Charlie's Angles

Charlie's angles


By Glenn Whipp
Film Writer


Geraldine Chaplin felt like she knew her father pretty well until she watched a
new documentary about his life, "Charlie: The Life and Times of Charlie
Chaplin,' which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month.

She had seen all his movies and she had a lifetime of memories of her dad
performing pratfalls to the delight of his children. But she had never put two
and two together and realized how the great Chaplin was depending upon his
kids' laughter and approval.

"He was always acting out,' says the 56-year-old Chaplin, an actress who has
fashioned a remarkable career of her own. "In the documentary, you see my
mother's home movies where daddy's doing magic tricks or tripping down the path
or pretending to be Napoleon. And then you see him doing the exact same bits in
his early films.

"And there was something so touching about that,' she continues. "I always knew
my father loved to perform. But I never knew it was such a need. And as he grew
older, his audience had been reduced to his kids.' Chaplin lets out a deep
sigh. "I tell you, at Cannes, when the movie was finished, a lot of people were
crying.'

Discovering Charlie Chaplin is one of the greatest pleasures a movie lover can
have. And while the average person's revelations might not be as profound or
personal as the insights recently gathered by his daughter, this year is likely
to bring many new converts into the fold -- people who see Chaplin's Tramp for
the first time and realize what the fuss is all about.

Arriving in stores Tuesday is the first wave of Warner Home Video's Chaplin
collection, a series of DVDs designed to dazzle the faithful but, more
importantly, to initiate the newcomers. Because of squabbling among Chaplin's
eight children, the movies have been pretty much out of circulation for a
number of years. What was available wasn't the best quality, either. Until
Warner came along, though, none of the heirs could agree how to proceed.

"There was the side of the family that were the purists and practically only
wanted the films seen in cathedrals with everyone on their knees,' Geraldine
says. "Then there others like myself who want to see him everywhere, including
the Marks & Spencer underwear. We're still fighting like cats and dogs, but at
least now the movies are out there.'

Clearly marvelous

The first four to arrive are digitally remastered versions of "Gold Rush'
(1925), "Modern Times' (1936), "The Great Dictator' (1940) and "Limelight'
(1952). The clarity of the picture will astonish anyone accustomed to seeing
Chaplin cavort in scratchy, faded transfers. These DVDs -- each packaged in
two-disc sets supplemented by generous extras -- make Chaplin into a living
figure again and demonstrate why he is one of the indisputable geniuses of
cinema's first century.

"You look at the enormity of the life he had to lead,' says film historian
Richard Schickel, who wrote and directed "Charlie,' a Chaplin documentary
currently playing the film festival circuit. "He wasn't just a guy making
movies, he was a world-class celebrity without parallel. It was a life that,
even today, is almost unimaginable to try to live. And yet he kept making these
wonderful films.

"Even movies that are not total successes like 'Modern Times,' still have these
breathtaking sequences in their comic inventiveness and comic intelligence,'
Schickel adds. "Or in the more ignored silent films like 'Shoulder Arms' and
'The Immigrant,' you see the ability to create these wonderfully inventive
comic lines that just extend on and on and on. And you begin to say, 'He was a
master of the medium.' '

Schickel had no problem finding people who agreed with him on that point,
interviewing modern masters like Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Milos Forman
for his movie. Young Hollywood is represented as well; Robert Downey Jr., who
played Chaplin in Richard Attenborough's biopic, expresses his appreciation,
while Johnny Depp talks of the difficulty of performing Chaplin's famous "dance
of the rolls' in "Benny & Joon.'

In fact, mention Chaplin to just about anyone who knows an iota about film and
you'll be greeted with an enthusiasm that few subjects can rival. It's no
accident that Chaplin received the longest standing ovation in Academy Awards
history when he returned to the United States in 1972 to collect an honorary
Oscar. The later films may be flawed, but his Tramp character remains the
embodiment of humanity's unconquerable spirit, a character both abstract and
universal that to this day towers as one of the most recognizable icons in
movie history.

An American Everyman

"The Tramp is the first quintessential American character on the screen,' says
Dustin Hoffman, who introduced a recent Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra screening
of Chaplin's greatest film, "City Lights.' "At the time, this country was full
of 'tramps,' people who came to America because other countries didn't want
them. These people had an energy and an indomitable spirit, and you see that in
Chaplin's character. It's an amazing achievement, particularly coming from
someone who was an immigrant himself.'

"He was not only the most famous actor in the whole world, he was the most
loved,' Geraldine Chaplin says. "When I started my career, I didn't hear
anything like, 'Oh, she got that part because she's Charlie Chaplin's
daughter.' Everyone felt that Charlie Chaplin was their brother, and so they
wanted their niece to be good. I was surrounded in a cocoon of love.'

The question is: Will today's audiences feel the love? Warner Home Video has
made a mint off of classic titles like "The Wizard of Oz,' "Casablanca' (a
two-disc 60th anniversary edition arrives in August) and "Gone With the Wind,'
but those are movies that have benefited from being television perennials.
Chaplin's movies, meanwhile, have been largely absent, leaving younger
generations to know (vaguely) his image but not his work.

But it isn't a stretch to say that Chaplin's satiric indictment of the
mechanization of everyday life in "Modern Times' is as fresh and relevant today
as it was 67 years ago or that his plea for peace and understanding at the end
of "The Great Dictator' is every bit as necessary now as when Hitler was in
power. The emotions are so basically human that it's hard to imagine anyone not
being moved by their power.

"I think he still has absolutely everything to say to audiences today,'
Geraldine Chaplin says. "I just saw 'The Great Dictator' at the Berlin Film
Festival, and it was amazing to see that film 100 yards from Hitler's bunker
with a cinema full of 2,000 people. It blew their minds. It's today. The movie
could have been made yesterday.'

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Glenn Whipp, (818) 713-3672 and glenn.whipp.RemoveThis@dailynews.com