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I recently had a chance to see Chaplin's original version of "The Gold Rush" on DVD. I had only known the film from
its 1942 re-release version, with the tacked-on voice-over narration by Chaplin. I had a sense from the 1942 version that
it represented a kind of butchery of the original, but I had no sense of how gruesome the butchery really was.
Chaplin's commentary probably sounded dated the day it was recorded, but there's a charm in that which undoubtedly fed
the audience's nostalgia for the quaint old days of silent pictures. But the original "The Gold Rush" needs no patronizing
indulgence, and is in fact severely diminished by it. Today the 1925 version of "The Gold Rush" seems startlingly
alive and modern -- the 1942 version shopworn and frankly pathetic.
Chaplin's habit of talking us through the gags wrecks the rhythm of them and actually makes it impossible to read them
effectively. I laughed at things in the 1925 version that I hadn't realized were funny in the 1942 version.
The original ending of the film is so joyous and satisfying that it infuses one's memory of what's gone before with the
quality of a magical fable. Chaplin's dismantling of this ending in favor of a more tepid and wistful denouement is an example
of the noxious self-pity that increasingly marred his later work. In the DVD commentary it is suggested that Chaplin may have
wanted to pull back from the frankly happy ending because his personal feelings about the leading lady had changed over the
years. What the hell has that got to do with "The Gold Rush"? It is injecting a petty personal pique into a film
that is bursting with compassion and generosity.
In 1942 Chaplin vandalized a great work of art. I know he had a legal right to do so, but the idea that such a act should
be taken seriously as representing the canonical version of "The Gold Rush" is carrying the author's rights issue
into a realm of absurdity -- yet there are those, like the executors of Chaplin's estate and certain film academics, who argue
that the 1942 version should be accepted as the author's last and therefore definitive word on the work.
Virgil had a legal right to request on his death bed that "The Aeniad" be destroyed, but I don't think that
gave his executors a moral obligation to comply with the request -- and I'm glad they didn't. I can't imagine that anyone
who loves and appreciates Chaplin as an artist should see it as an act of service to treat the 1942 version of "The Gold
Rush" as anything more than an embarrassing oddity.
There ought to be a law that no one can see the 1942 version of "The Gold Rush" unless they can prove to the
Chaplin estate that have previously seen the original. That would be a real service to Chaplin and his art. I think it's very
sad that the 1942 version is being shown to people who might not know what it actually represents. It's like giving high school
kids a version of "The Aeniad" paraphrased by Nelson DeMille.
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