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"The Circus" is in some ways the most revealing of all Chaplin's films -- his last wholly satisfying masterpiece,
yet at the same time prefiguring the self-conscious artiness that marked his decline as an true artist.
In this film we see as clearly as possible the conflict between Chaplin as the instinctive creator and Chaplin as the
celebrator of his own myth. We see him inhabiting the Little Fellow from the inside, and exploiting the Little Fellow from
the outside as a tragic icon.
It's probably not coincidental that the film was shut down for eight months due to Lita Grey's divorce suit -- which brought
into question Chaplin's ownership and control of his own creations. I don't think it's unfair to speculate that the origins
of Chaplin's self-pity might lie to some degree in his outrage at the fact that a little teenage bimbo could seriously threaten
his empire.
He was an artist, after all, and she was just a kid he seduced and unhappily got pregnant. Society forced him to do the
right thing by her, and gave her the power to cripple his vision. How cruel the world can be!
Exploiters and abusers of women invariably see themselves as the victims -- "That sixteen year old slut THREW herself
at me!" -- and fail to acknowledge a moral responsibility for their actions. The self-pity that increasingly infected
Chaplin's work from "The Circus" on has the same unconvincing, self-serving tone to it.
Chaplin's great creation, the Little Fellow, always had a tragic side -- a hard-headed realization that the world as it
is could not be expected to recognize his eccentric nobility. But in the early films he never asks us to pity him for this,
and he always holds out the possibility that things will be different down the line.
In the tragic denouement of "The Circus", however, he seems to be embracing and celebrating the beauty of "the
world well lost", and some kind of defiance and hope in the character of the Little Fellow is lost with this.
His vandalization of "The Gold Rush" in 1942 reflects the post-"The Circus" Chaplin -- an unreservedly
happy ending has become unthinkable, since it undermines the Little Fellow's role as victim . . . victim of his own goodness,
victim of his own generosity.
Gag me with a spoon.
There is a kind of hatred of women implied in all this. In the 1925 version of "The Gold Rush", Georgia the
dance hall girl is granted the humanity to recognize the heroic and decent virtues of the Lone Prospector -- virtues which
we the audience are also encouraged and expected to recognize. In the 1942 version, this grant has been revoked. Merna the
bareback rider of "The Circus" is a dimwit who prefers the cosmetic charms of Rex the tightrope walker, a non-entity.
While some see sublime tragic inevitability in the disappointed look on the flower girl's face at the end of "City
Lights", I see in it the bitter condemnation of a shallow woman who can't look past appearances in evaluating the worth
of a man.
This is the contradiction that Chaplin's self-pity introduced into his later work, and that mars it. We are led to appreciate
the humanity and courage and nobility of the Little Fellow, but are not expected to reject the characters in the film who
don't. Our emotion is directed into pity for the noble loser -- too good for this world.
The opening of "The Circus" is one of the finest plastic moments in all of Chaplin's films -- the bareback rider
busting through a paper hoop suddenly revealing the circus ring behind it. This image is recalled in the final moments of
the film, when the Little Fellow picks up a torn remnant of that paper hoop. It is one of the grace notes that reconciles
us to the somewhat artificial tragedy of the ending. Likewise, the scene of the girl swinging on the rings high above the
Little Fellow, who tries to toss food up to her, prepares us for the Little Fellow's realization that they inhabit different
worlds.
Chaplin's decision in the 70's to use the footage of the rings as a prologue, over which his charming performance of a
sentimental song plays -- a song celebrating the value of looking up even in the midst of tragedy -- resonates perfectly with
Chaplin's later cloying sentimentality. But it is a violation of the film he originally made -- the last in which the sentimental
self-pity does not quite overcome the energy and hopeful joy of the Little Fellow.
The Image edition of "The Circus" on DVD includes the prologue with the song only as a supplement, which is
the right choice certainly. The restaurant scene, offered as a supplement on the Image disc and on the new edition, was not
part of the original release and indeed never reached the final editing stage, and would not have served the film well, but
the many surviving takes from it remain fascinating as an illustration of Chaplin's working methods.
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