Page 63 - All About History - Issue 33-15

The fall of

This is the story of the controversies that surrounded screen

legendCharlieChaplininhislateryears;hisgoldenage

morphing into something more tarnished

WrittenbyJamesClarke

fanyoneneededproofthatthere’snosuch ‘just’ entertainment, but what a powerful force
thing as ‘just’ entertainment, they need look entertainment is.
nofurtherthansouth-Londonboyturned Whenthelate,greatfilmcomposerJohnBarry
global pop-culture icon Charlie Chaplin. His scored the movie Chaplin (1992),hewroteamain
career has been the subject of an immense musicalthemethat,ratherthanemphasisingthe
rangeofresearchandreflectionthathas fun and laughter of the man’s movies, picked up
explored his movie-making achievements; onamelancholymood.It’samelancholythatwe
theinfluenceofhisLondonchildhoodon can identify in Chaplin’s beginnings and in his
his imaginative life; his political sympathies; lateryears,too.Thisisthestoryofsomeofthekey
I andhispersonallife.Foraslightlybuiltman, eventsthatdefinedthatlaterpartofhispersonal
he has made for an immense cinema presence andprofessionallife.Wemightsaythatitwasa
andanequallyimmenseculturalforce.Like professional life that ended in tragedy; in a fall
Shakespeare and Dickens, people may very well from grace.
know the Chaplin name even though they have Discovering the fallibility of those who seem
never directly encountered any of his work. The blessedwithsomesortofgeniusandwhose
imageofthemanhassupersededallelse.The workhasastoundedus–it’sasthoughtheyare
image of his creation The Tramp is as much a part imbued with a superhuman facility of thought,
of a worldwide lexicon of film character images feelingandperception–canshockusbyvirtue
thatcansitrightalongsideMickeyMouse,ET: of how it reminds us of the necessarily flawed
The Extra Terrestrial and C3P0. The American humanity of that person. In Charlie Chaplin we
cinema might largely be characterised by being haveafilmmakerandactorwhowasastarinboth
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