina de Vanghel).’’ no 21 (mars
1953), 55-58.
‘‘A propos de Cannes (Histoire du Festival de 1946 a
1952).’’ no 22 (avril 1953), 55-58.
‘Pour un festival a trois dimensions (Cannes 1953).’’ no
Zo 4mail953). 5-15.
‘‘La Revue des revues.’’ no 24 (juin 1953), 59-60.
‘‘Le réel et Vimaginaire (Crin Blanc).”’ no 25 (juil.
L953); 92-29:
‘*Note (Femmes en cage).’’ no 25 (juil. 1953), 57.
‘Livre de cinéma (Dieux au cinéma par Ayfré).’’ no 25
(juil. 1953), 60-61.
‘La Revue des revues.’’ no 26 (aout 1953), 63-64.
‘*Petit dictionnaire pour Venise 1953.”’ no 27 (sept.
1953), 10-13, 18-20.
‘De Vambiguité (La Charge victorieuse).’’ no 27 (sept.

1953), 49-54.
‘“‘La Revue des revues.’’ no 27 (sept. 1953), 63.
‘*Note (La Dame aux Cameélias).’? no 29 (nov. 1953), 60.
‘‘Le CinémaScope: Fin du montage.’’ no 31 (jan. 1954),
43.
“Un film au téléobjectif (Le Petit Fugitif).’’ no 31 (jan.
1954), 49-52.
‘‘Les incertitudes de la fidélité (Le Blé en Herbe).”’ no 32
(fév. 1954), 37-42.
‘*Note sur De Sica,’’ no 33 (mars 1954), 36-39.
‘Un festival de la culture cinématagraphique (Sao-Paulo
1954).”’ no 34 (avril 1954), 23-29.
‘‘Notes sur Cannes 1954.”’ no 34 (avril 1954), 30-37.
oi
‘‘Je voudrais bien vous y voir (Cannes) no 35 (mai
1954), 38-42.
*‘Entretien avec Luis Bunuel.’’ no 36 (juin 1954), 22-27..
‘La Cybernétique d’André Cayatte,’’ no 36 (juin 1954),
2221.
**Petit journal intime du cinéma.”’ no 38 (aout 1954),
36-40.
“Hitchcock contre Hitchcock.”’ no 39 (juil. 1954),
2OrS2.
“L’autre ‘Festival de Cannes’ (Festival of Amateur
Film).’’ no 40 (aoat 1954), 51-53.
““Des caracteres (Le Rouge et le Noir).”’ no 41 (sept.
1954), 38-40.
*‘Récitation épique (Les Lettres de mon Moulin).’’ no 41
(sept. 1954), 44-45.
‘*Pour contribuer a une érotologie de la télévision.”’’ no 42
(déc. 1954), 23-26, 74-76.
‘Les dix meilleurs films de 1954.’’ no 43 (jan. 1955), 5.
“Le style c’est le genre (Les Diaboliques).’’ no 43 (jan.
1955), 42-43.
‘‘Comment peut-on étre Hitchcocko-hawksien?’’ no 44
(fév. 1955), 17-18.
‘*Portrait d’Auguste Renoir (French Can-Can).’’ no 47

(mai 1955), 35-38.
“Du festival considéré comme un ordre.’’ no 38 (juin
1955), 6-8.
‘“‘Ephémerides cannois (Cannes 1955).’’ no 38 (juin
1953), 9-22.
‘‘Un peu tard (place de Cinérama).’’ no 48 (juin 1955),
45-47.
‘“‘Naples cruelle (L’Or de Naples).’? no 48 (juin 1955),
47-52.
**Petit journal intime du cinéma.”’ no 49 (juil. 1955), 35.
‘Petit journal intime du cinéma.’’ no 50 (aoat 1955),
35-38.
““Le courrier des lecteurs.’’ no 59 (aoait 1955), 55-57.
**Le Festival de Venise 1955.’’ no 51 (sept. 1955), 10.
“*Petit journal intime du cinéma.”’ no 51 (sept. 1955), 36.
**Evolution du western.’’ no 54 (déc. 1955), 22-27.
.
‘Les dix meilleurs films de 1955.’’ no 55 (jan. 1956), 7.
‘‘Beauté d’un western (The Man from Laramie).’’ no 55
(jan. 1956), 33-36.
“*Petit journal de cinéma.’’ no 56 (fev. 1956), 34.
‘*‘Le voyage a Punta del Este.’’ no 58 (avril 1956), 25-28.
“Un film bergsonien: Le Mystére Picasso.”’ no 60 (juin
1956); 25.
‘‘Rhythme éthique ou la preuve par le neuf.’’ no 62 (aout
1956), 932.
‘*Petit journal intime du cinéma.”’ no 62 (aodt 1956), 35.
‘‘Palmarés venitiens.’’ no 63 (sept. 1956), 2-4.
‘‘Montage interdit (Le Ballon rouge—Une Fée pas comme
les autres), no 65 (nov. 1956), 32-41.
‘‘Les dix meilleurs films de 1956.’’ no 67 (jan. 1957), 2.
‘*Hélas: (Notre-Dame de Paris).’’ no 67 (jan. 1957), 55.
‘*Mort d’Humphrey Bogart.’’ no 68 (fév. 1957), 3.
‘*Petit journal intime du cinéma.”’ no 50 (fév. 1957), 36.
‘*Mélo et choeur antique (La Fille en noir).”’ no 68 (fév.
1957, 1:
‘*Petit journal intime du cinéma.’’ no 69 (mars 1957), 36.
‘‘Le néo-réalisme se retourne (L’Amore in Citta).’’ no 69

(mars 1967), 44-46.
‘*Les crabes de la colére (Les Bateaux de I’ Enfer).’’ no 69
(mars 1957), 50.
‘‘De la politique des auteurs.’’ no 70 (avril 1957), 2-10.
‘‘En marge de ‘L’éroticisme au cinéma.’ *’ no 70 (avril
EGS), 205
‘‘Entretien avec Jacques Flaud.’’ no 71 (mai 1957), 4-16.
‘‘Dix personnages en quéte d’auteurs.”’ no 71 (mai 1957),
16-30.
*Gannes 1957" no 72 (jum 1957), 27.
‘‘Un western exemplaire (Seven Men From Now).”’ no 74
(aodt 1957), 45.
‘*Venise 1957.’’ no 75 (sept. 1957), 35-44.
‘*Petit journal du cinéma.’’ no 75 (sept. 1957), 47.
““Cabiria, ou le voyage au bout du néo-réalisme (Le Notti
de Cabiria).’’ no 76 (oct. 1957), 2.
‘*Petit journal du cinéma.’’ no 76 (oct. 1957), 40.
‘*Petit journal du cinéma.’’ no 77 (nov. 1957), 43.
*“‘Biofilmographie de Jean Renoir.’’ no 78 (déc. 1957),
59-86.
“Les dix meilleurs films de 1957.’’ no 79 (jan. 1958), 3.
‘*Haute infidélité (The Bridge on the River Kwai).’’ no 80
(fev; 1958) 50-53;
*‘Entretien avec Jacques Tati.”’ no 83 (mai 1958), 2-20.
**Petit journal du cinéma.’’ no 83 (oct. 1958), 2-20.
““Les périls de Perri (Perri).’’ no 83 (mai 1958), 50-53.
‘‘Entretien avec Orson Welles.”’ no 84 (juin 1958), 1.
“Cannes 1958.’ no 84 (juin 1958), 22.
‘Bruxelles 1958: le Festival Mondial du Film.’’? no 85
Gul 1958);5:
“Livre de cinéma (Hitchcock par Rohmer et Chabrol).”’
no 86 (aodt 1958), 59.
‘‘Entretien avec Orson Welles (II).’’ no 87 (sept. 1958),
Paapaie
““L’oeuvre d’Orson Welles,’’ no 87 (sept. 1958), 36-51.
**Petit journal du cinéma.”’ no 87 (sept. 1958), 50.
Selected Bibliography i)
‘“Hors des sentiers battus (The Goddess).’’ no 88 (oct.

1958), 50-52.
‘‘Orniéres de la sociologie (Ten North Frederick).’’ no 88
(oct. 1958), 32-34.
‘‘Honnéte métier (Le Gorille vous salue bien).’’ no 88
(oct. 1958), 54.
‘Grosses ficelles (Le Médecin de Stalingrad).’’ no 88
(oct. 1958), 54.
‘Livre de cinéma: Orson Welles chez les Jivaros (Orson
Welles, le magnifique par Noble).’’ no 88 (oct. 1958),
57-61.
**Gags et fantaisie (Fortunella).’’ no 89 (nov. 1958), 62.
‘*Propos sur la télévision.”’ no 89 (déc. 1958), 21-25.
“De la difficulté d’étre Coco.’’ no 91 (jan. 1959), 52.
‘*Les €glises romanes de Saintogne.’’ no 100 (oct. 1959),
a
Esprit
“Le Cinéma pur (La Bataille du Rail et Ivan le Terri-
ble).’’ XIV, no 121 (1946), 667-72.
“Le Cinéma (Scarface).’’ XIV, no 122 (1948), 841-44.
**Le Cinéma: a propos de Pourquoi nous combattons: His-
toire, documents, et actualité.”’ XIV, no 123 (1946),
1022-26.
“*Réflexions aprés le Festival de Cannes.’’ XIV, no 128
(1947), 908-13.
‘‘Farrebique ou le paradoxe du réalisme.”’ XV, no 132
(1947), 676-80.
‘‘A propos de l’échec américain au Festival de Brux-
elles.”’ XV, no 137 (1947), 28-32.
‘Cannes Festival 47.’’ XV, no 139 (1947), 773-74.
‘‘Le Réalisme cinématographique et Les Raisins de la
colére.’’ XVI, no 142 (1948), 297-300.
‘‘L’ Adaptation ou le cinéma comme digeste.’’ XVI, no
146 (1948), 32-40.
“‘Le Festival de Venise.’’ XVI, no 155 (1948), 901-10.
‘‘Films d’enfants: Quelque part en Europe et Allemagne
année zero.’’ XVII, no 156 (1949), 684-89.

‘‘La Mort a l’écran.’’ XVII, no 159 (1948), 441-43.
‘‘Une Demi-douzaine de Festivals.”’ XVHI, no 161
(1949), 807-10.
‘‘Sur les films de peinture: Réponse a Bourniquel.’’
XVII, no 161 (1949), 817-20.
‘‘Le Voleur de bicyclette ou |’ épreuve victorieuse du néo-
réalisme italien.’’ XVIII, no 161 (1949), 820-32.
‘*Cinéma: Louisiana Story: Le Troisiéme homme.’’? XVU,
no 162 (1949), 976-77.
‘The Set-Up.’’ XVIII, no 164 (1950), 329.
‘‘Le Cinéma soviétique et le mythe de Staline.’’ XVIII,
no 170 (1959), 210-35.
‘Cinéma et théologie.’’ XIX, no 180 (1951), 237-45.
e Théatre et cinéma 1."* XIX, no 176 (1951), 891-905.
““Théatre et cinéma II.’’ XIX, no 180 (sic)-181 (1951),
232-93.
““Camé et la désincarnation.”’ XIX, no 182 (1951),
400-05.
‘Bibliotheque rose et film noir (Le Voyage en Amér-
ique).’’ XX, no 186 (1952), 70-75.
“Los Olvidados’’. XX, no 186 (1952), 85-89.
““Les deux époques de Jean Renoir.’’ XX, no 188 (1952),
500-12.
**Un Genre nouveau?’’ XX, no 192 (1952), 107-09.
“‘L’Enfance sans mythes: Jeux interdits..’ XX, no 197
(19352); 971-75,
“Résistance du chef-d’oeuvre (Limelight).’’ XXI, no 199
(1953), 246-48.
“*Précieux Stakanov: Un Eté prodigieux.’’ XXI, no 200
(1953), 444-45.
‘*Grandeur de Limelight.’ XXI, no 201 (1953), 624-33.
**Cinémascope: sauvera-t-il le cinéma?’’ X XI, no 207-208
(1953); 672-83.
““De la carolinasation de France (Caroline chérie).”’
XXII, no 211 (1954), 298-304.
“La Portede l’enfer.”’ X XIE, no 217-218 (1954), 276-78.
Selected Bibliography iS
*“Des romans et des films: M. Ripois avec ou sans némé-

sis. XXII, no 217-218 (1954), 313-21.
“Mort d’un cycliste—Les mauvaise recontres—French
Cancan.”’ XXIII, no 233 (1955), 1907-10.
‘Cinéma et engagement,’’ XXV, no 249 (1957), 681-84.
C. Le Parisien libéré
“‘Dernier Métro.’’ (11 juillet 1945).
‘*Festival Charlot.’’ (6 juin 1946).
“Citizen Kane.’’ (5 juillet 1946).
**Théatre et cinéma.’’ (9 aoat 1946).
*‘Jean Renoir.’’ (24 Janvier 1947).
“‘Jean-Paul Sartre Vedette du jour au Festival de
Cannes.’’ (18 aoat 1947).
‘““Le plus grand film de résistance du monde: Paisa.’’ (1%
octobre 1947).
“‘Quand les microbes’ jouent les vedettes—un festival
méconnu: celui du film scientifique.’’ (10 octobre
1947).
‘‘Monsieur Verdoux \e martyr de Charlot.’’? (14 janvier
1948).
“Orson Welles m’a dit . . .”’ (2 septembre 1948)
**Va-t-on enseigner le cinéma sous les ponts?’’ (13 octo-
bre 1948).
“‘Les Jeux Olympiques de Londres 1948.’’ (8 decembre
1948).
‘“‘Immortel Charlot!’’ (21 juillet 1949).
“Set up a reveillé a coups de poing le festival ou régne la
corvée du smoking.’ (17 septembre 1949).
‘*Venise: Grace 4a la télévision.’’ (10 octobre 1952).
‘“‘Les Feux de la rampe’’: nouveau film de Chaplin, sont
un bouleversant poéme.’’ (31 octobre 1952).
‘‘Le souvenir d’un Chien Andalou a réveillé le Festival.”’
9 avril. 1953).
“Je 7°™* art tel qu’on |’écrit. Avant-garde et mysticisme
au cinéma.’’ (23 aoat 1953).
‘‘Les enfants d’Hiroshima. Pélerinage de |’Apocalypse,
néo-réalisme japonais.’’ (10 mars 1954).

‘*Huis-clos. Un film curieux.’’ (26 décembre 1954).
‘Johnny Guitare: Variation brillante sur quelques notes
connues.’’ (18 février 1955).
‘‘La Strada: Le chemin de la poésie.’’ (17 mars 1955).
‘‘Les Sept Samourais: un western japonais!”’ (7 décembre
1953)
‘‘Le Monde du silence. A quoi révent les poissons?”’
‘Grace a Clouzot il n’y a plus de Mystere Picasso.”’
‘‘A Cannes, un ‘Ballon rouge’ est le héros du festival
officiel. Bunuel et Orson Welles justifient le Festival
officieux.’’ (S mai 1956).
L’ homme qui en savait trop. Une piste a suivre Hitchcock
maitre du suspens.’’ (13 octobre 1956).
‘‘La Poupée de chair: Un feu dans le coton.”’ (3 janvier
(1957).
“La vengeance de Scarface: sans rancune!’’ (29 juillet
LOS?)
“Voici la nouvelle B.B. telle que je |’ai vue a Madrid ot
elle tourne sous la direction de Vadim Les Bijoutiers du
Clair de lune.’’ (10 octobre 1957).
“‘La ronde de l’Aube. Faulkner a |’écran.’’ (21 aoit
1958).
D. DOC Education Populaire
**Paisa de Rossellini.’’ 47, no 2-3 (1947).
**Monsieur Verdoux.’’ 48, no 6 (1948).
**Le mouvement du Ciné-Club en France depuis la Libé-
ration. Conseil aux animateurs des Ciné Clubs.’’ 48, no
7 (1948).
“L’ Ecole Buissonniére de Le Chanois.’’ 49, no 35
(1949).
‘“Le Paysage au cinéma.’’ 49, no 36 (1949).
E. Arts
“Le temps rend justice aux Temps Modernes.’’ (13-19
octobre 1954), 1-3.
‘“Techniques Nouvelles’’ (1°'-7 juin 1955).
F. Les Temps Modernes

‘‘La Technique de Citizen Kane.’ Il, no 17 (1947),
943-49.
““Défense de Monsieur Verdoux.’’ III], no 27 (1947),
ii abeoye
G. France-Observateur
““Faut-il croire en Hitchcock?’’ (17 janvier 1952), 23-4.
“Un sur-western. Le train sifflera trois fois.’’ (9 octobre
1952); 21-2.
‘‘Napoléon d’ Abel Gance.’’ (10 mars 1955), 30.
“Télévision: le monde chez soi.’’ (5 janvier 1956), 14.
‘La télévision: culture.’’ (19 janvier 1956), 14.
“‘Sociologie de la télévision.’’ (26 janvier 1956), 15.
‘‘La télévision et la relance du cinéma.’’ (26 avril 1956),
14.
“Télévision et cinéma.’’ (31 mai 1956), 18.
‘*La ruée vers l’or.”’ (5 juillet 1956), 18.
‘Télévision: Panorama des émissions de variétés.””
‘Regards sur la télévision.’’ (20 aoat 1957), 15.
“‘Un roi a New York.’’ (31 octobre 1957), 22.
‘Verdict critiquable des critiques de télévision.’’ (26 dé-
cembre 1957), 21.
‘‘Les Amants’’ (10 novembre 1958).
IV. Writings about André Bazin
Andrew, James Dudley. Realism and Reality in Cinéma: The

Film Theory of André Bazin and its Source in Recent French
Thought. Ph.D. dissertation, The University of lowa, 1972.
- . The Major Film Theories: An Introduction. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Agel, Henri. Esthétique du cinéma. Paris: Universitaires de
France, 1966.
Bibliography of Bazin. Cahiers du cinéma, no 103 (jan.
1960), 26.
Bodon, Jean. ‘‘Le témoignage de Jean Bodon, universitaire
americain.’’ Le Parisien libéré, mai 15, 1983, 7.

. André Bazin’s Charlie Chaplin: An Annotated Trans-
lation and Analysis of Text Based on Methods Derived From
‘‘De la politique des auteurs.’’ Ph.D. dissertation, The
Florida State University, 1984.
27
Bremond, Charles. “*‘Qu’est-ce que le cinéma? III (rev.)
Communications, U (1961), 211-20.
Cahiers du cinéma no 91 (jan. 1959). Issue of articles and
‘‘temoignanges’’ devoted to Bazin.
. no 126 (décembre, 1961). Special issue on criticism.
. no 347 (mai, 1983). Issue of articles devoted to
Bazin.
Esprit, no 273 (mai 1959), 835-51. Remembrances of Bazin.
Gozlan, Gerald. ‘‘Les Délices de l’ambiguité: éloge d’ André
Bazin.’’ Positif, no 46 (juin 1962), 39-69, and no 47 (juil.
1962), 16-60.
Harcourt, Peter. “‘What Indeed is Cinema?’’ Cinema Journal,
VII, No. 1 (fall 1968), 22-28.
Henderson, Brian. ‘‘Two Types of Film Theory.”’ Film Quar-
terly, XXIV, No. 3 (spring 1971), 33-41.
Insdorf, Annette. Francois Truffaut, New York: William Mor-
row and Company, Inc., 1979.
Kael, Pauline. ‘‘Behind the New Wave.’’ New York Times,
Sept. 10: 1967, seen 7: ipl:
Mast, Gerald; and Cohen, Marshal. Film Theory and Criti-
cism: Introductory Readings, Second edition. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1979.
Michelson, Annette. ‘*What is Cinema? (rev.).’’ Artforum, VI,
no 10 (1968), 66-71.
Positif, no 36 (novembre 1960). Special issue ‘‘Enquéte sur la
critique.””
Roud, Richard. “‘Face to Face: André Bazin.’’ Sight and
Sound, XXVIII, No. 3-4 (1959), 176-79.
. ‘André Bazin: His Rise and Fall.’’ Sight and Sound,
XXVII, no 2 (1968), 94-96.
Sarris, Andrew. ‘‘Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962.’’ Film
Culture Reader. Edited by Sitney. New York: Praeger,
1970:
. ‘‘Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1972.’’ Film Com-

ment, VI, no 3 (Fall 1970).
Weyergans, F. “‘Lecture d’André Bazin.’’ Cahiers du cinéma,
no 116 (fév. 1961), 56-59.
. “‘Qu’est-ce que le cinéma’’ IV (rev.).’’ Cahiers du
cinéma, no 148 (octobre 1963), 65-66.
Wollen, Peter. Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. Blooming-
ton: University of Indiana, 1968.
VY. Monographs on Charles Chaplin
Agee, James. Agee on Film. New York: McDowell-

Obolensky, 1958.
Asplund, Uno. Chaplin’s Films. Translated by Paul Britten
Austin. Newton Abbott, England: Davis and Charles, 1973.
Bazin, André; and Rohmer, Eric. Charlie Chaplin. Preface by
Francois Truffaut. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1972.
Bowman, William Dodgson. Charlie Chaplin: His Life and
Art. New York: John Day, 1931.
Buchanan, Andrew. Films: the Ways of the Cinema. London:
Pitman, 1932.
Chaplin, Charles Jr. My Father, Charlie Chaplin. With N. and
M. Rau. New York: Random House, 1960.
Chaplin, Michael. 1 Can’t Smoke the Grass on My Father's
Lawn. New York: Putnam, 1966.
Delluc, Louis. Charlot. Paris: Maurice de Brunhoff, 1921.
English Edition, Charlie. Translated by Hamish, Miles.
London: The Bodley Head, 1922; American Edition, New
York: John Lane, 1922.
Durgnat, Raymond. The Crazy Mirror: Hollywood Comedy
and the American Image. New York: Horizon, 1970.
Eisenstein, Sergei. Notes of a Film Director. New York:
Dover, 1970.
Finke, Blythe Foote. Charlie Chaplin: Famous Silent Movie
Actor and Comic. Charlotteville, New York: Sam Har Press,
O72.
Florey, Robert. Hollywood d’hier et d’ aujourd'hui Paris: Edi-
tions Prisma, 1948.
Fronval, Georges. Charlie Chaplin. Paris: Films A.R., 1944.

Gehring, Wes D. Charlie Chaplin: A Bio-Bibliography. West-
port: Greenwood Press, 1983.
Georges-Michel, Michel. Gens de Théatre, 1900-1940. New
York: Brentano’s, 1942.
Gifford, Denis. Chaplin. Garden City, New York: Doubleday,
1974.
Hannon, W.M. The Photodrama: Its Place Among the Fine
Arts. New Orleans: The Ruskin Press, 1915.
Huff, Theodore. Charlie Chaplin. New York: Abelard-Schu-
man, 1951. rpt. New York: Henry Shuman, 1972.
Jacobs, David. Chaplin, The Movies, and Charlie. New York:
Harper and Row, 1975.
Kauffman, Stanley. American Film Criticism, with Bruce Hen-
stell. New York: Liveright, 1972.
Kerr, Walter. The Silent Clowns. New York: Knopf, 1975.
Leprohon, Pierre. Charlot et la naissance d'un myth. Paris:
Editions Corymbe, 1935; 1946; 1957.
Madden, David. Harlequin’s Stick, Charlie's Cane. Bowling
Green, Ohio: Popular Press, 1975.
Manvell, Roger. Chaplin. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974.
Manvell, Roger. Film. London: Penguin Books, 1946.
McCabe, John. Charlie Chaplin. New York: Doubleday,
1978.
McCaffrey, Donald W., ed. Focus on Chaplin. Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
McCaffrey, Donald W. Four Great Comedians. New York:
Barnes, 1968.
McDonald, Gerald D.; Conway, Michael; and Ricci, Mark.
The Films of Charlie Chaplin. New York: Citadel, 1965.
Mikhail, E.H. Comedy and Tragedy: A Bibliography of Criti-
cal Studies. Troy, New York: Whitston, 1972.
Minney, Rubeigh James. Chaplin, the Immortal Tramp. Lon-
don: G. Newnes, 1955.
Mitry, Jean. Charlot et la ‘‘Fabulation’’ Chaplinesque. Paris:
Editions Universitaires, 1957.
Moss, Robert F. Charlie Chaplin. New York: Pyramid, 1975.
Selected Bibliography ea
Pickford, Mary. Sunshine and Shadow. Garden City, New

York: Doubleday, 1955.
Pitkin, Walter B., and Marston, William M. The Art of Sound
Pictures. New York: Appleton, 1930.
Poulaille, Henry. Charles Chaplin. Paris: Grasset, 1927.
Quigley, Isabel. Charlie Chaplin: Early Comedies. London:
Studio Vista, 1968.
Raymond, Edouard. La passion de Charlie Chaplin. Paris:
Librairie Baudiniére, 1929.
Robson, E.W., and M.M. The Film Answers Back. London:
John Lane and the Bodley Head, 1947.
Schwob, René, Une mélodie silencieuse. Paris: Grasset, 1929.
Tyler, Parker. Chaplin, Last of the Clowns. New York: Van-
guard Press, 1947; Horizon Press, 1972.
Tyler, Parker. The Magic and the Myth of the Movies. New
York: Henry Holt, 1947.
Untermeyer, Louis. Makers of the Modern World. New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1955.
Vincent, Carl. Histoire de l'art cinématographique. Bruxelles:
Les Editions du Trident, 1939.
Von Ulm, Gerith. Charlie Chaplin, Kind of Tragedy. Cald-
well, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1940.
VI. Monographs by Charles Chaplin
Charles Chaplin’s Own Story. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,

1916.
My Trip Abroad. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922.
A Comedian Sees the World. New York: Crowell, 1933.
My Autobiography. 1964; rpt. New York: Pocket Books, 1966.
My Life in Pictures. 1974; rpt. New York: Grosser and Dun-
lap, 1975.
FILMS by
CHARLES CHAPLIN
J. KEYSTONE
1914 Making a Living
Kid Auto Races at Venice
Mabel’s Strange Predicament
Between Showers
A Film Johnnie
Tango Tangles
His Favorite Pastime
Cruel, Cruel Love
The Star Boarder
Mabel at the Wheel
Twenty Minutes of Love
Caught in a Cabaret
Caught in the Rain
A Busy Day
The Fatal Mallet
Her Friend the Bandit
The Knockout
Mabel’s Busy Day
Mabel’s Married Life
Laughing Gas
The Property Man
The Face on the Bar-room Floor
Recreation
The Masquerader
His New Profession
The Rounders
The New Janitor
123
Those Love Pangs

Dough and Dynamite
Gentlemen of Nerve
His Musical Career
His Trysting Place
Tillie’s Punctured Romance
Getting Acquainted
His Prehistoric Past
II. ESSANAY
1915 His New Job
A Night Out
The Champion
In the Park
The Jitney Elopement
The Tramp
By the Sea
Work
A Woman
The Bank
Shanghaied
A Night in the Show
1916 Carmen
Police
1918 Triple Trouble
Hl. MUTUAL
1916 The Floorwalker

The Fireman
The Vagabond
One A.M.
The Count
The Pawnshop
Behind the Screen
The Rink
1917 Easy Street
Films by Charles Chaplin 125
The Cure
The Immigrant
The Adventurer
IV. FIRST NATIONAL

1918 A Dog’s Life
The Bond
Shoulder Arms
1919 Sunnyside
A Day’s Pleasure
1920 The Kid
The Idle Class
1922 Pay Day
1923 The Pilgrim
V. UNITED ARTISTS FILMS
1923 A Woman of Paris

1925 The Gold Rush
1928 The Circus
1931 City Lights
1936 Modern Times
1940 The Great Dictator
1947 Monsieur Verdoux
1953 Limelight
1957 A King in New York
VI. UNIVERSAL
1966 A Countess from Hong Kong
lf thisseOOok has taken me back to Chaplin the clown
and the pleasure of his movies, it has done so in large part
~- because of fireless and serious scholarship.... The direct
style of the introduction, the informative notes, the surprise
article that serves as an appendix. must force usto read
these essays as closely as these essayists watched the
films. Let not the slenderness of this book mislead us. It is as
subtle, detailed, and thickly human as, say, The Pawnshop,
or any essay by Bazin, the greatest critic the cinema has
_ had. Happily his spirit, like that of Chaplin, is still with us.”
—Dudley Andrew, Author of André Bazin, The Major
_ _ Film Theories and Conceptsi in Film Theory
“There is no question: André Bazin is the creative film critic

of his generation—Francois Truffaut the greatest of the
French Nouvelle Vague directors—Eric Rohmer the most
_ pensive one—and Jean Renoir is an ange! who after »
becoming human was still allowedto profess hisangelic”
_Skilis on celluloid. | don't think one can find better people
with whom to discuss this man who was my very first and
biggest love affair with the movies: Charles Chaplin.”
—NMilos Forman, Director of One Flew Over the
- Cuckoo's Nesi and Amadeus.’
“This translation and selection of articles, never published.

in America, has been done with intelligenceand ~ —
sensitivity. It follows the complexities of the French text, -
respecting the literal meaning and yet rendering its finer
-Subtleties. It is visibly Q four de force..
—Antoine Spacagna, The Florida State University
‘.. Jean Bodon’s work is extensive and precise.... | hope

that this edition of quality willbe pombe one day..
(February 1984)
—Frangols Truffaut, Director of Jules and Jim and
The Man vale Loved peels
cover design
by rachel mathieu _

Essays On Chaplin by Andre Bazin

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Essays On Chaplin by Andre Bazin

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

essays on chaplin —

edited and translated by jeanbodon

Edited and Translated by Jean Bodon

| / UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAVEN PRESS

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 84-052687

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

André Bazin was right when he said time would re-

Essays on Chaplin is a unique collection of articles on

Essays on Chaplin is dedicated to the memory of

1. Charles Chaplin, My Autobiography (New York: Simon &

Charles Chaplin is the most renowned filmmaker in the

1. Keystone’s 1914 films were never copyrighted. Small scenes

First shown : February 5, 1936

Producer : Charles Chaplin

Director : Charles Chaplin

Story/Screenplay : Charles Chaplin

Cinematography : Roland Totheroh; Ira Morgan

Music : Charles Chaplin

Art Director : Charles Hall; J. Russell Spencer

Assistant Directors : Henry Bergman; Carter DeHaven

Production : Alfred Reeves: Jack Wilson

Distributor > Chaplin—United Artists

Cast : Charles Chaplin (a worker), Paulette Goddard

Modern Times was received in 1936 with few reserva-

*Arts, no. 485, October 13, 1954.

It is nothing less than a film a thése and if Chaplin as-

ment as well as the psychological depth of the plot—his

ladder, of an alarm clock, of a staircase, and of a collaps-

seemed obsolete and anachronistic at the time. But in

1. From Modern Times to Limelight, Chaplin’s popularity declined

6. Chester Conklin (1888-1971) was a member of Mack Sennett’s

The Great Dictator

First shown : October 15, 1940

Producer : Charles Chaplin

Director : Charles Chaplin

Story/Screenplay : Charles Chaplin (from an idea by Alexander

Cinematography : Roland Totheroh; Karl Struss

Music : Charles Chaplin

Art Director : J. Russell Spencer

Assistant Directors: Daniel James; Wheeler Dryden; Robert Meitzer

Distributor : Chaplin—United Artists

Cast : Charles Chaplin (Hinkel and the barber),

For those who grant Charlot, within the framework of

*Esprit, no. 12, November 1, 1945.

matched the fame of the ‘‘littlke man’? from The Gold

Out of it he fashioned Hinkel. For what is Hinkel but

matrix of his personality. In Capra’s montages, Hitler has

1. Bazin sees three different persons in Chaplin: Charles Spencer

maker, and ‘‘Charlot,’’ the product created by both Charles Spencer

or less imperfectly. ‘‘Hitler + Charlot = Hinkel’ is the formula in

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That's

*The concluding speech of The Dictator.

goodness in man, cries out for universal brotherhood, for

people. Now let us fight to free the world, to do away

1. Chaplin’s mother was named Hannah.

First shown : April 11, 1947

Producer : Charles Chaplin

Director : Charles Chaplin

Story/Screenplay : Charles Chaplin (from an idea by Orson Welles)

Cinematography : Roland Totheroh; Curt Courant; Wallace

Editor : Willard Nico

Music : Charles Chaplin.

Art Director : John Beckman

Associate Director : Robert Florey