City Lights

City Lights
City Lights is a film to pick for the time capsule, a film that best represents the many aspects of director-writer-star Charlie Chaplin at the peak of his powers: Chaplin the actor, the sentimentalist, the knockabout clown, the ballet dancer, the athlete, the lover, the tragedian, the fool. It's all contained in Chaplin's simple story of a tramp who falls in love with a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill). Chaplin elevates the Victorian contrivances of the plot to something glorious with his inventive use of pantomime and his sure grasp of how the Tramp relates to the audience. In 1931, it was a gamble for Chaplin to stick with silence after talking pictures had killed off the art form that had made him famous, but audiences flocked to City Lights anyway. (Chaplin would not make his first full talking picture until 1940's The Great Dictator.) After all the superb comic sequences, the film culminates with one of the most moving scenes in the history of cinema, a luminous and heartbreaking fade-out that lifts the picture onto another plane. (Woody Allen paid homage to the scene at the end of Manhattan.) This is why the term "Chaplinesque" became a part of the language. --Robert Horton
Customer Review: One of the most beautiful films ever
City Lights is regarded by many as Chaplin's best film. It is a serio-comedy that will make you laugh and make you cry.
Customer Review: These lights shine brighter than most...
Recently I had the privilege of catching part of a Charlie Chaplin marathon on TCM and I have to say that I am blown away with the man's genius. I've desperately wanted to get my hands on Chaplin's work since watching `Chaplin' starring Robert Downey Jr. but I've not had the opportunity or the time to really sit down and give him his due time. Thankfully I had the time to watch a few of his films last month, among them was `City Lights', the film for which Chaplin's title of genius is hinged on. Many regard this film as his finest film, and many even consider it one of the greatest films of all time. Now, I must admit that I personally adored `The Kid' and consider that the better of the two, but there is no denying that both films are leagues ahead of most films churned out by Hollywood these days. The film follows Chaplin's character of the Tramp as he meets and falls in love with a blind flower girl. Upon meeting her he is moved to try and raise enough money to pay for her to have a surgery on her eyes to restore her sight. The film follows his pursuit of this money, from meeting and swaying an eccentric millionaire as well as trying his hand at a few rounds of prizefighting with an overzealous stranger. In the end the story is a story of love, and Chaplin marvelously displays this to the audience. Charlie Chaplin proves without sound or color that there is so much more to an actor than the convenience of modern technology. The fact that Chaplin at this point could have made the film with sound but chose not to was truly a stroke of genius for this film proves that real film, that a real story transcends the boundaries of sight and sound. Chaplin and company say more with their eyes and actions than most actors can convey today. The picture is crisp despite its lack of color, and the story is beautiful and very easy to follow. One may shiver at the idea of watching a silent film, hesitant, feeling as though the experience may be a waste of time, but how wrong they would be. My wife is one that refuses to watch a silent film, calling me stupid for even bothering, but I say that it is her loss, for these films are so much deeper richer than most of the films handed to us today. Now that I have stolen a taste of all that Chaplin can deliver I am heavily anticipating my next sampling. I'll take Chaplin over Sadler any day.