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Home , A King in New York, A Woman of Paris, Chaplin (1993 musical), Citizen Kane, City Lights, Claude Chabrol

EVIDEO Rediscovering Charlie by

lthough I suspect many would dis- pute this characterization, I think the A period we're now living through may well be the first in which scholars have final- ly figured out a good way of teaching ftim history. And significantly, this discovery isn't necessarily coming out of academic film study, even if a few academics are mak- ing major contributions to it, I'm speaking, of course, about the didac- tic tiiaterials accompanying the rerelease ot some classic films on DVD, Three examples that I believe illustrate my thesis especially well are 1} the various commentaries or audiovisual essays offered by Yuri Tsivian on DVD editions of Mad Love: The Films of Evgeni Bauer (Milestone), 's Chaplin really gets involved in his work in Modern Times (1936) (photo courtesy of Phototest) (Kino Interna- tional/BFI), and 's Ivan the (1925), Frant;ois Ede filming Emir Kusturica which he needs to be reintroduced to con- Terrible (Criterion); 2) the commentaries on The Circus (1928), Serge Bromberg film- temporary filmgoers—and reintroduced offered by David Kalat on 's Dr. ing animator Peter Lord on from an international rather than American Mabuse ihe Gambler (Blackhawk Films) and (1931), Philippe Truffault filming Luc and perspective—can't be underestimated. This The Testament of Dr. Mahuse (Criterion); lean-Pierre Dardenne on Modern Times is surely why the second volume of The and 3) the various documentary materials (1936), Bernard Eisenschitz filming Claude Chaplin Collection garnered only a "B-h" offered on "The Chaplin Collection," a Chabrol on (1947), from VVcfWy (along with the twelve-disc box set issued jointly by MK2 F.dgardo Cozarinsky filming Bernardo headline, "Film directors laud the Little and Warner Bros, and put together with the Bertolucci on Limelight (1952), and lerome Tramp's brand of camp")—in contrast to, full resources and cooperation of the de Mi,ssolz filming lim Jarmusch on A King say. Scenes from a Marriage ("A"), George A. Charles Chaplin estate. These DVEls include in New York {\957}. Romero's Dawn of the Dead ("A"), and 21 not just all of Chaplin's features apart from The remaining , which break with Grams ("A-") in the same issue, making \t his last, The Countess from Hong Koiig (pre- this pattern, are devoted to Richard Schick- tie with the "complete first session" of sumably missing due to rights issues), but el's recent documentary Charlie: The Life episodes from The iHintsloues and the "20*" also historical introductions written and and Art of Charles Chaplin, The Chaplin anniversary edition" of Splash, both oi read aloud by Chaplin biographer David Revue (consisting of A Dog's Life, Shoulder which also got B pluses. After all, we're Robinson, ncwsreels, home movies, out- Arms, , A Day's Pleasure, The Idle meant to conclude, Chaplin is spectacularly takes, production photos, relevant shorts by Class, Pay Day, and The Pilgrim), and The uneven: "City Lights is a classic of sentimen- Chaplin and others, and twenty-six-minute Great (1940). The latter, however, tal comedy because it gets the mix of senti- episodes in a brand-new series called "Chap- gives us an excellent fifty-tlve-minute docu- ment and comedy just right. The Kid and lin Today" devoted to historically placing mentary by and Michael The Circus do not. They are bathetic, and A each of these features as well as interviewing Kloft called and the Dictator (a Woman of plays like bad Balzac." And a contemporary filmmaker for his or her virtual object lesson in how to pursue the if you're still wondering why "bad" Balzac impressions about it. subject of Chaplin and Hitler honestly and and Chaplin are deemed inferior to "good" responsibly—in striking contrast to the Bergman, Romero, and Ifiarritu, this pre- The Chaplin Collection's editor. Serge sumably has something to do with how far Toubiana, a former editor ot Cahiers du capriciousness of the comparison between and back in history we have to go. (Frankly I einema, has commissioned, among otbcrs, have my own demurrals about The Circus, many writers from thai magazine, past and in the 1995 Oscar-nominated The Battle Over ), twenty-five minutes of in spite of the brilliance found in certain present, to direct the various chapters of sequences, but any dismissal that can brack- "Chaplin Today," each of whom has drawn 's color "home movie" footage of the shooting of Dictator, a seven- et it indiscriminately with The Kid can't be materials frotn the plentiful Chaplin very attentive to either.) archives as well as other sources. Thus we minute outtake from Sunnyside (1919) get Alain Bcrgala filming (and interviewing) showing the Tramp as a barber, and even a three-minute clip from Monsieur Verdoux. In other words, one can't even begin to Abbas Kiaro,stami on The Kid[\91\). Math- grasp Chaplin's importance without pro- ias Ledoux HIming on A Although Chaplin is still the closest thing cessing sizable chunks of the twentieth cen- Woman of Paris {\92i). Serge Le Peron film- we have to a universally recognized, under- tury, and from a universal rather than a ing Idrissa Oeudraogo on The GoU Rush stood, and appreciated artist, the degree to local perspective. For this reason, I can't say

52 CINEASTE, Fall 2004 that I hiive a lot of patience for colleagues I have no idea whether or not this story is who still presume that it's possible to com- apocryphal, but in the final analysis it pare t^haplin and in any nor- doesn't matter. Whether or not Chaplin said mal fashion, either as slapstick performers such a thing, there are far too many or as directors. As Gilbert Adair once point- instances in his oeuvre demonstrating the ed out years ago, Chaplin doesn't simply accuracy of such a remark to make either his belong to the history of cinema; he belongs innocence or his egotism the central point of to history. And for me the main problem the story. My favorite example, in fact, is with trying to compare him to Keaton is probably the most famous sequence in any that such an act implicitly denies that histo- Chaplin film, and presumably therefore one ry, which The Chaplin Collection is dedicat- of the most closely studied in all of cinema: ed to explicating as clearly as possible. the closing moments of City Lights, when Even less useful than the Chaplin vs. alternating close-ups of the Tramp and the Keaton debate is the kind of contemporary flower girl, who has recently had her sight dismis.sal of Chaplin that writes him oft as a restored, record her dawning realization that sentimentalist, a relic ot the nineteenth cen- he is her benefactor, the one who paid for tury, an insufferable egotist, or a technical or her operation—as well as his own dual real- intellectual primitive. Not because one can't ization that she can now see and that she go back to certain facets of his life and work knows who he is. "She recognizes who he and find some evidence to support any or all must he by his shy, confident, shining joy as of these charges, but because doing so ulti- he comes silently toward her," lames Agee mately entails a reductive reading that memorably wrote In "Comedy's Greatest excludes too many othc'r things that matttT Chaplin fall5 in love with a bMnd flower girl in Era." "And he recognizes himself, for the at least as much. I'm far more sympathetic City Lights (1931) (photo courtesy of Photoiest). first time, through the terrible changes in her face. The camera just exchanges a few quiet to the hyperbole of Jean-Marie Straub's that the lack of intelligence is self-evident, provocative defense of Chaplin as the great- close-ups of the emotions, which shift and that one starts wondering about all the ideo- intensify in each face. It is enough to shrivel est of all film editors—made most recently logical determinations that hold this - and most cogently in Pedro Cxista's beauti- the heart to see, and it is the greatest piece of ished premise in place. Even when faced acting and the highest moment in movies." ful 2001 documentary Oil git volrc soiirire with certain anomalies—such as Chaplin's enfouif, which documents the activity and professed admiration for Ivan the Terrible I wouldn't dream of disputing any of dialog of Straub and Daniele Huillet while (which runs parallel to Monroe's interest in this. But how many viewers have noticed editing one of the versions of their Sicilla! The Brothers Karaniazovj^ths usual that the alternating close-ups described by Straub's justification for this extravagant impulse is to patronize the star with conde- Agee are flagrantly mismatched? Viewed claim is ingenious: because Chaplin knew scending 'tolerance' for his or her preten- from hehind, the Tramp grasps one of the precisely when a gesture begins and when it sions and to try to rationalize this informa- flower girl's fiowers against his leg; viewed ends, he knew precisely when to cut. As an tion out of existence. from the front, he holds the same flower in observation this is far more indicative of a the same hand against his mouth and cheek, close and prolonged engagement with the The frequent charges waged against and this discontinuity of angle/reverse-angle work than any of the curt and cavalier dis- Chaplin's 'old-fashioned' technique often even gets repeated along with the same cam- missals. And maybe because Straub is him- seem predicated on an assumption of era setups. If we stop to wonder why almost self a lot more (radically) traditional and naivete and/or vanity on his part. A typical no one seems to notice this error, I would conservalive than he's generally cracked up anecdote that supposedly illustrates this: an dispute thiit any lapse in Chaplin's perfec- to be, part of what he's saying is that in spite assistant points out to Chaplin that some of tionism is to blame. Indeed, it's questionable of everything, C^haplin remains our contem- the rails laid out for a are visi- whether it even qualifies as a lapse when the porary—someone we can still learn from and ble in a camera setup, and he replies, "It emotion and ambiguity of these shots is all converse with without condescension or apology. doesn't matter. Whenever I'm onscreen, the public won't be looking at anything else." that finally registers and matters. It's a sequence, in short, that should be shown Similarly, I would argue that those who and described to every film student who has reject because they find ever believed that eyeline matches count for C!lhaplin's ideas in it too obvious, simplistic, very much outside of routine filmmaking. or bitter are likely to be overlooking the fact that he places many of his own most cher- To take another approach, consider just ished leftist and antinationalist sentiments the realm of raw experience imparted by in the mouth of an obnoxiously self-right- Chaplin's films. Has there ever been another eous and hectoring brat () artist—-not just in the histor}' of cinema, but who, when he holds forth, often won't let maybe in the history of art—who has had Chaplin's eponymous king get in a word more to say, and in such vivid detail, about edgewi.se. This implies a dialectical as well as what it means to be poor? Conceivably self-critical side to Chaplin—not to mention Dickens, another artist often reproached for a certain intellectual depth—that few com- sentimentality, might be a contender in mentators are likely to concede about the these sweepstakes, but surely no other figure man. As with —a charis- in the twentieth century. And because there matic figure whose parallels with Chaplin is arguably no other figure in the world dur- run deeper than one might initially suppose, ing C.]haplin's heyday who was more widely especially if one places her Lorelei Lee in known and loved—not even a politician like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes alongside Chap- his arch-enemy Hitler, much less another lin's equally duplicitous (and equally artist—-discussing him as if he were just Brechtian) Henri Verdoux—an apparent another writer-director or actor ultimately compulsion to dismiss his intellect is so means short-changing that world and that deeply ingrained and takes so many history. (.unthinking) forms, including the premise Chaplin eyes the dance-hall hostess inThe (1925) (photo courtesy of Photofest). Ihe only other figure in the arts who

CINEASTE, Fall 2004 53 strikes tne as being even remotely compara- In Felice Zenoni's mainly unexceptional The packaging of the PAL and NTSC ble to Chaplin—with lots of emphasis on recent Swiss TV documentary about Chap- versions are different in other respects. "remotely"—is Louis Armstrong, and only lin in Switzerland, : The For- European customers received illustrated in a few characteristics: coming from the gotten Years (2003), there's an unforgettably booklets in all dozen packages and in some absolute bottom of society and assuming a humanizing nugget recounted by Chaplin's cases more informative details on the boxes kind of ethical elegance and nobility as well daughter Ceraldine about his response to themselves. Furthermore, they received A as a kind of charisma and joy informed by discovering that his invitation to accept an Woman of Paris and A King in New York both wit and low comedy that were pecu- honorary Oscar in the U.S. in 1972 came separately, while these two features are liarly his own; redefining the parameters of with a visa that allowed him to remain in the indecorously shoehorned together on one an art that was new and largely associated country for only a couple of weeks. Though disc in the American set, presumably for no with America while a seasoned one would expect him to have been indig- better reason than the fact that they're both and universally recognized world traveler nant, we discover that be was In fact delight- regarded as awkward encumbrances, like and a kind of statesman. ed to learn he was stiil regarded as being .so two unwanted children. (The first is silent frightening and challenging a figure to and doesn't star Chaplin, the second f al! this sounds like idolatry, it could be American authorities, twenty years after unabashedly anti-American; and both were argued that I have plenty of company. leaving the country. And if that sounds box-office flops.) spiteful. It's no more so than the Tramp himself It's hard to think of a populist main- (www.mastersofcine- I often is when faced with various enemies. stream figure who was more beloved by ma.com) maintains that "the R2 UK set avant-garde artists on both sides of the To understand the changes in Chaplin's from Warner/MK2 and the French MK2 set Atlantic during the Teens, Twenties, and filmmaking in any depth, we're still pretty are a magnificent achievement" but that Thirties. So is it any wonder that Chaplin far from having the sort of critical perspec- "unfortunately, the USA Rl set is a lazy PAL has suffered from an almost continuous tive that's needed. If we turn to the Cbaplin |to] NTSC transfer with ghosting—extreme- critical backlash in tbe seventy-odd years biographies—eitber those in print or those ly disappointing." The PAL version placed since then? Part of this undoubtedly comes on film and video (including the disappoint- third in their 2003 poll for the "DVD of the from the ideological disturbance of attend- ing feature-length documentary by Schick- year"—after two very impressive Criterion ing to such a massively popular figure who el)—we often get continuations of the same releases. By Brakhage: An Anthology and was effectively forced into exile from the ideological roadblocks, many of which con- Yasujiro Ozu's , in tbe first two U.S. after the public started to turn sour on sist of rationalizing or otherwise ratifying slots—and the ideological as well as techni- him. To understand how this radical change the critical and cominercial rejections of cal differences are underlined: of heart came about entails part of the sub- Monsieur Verdoux and A King in New York stantial history lesson offered by The Chap- and all that these imply. Back in 2001, the Chaplin estate wisely lin Collection, along with a prolonged and I assume it's partly this kind of continu- sought the skills of MK2 in (after detailed look at the changes that took place ing backlash tbat held back tbe U.S. release seeing their superb Truffaut box set) and in his filmmaking and in both the evolving of eight of the dozen features in the Warn- asked them to conjure up a Chaplin set. identity of the Tramp and the subsequent cr/MK2 Chaplin box set for about half a Two years later, we have this dreamlike set, parts played by Chaplin. (A comparable his- year after they came out in Europe. The first with perfect extras. If this set had been put tory lesson might undertake to explain how four were , Modern Times, together in the USA we'd have extras con- the persistence of )erry Lewis as a love object , and Limelight, and it's sisting of Leonard Maltin chatting with in this country throughout tbe Fifties could not surprising that the more controversial Robin Williams, Billy Crystal and Adam eventually mutate into a denial as well as an and less commercial (Chaplin titles—Ver- Sandier. Okay, maybe Sandier would've implied horror that such an infatuation doux, King, —were saved been interesting, but what we get from MK2 could ever have existed.) for the second batch. raises the bar as high as it can go^, the Dardenne Bros, Liv Ull- maun, , , Emir Kusturica, and Berjiardo Bertolucci con- tribute, separately, to the documentary for the film with which they have a personal affinity. It's refreshing to encounter a huge release like this with a distinctly European flavor, one that hasn't been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator to max- imize dotlarage. Hats off to the Chaplin estate and MK2 for doing Charlie very proud. Hats firmly lefi in place for Warners USA.

With all due respect to this conscientious website, witb which I generally agree and find indispensable, a couple of demurrals are in order. Having had an opportunity to compare the French PAL version of The Kid with the American NTSC version back to back on my multiregional DVD player and tristandard monitor, the differences in sound and image are undetectabie, at least by my eyes and ears. (Nevertheless, there are plenty of other reasons for preferring the French PAL versions, including the fact that the interviews with directors that aren't in English can be seen there with English subti- Even serial killer Henri Verdoux (Charles Chaplin) can't get rid of the annoying Annabella Boneheur (Martha Raye) in Monsieur Verdoux (1947) (photo courtesy ot Pholofesl) tles, wbereas the same interviews on NTSC

54 CINEASTE, Fall 2004 are saddled with English voice-overs that today—the fingerprinting of King Shahdov don't allow us to hear all of the original upon his arrival in the U.S.—and proceeds voices.) And while I heartily agree on princi- from there to such matters as ple with most ol the filmmakers selected to footage about Ethel and |ulius Rosenberg, comment on Chaplin, candor compels me (Chaplin's move to Switzerland in 1952, to note that for all his brilliance as a film- ' refusal to distribute Chap- maker, Kiarostami seldom has anything of lin's film (and the fact that the film was interest to say abont his colleagues, and has shortened by ten minutes when it finally very little to offer on this occasion, either opened in the U.S. fifteen years later— about Chaplin in general or The Kid in par- although we aren't told what was removed), ticular. (Significantly, when he recently and the film's rapid shoot (only ten weeks) decided to subtitle his Five—a collection of in and its editing in Paris. But per- five short and rather beautiftil digital videos haps the most touching sections concern concentrating on relatively uneventful Michael Chaplin—starting with an anecdote patches of the natural world found on a about the consternation he caused at the age beach—Five Takes Dedicated to Yasujiro ot seven in his father's office in Switzerland Ozu, this was a clever way of alerting his when he entered one day in a homesick audience to what they should and shouldn't mood singing "God Bless America." Else-^ expect, even though the actual resemblance where we see him watching his own spout- of these videos to anN'thing by Ozn is highly ing of political oratory in the film and then questionable.) speaking about the whole experience in French, implying that the experience of act- On the other hand, the various com- ing was the time when he was able to be ments offered by the Dardenne brothers closest to his workaholic father. A particu- about Modern Times comprise the most larly poignant 'bonus' in this already insightful criticism about the film I've poignant interview is the background music encountered anywhere. Starting with the used—Chaplin singing his heretofore observation that the famons early shot of the Chaplin as Hitler in The Great Dictator [}940) unheard lyrics to a song he wrote that is Tramp moving literally like a cog through (photo courtesy of Pholofest). used in the film as Michael's theme. the factory machinery is an image that recalls a film running through a projector, sequences. (Indeed, part of what continues The highlights in Eisenschitz's Verdoux they proceed to speculate why, in relation to to make the film indispensable historically is documentary include Chabrol's celebration an entire commercial cinema predicated on the degree to which it deals with all the of the audacity of the film's unapologetic success stories, the Chaplin Tramp essential- major issues missing from the atheism and of the fact that all the women ly remains a tramp—even though this time features of the same period—including he kills "are ugly and unbearable," thereby he's identified in the credits as a factory Tashlin's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, its putting the audience as much as possible on worker. They also discuss the importance of only true satiric competitor.) Verdoux's side, and his stressing oJ' the fact hunger in his work ("Food is everything in In other parts of the 'fruffault documen- that all of (!:haplin's work is about survival. his films"), the degree to which the film tary on Modern Times, we see newsreel Chabrol also offers a fascinating extended serves as a documentary on the period, and footage of Chaplin meeting Gandhi in Lon- commentary on a shot showing professional how the women in the film "aren't very don, detailed production information on tango dancers in a restaurant, the sort of nice" until we get to . Modern Times, an exploration of the issues detail that few other critics would even With a similar commonsensical bent, involving Chaplin's development of the notice. We also get material about Chaplin's iarmusch on A King in New York speaks Tramp in this film, a more general discus- public defense ol Hanns Eisler (with a fasci- about how the title city becomes "represen- sion of Chaplin's evolving relationship to nating clip of Eisler's angry HUAC testimo- tational" of "America as an empire," money, sound—including a newsreel clip of him ny, and an account of Chaplin's unsuccess- and thievery, with a great deal of prescience briefly recording his voice on film for the ful effort to gain Picasso's support against about what America would become over the first time during a 1931 visit to Vienna, a Eisler's threatened deportation), details next several decades (and an apt observation clip of the jabbering speeches we hear in the involving Hays otfice objections to the that the film's depiction of "rock and roll" is opening scene of dialog in Ciiy Lights, the script, a generous sampling of production in fact a phony commercialized version of original plans tor spoken dialog in Modern as well as some rushes, interest- that music—not simply a misperception of Times, and a fascinating of three of ing analyses of the characters played by it, as some commentators would have it}, its slapstick sequences, including the famous Martha Raye (as an American shrew trans- how Dawn Addams's eerie eye contact with dance on roller skates, shown successively at ferred to a French context) and Marilyn the camera while taking a bath anticipates eighteen and then twenty-four frames per Nash (as a figure who alters Verdoux's des- her activity as a TV huckster, how the film's second. One fascinating piece of informa- tiny), and some interesting remarks about overall technique is wholly subsumed to the tion that we don't get here—but which is the film's final shot (including the fact that storytelling, and how the film's tragic ending imparted in the Schickel documentary—is Chaplin shot it before anything else in the completely avoids sentimentality. More gen- the fact that the famous malfunctioning film), by Chabrol as well as Andre Bazin. feeding machine was secretly operated man- erally, what makes Jarmusch a good com- To show his own contempt for Chaplin's mentator on the film isn't iust his own sta- ually by Chaplin himself under the table it was on. (Similarly, there's a fascinating piece FBI file, Gozarinsky on the Limelight DVD tus as a political maverick but his special has his offscreen narrator quote copiously feeling for Chaplin's independence: "He's of information imparted by the 1975 Oxford Companion to Film that's lamentably miss- from it before we see a pair ol hands (actual- inayhe the first truly independent master of ly Cozarinsky's) tear the document into cinema, because he has control over every- ing from The Tramp and the Dictator that The Great Dictator was originally banned in shreds and toss it into a river. The high thing in his films." In a way, this is a varia- point of 's commentary tion on 's celebrated , reportedly to avoid olfending the sizable German population there.) about the film is his observation that when defense of A King in New York—"It's the the young dancer () declares film of a free man"—and it highlights the f^e Missolz's "Chaplin Today" episode her undying love for Calvero, "She is lying, degree to which Chaplin's absolute indepen- and deep inside she knows she is. He dence had esthetic as well as ideological con- on A King in New York begins with the detail in the film that feels most contemporary jCalvero] knows Terry is lying, and we

CINEASTE, Fall 2004 55 know he knows, It's all sort of staged." (This The resourceful set design sets up a shows the limitation of 's 1933 The Merchant palimpsest for a cabaret, Portia's elegant hatchet job—her first published fiim review, Belmont home, a street scene, and the recently reprinted in Ar(/f)rH;;j—which of Venice courtroom to be overlaid one upon the assumes a total absence of ambiguity or Written by ; directed by other in the same ingeniously disguised irony about this matter.) By contrast, I Trevor Nunn with Chris Hunt; a "Performance space. A cabaret, made to order for would call the low point of Bertolucci's Company" presentation of a Royal National Joel Grey, wrenches the play from Shake- commentary his labored effort to persuade Theatre production at the Cottesloe Theatre, speare's Venice and relocates Shylock in a us that when Calvero dies, the sheet draped London, June 1 to November 13, 1999; decadent and even more venomously anti- over his body is supposed to make us think starring David Bamber, Derbhie Crotty and Semitic Weimar Germany. The privileging of a movie screen. Far more interesting on Henry Goodman (Shylock), DVD, color, 141 of ethnography over geography shows how this DVD is a troubling scene with Calvero mins. Distributed by Image Entertainment, the Holocaust has made Shylock the center conversing with a former colleague with one www image-entertainment.com. of the "residual text" for modern audiences. arm that Chaplin decided to cut from the He has been reinvented from a sixteenth- film. The DVD ol Trevor Nunn's TV movie of centur)' obsessed humor figure, a stage joke Among the other treasures to be found in The Merchant of Venice illustrates how a like the puritan Zeal-of-the-Land-Busy in this set, I would cite in particular, apropos television show can study hard to be like a Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, into an icon of The Gold Rush—and apart from the fact movie, and almost make it. The sharper for Jewish victimization. And yet Nunn art- that we get both the 1925 original and the focus and more subtle lighling as compared fully retains the bite and grip of Henry 1942 retooling with Chaplin's offscreen nar- to a VHS videotape allow full access to the Goodman's superb Shyiock, while simulta- ration—Ouedraogo's hypothesis thai the ambiguities and nuances of a play, which neously balancing his agony against Portia's Tramp's crazed image ot a gigantic chicken though here considerably shortened, rivals blitheness and Antonio's torment over the is so large hecause it "becomes proportion- even in complexity. Nunn's version, "bond" contract. It is not so much that ate" to the size of his hunger (which leads while made for television, shown on televi- Derbhie Crotty as Portia, and David Bamber logically to both a quote from art historian sion, perpetuated on VHS and DVD, and as Antonio overshadow Shylock as that they Eli Eaure and an earlier hunger gag from A rooted in a National Theatre staging, never- are returned to their rightful niche as part- Dog's Life); images of children in Ouedrao- theless manages through its roaming, inter- ners in the play's crazy quilt of parallel plots, go's village watching Chaplin for the first rogative camera to go far beyond the prison which have always offered a grab bag of time in a video of The Gold Rush; a clip of house of a photographed stage play, such as Freudian goodies. The overriding "casket Hatty Arbuckle in the 1917 The Rough 's "Elcctronovision" Hamlet plot" shows how Portia's deceased control House, which shows us the source of the (1964). Only the most intransigent of Lud- freak of a father has stuck her with the oblig- dance with the rolls, and portions of an dites will notice the absence of some 735 ation to choose a husband through the audio interview with about lines, or roughly twenty-nine percent of the agency of the gold, silver, and lead caskets; the source of Chaplin's interest in the play's 2546, victims presumably of televi- the "bond" plot chronicles how the gigolo Klondike. sion's incessant need for half-hour breaks. Bassanio drags both Shylock and Antonio The loss of gamilous old Gobbo may upset his into the hideous pound-of-flesh codicil; and And apropos of A Woman of Paris, 1 tans but will go unnoticed by the general public. the "ring plot," with its bawdy innuendoes, would cite in particular the sensitivity of exposes how the Portia who moralizes about Ullmann's observations, eleven minutes of As if at once to establish its kinship with "mercy" in the courtroom can mercilessly outtakes, ten minutes of footage document- film, the run side by side concoct a Catch-22 scheme for testing Bas- ing Paris in the Twenties, and an extraordi- with a montage from grainy old of sanio's loyalty. In a telling sadomasochistic nary film document of 1926—a thirty-three- Europe between wars. Set to the tune of image, even Bassanio hints at her role as a minute version of Camille by Ralph Barton brassy Thirties popular music, there are dominatrix, who can be a "torturer" inflict- in which the cast of celebrity cameos quick, bright Fit/.geraldian people chattering ing "happy torment" (3.2.37). includes not only Chaplin, but also, to cite at sidewalk cafes, wining and dining al fres- co, bartenders mixing cocktails in silver less than a third of the remaining lineup, The casket plot unlocks the play's secret Sherwood Anderson, , shakers behind heroic mahogany bars, danc- ing feet in analytical close-up of carefree chamber. The silver, gold, and lead caskets , Paul Claudel, Clarence each presents a surface appearance contrary Darrow, Theodore Dreiser, lohn Emerson, merrymakers, and a darker side of aging orthodox lews living in of Nazi to its inner meaning. Thus, the lead casket , Sacha Guitry, Rex Ingram, can be allegorized as Shylock, outwardly , , H.L. Mencken, terror. If the point be to expose the toxicity underlying bourgeois false consciousness, unpleasant but inwardly a rock of integrity: George lean Nathan, , and "An oath, an oath. I have an oath in heav- . then the shoe fits Portia's glossy Belmont and Antonio's dour Venice. en!" (4.1.224). Portia in her chic minimalist To keep track of all these appearances, a digs at Belmont remains an ice princess, program listing who plays whom becomes haughty, and very rich, who presides in a essential. This information is part of the clinging gown with the imperious hauteur of booklet included in the French PAL version a high priestess over the hapless Morocco but not something that anyone has bothered and Aragon's selection of the caskets. In to make available on the American NTSC severe black-and-white uniforms with huge version. If there's any lesson to be gleaned oval-shaped aprons, perfect for the matrons from this, it is surely that the same team of of a Victorian women's prison, Portia's French people who lavished so much care highly disciplined maids silently inject an on this box set obviously cared more about Upstairs/Downstairs motif into the proceed- making it user-friendly than the American ings, a subtle touch made all the more possi- team who are distributing it. And this differ- ble by the clarity of DVD. For example, in a ence in concern for historical value suggests variation on the lead-casket theme, when another key lesson, for both the present and Gratiano prepares to announce his engage- tbe foreseeable future: that one of the crucial ment (3.2. 186ff), in the background an agi- qualifications of an edncated and cos- tated maid appears to be anticipating his mopolitan DVD watcher is owning a multi- Trevor Nunn (right) prepares a scene with choice of her as his wife only to have her regional player. I Henry Goodman as Shylock and Derbhie hopes dashed when instead he chooses Ner- Crotty as Portia for The Merchant of Venice.

56 CINEASTE, Fall 2004