92 MARXISM TODAY, MARCH, 1978 A Statue for Charlie? Ivor Montagu "Charles Spencer Chaplin, born 1889 in South How represent him? Odd to memorialise stationary London, died 1978, early on Christmas Day."' a being whose graceful, balletic movements were These words on a pedestal. A charming idea. so much an essence of his early fame. As Gilbert Something to look up to, like Nelson in Trafalgar Seldes, first of the highbrows to notice him, wrote: Square, or to whizz round with the traffic, like Eros in Piccadilly, or maybe, in some quiet park "He danced on the earth, an eternal figure of glade, for lovers to tryst by, and, as in his earliest lightness and of the wisdom which knows that films, for policemen to lurk about in order to the earth was made to dance on."' disturb them. 1 G. Seldes: The Seven Lively Arts (Harper & Or is he, perhaps, too controversial a subject? Brothers). 1924. MARXISM TODAY. MARCH, 1978 93 CHARLIE CHAPLIN. By E. E. Cummings The poet, E. E. Cummings, tried to fix this in his Then at least future generations would be early drawing (above). ensured a chance to form their own ideas of him. Film substance is no longer evanescent. The Too often a statue perpetuates only the admiration change from nitrate to acetate, research in main­ that those who ordered or paid for it wish posterity tenance by constant atmosphere and temperature, to believe was their attitude to the subject at the have left no reason why stock should be less time. enduring than stone. Perhaps a better tribute The GLC Councillor who first brought the idea would be to perfect and increase the collections of forward has no doubts about how Chaplin should his works and their availability in archives around be portrayed. As Charlie, the figure with the baggy the world.2 trousers, the oversized shoes, the bowler and the cane. But is this right? 2 There are several collections of Chaplin films. A good one at the National Film Archive, and probably one of the best carefully renovated by Chaplin him­ Creators and their Creations self. Copies of many items are now available for One of the commonest errors in popular myth­ exhibition from Contemporary Films Ltd.. 55 Greek ology about art is to confuse the creators with their Street. London W1V 6DB. creations, the authors or the actors with the 94 MARXISM TODAY, MARCH, 1978 character they portray. Of course, in either case an art—that is, a creation and a communication their own life-experience has enabled them to between artist and public. imagine them; their skill to make them live. Of He achieved this, beginning from nothing, in an course, also with Chaplin and the tramp, and with industry in which independence costs millions. In Chaplin's own brilliance as an interpreter, con­ this struggle, his comic genius was but the weapon fusion is natural, because creator and interpreter that won the battle. To attain victory he had to are the same individual. But identification would fight monsters every inch of the way. To retain it be a complete myth. They are not one and the he had to resist obloquy, condescension, obstruc­ same, any more than Shakespeare was Hamlet; or tion and persecution. else the ghost of Hamlet's father, or Old Adam in Yet he never compromised or gave up his view As You Like It, or any other of his characters that of the world and people. he is known to have played. The 'Little Man' was really a giant. Many have noticed, but overlooked the sig­ The establishment has its own ways of taming nificance of the fact, that Chaplin always spoke rebels. At first he was non-person ('too common"). and wrote of his creations in the third person, as Then VIPs buzzed round him like flies, as urgent 'The Tramp' or (later) 'The Little Fellow' (the to get into the picture as the tramp was in one of latter because often, even in early days—e.g. One Chaplin's earliest films, Kid's Auto Races. (Then A.M. or Carmen—as also in The Great Dictator they sneered at him for 'name-dropping'. Could with the barber, though he retained the make-up, they know that his main interest in them was that the character was certainly not a tramp). I did not of a zoologist studying animals in a game reserve?) appreciate the point myself until one Christmas They called him a Red and immoral (the Ameri­ Day—yes, Christmas again—when in the after­ cans never forgave his refusal to give up British glow of tennis and a good dinner, the cut of City nationality) and drove him out in the McCarthy Lights not yet being quite ready to run, C. C. set time, subjecting him to all the insults and petty us down and narrated and acted to us the whole denigration that broke Paul Robeson physically. story. As he spoke it became crystal clear that But—'if you can't beat them, honour them'. The every adventure or misadventure, every misfor­ Special Oscar and the 'Sir' (to decorate a Harold tune, every buffet of fate, undergone by the tramp Wilson list of knights) were their way of expecting was not (primarily) suffered by C. C. as Charlie, the public to forgive their own past behaviour it was inflicted by C. C. as director on Charlie as (how much the irony must have delighted Chaplin). character. A stone statue as a clown? Thai would be a When Chaplin died, The Times headlined "THE decisive tombstone. The best clown, mind you. But WORLD IN MOURNING".' Olivier was quoted definitely below the salt. Not fit to open his mouth. by the BBC as saying that Charlie was the greatest And if he does, it's all folly. comedian who ever lived. The kind of statement This is the standard way of belittling Chaplin. that is unprovable, but the mere fact that it is He was all right once. Poor chap—starting to plausible is a maximum tribute. Yet, by itself, it is preach. not the whole story. If it were, it could account only for the laughter of the millions, not for the Savage Notices sorrow, or the love. The obituaries have been thick with this thesis. but the record contradicts it. I did not believe A Man with a Vision Charlie when he once told me that he had always The truth is that Chaplin was a man who was had savage notices. An excellent book4 shows that much bigger. He was a man whose native and life- he was right. Here are samples: experience endowed him with a vision of the world so strong, a creative passion to communicate "The usual Chaplin work of late, mussy. messy it so resolute, a bond with the masses so unbreak­ and dirty . disgusting at many points." able, that he succeeded despite every obstacle. "Mr. Chaplin may well conclude his finish as a slapstick comedian is in sight." He took the profession into which he fell by chance and his own burgeoning skill by the scruff These in 1915-16 just as the Golden Age of Charlie of the neck and hauled it out of infancy. He came was beginning. And, of the classic achievements: to write his own stories, cast them, direct them, cut them, title them or (later) write dialogue for "The opening scene is not in high taste." (Easy them, produce them, compose music for them. At Street) a time when the possibility was still ignored or "Several disappointing shortcomings . denied, he demonstrated that the camera could be 4 McDonald. Conway & Ricci: The Films of 3 The Times headline. December 28. Charlie Chaplin. Citadel Press. 1965. MARXISM TODAY, MARCH, 1978 95 expressed in a confused manner . the final to stop people seeing it? This circumstance is for­ speech demonstrates it has put Mr. C. momen­ gotten when the film is nowadays called a failure. tarily off balance."" (The Great Dictator) Both films make one ponder both upon the "Slow, tediously slow—woeful lack of humour courage of Chaplin and upon what might have and dramatic taste ... an affront to the intel­ happened to the truth-telling Hans Andersen child ligence." (Monsieur Verdoux) if he had chanced to be a grown-up. If potential audiences can be convinced by The moral, and what The Times calls 'political' reiteration that nothing preacher Chaplin says can commitment, has always been present in Chaplin's be worth hearing, and that his speeches in the work, ever since the opus of his own creation pictures concerned make them not worth seeing, began. There has been no sharp turn (this is the they can be discouraged from going to them. denigrating fiction). To the discerning eye it has been present in all his work, even in the Charlie figure, even in the days of the two-reelers. Seldes Who was the Clown? wrote7—before ever Chaplin had become his own The two principal targets are the final speeches boss with a United Artists' picture: in The Great Dictator and Monsieur Verdoux. Both are 'childish'. Incidentally, in his article 5 "Charlie all through the middle period is at least Charlie the Kid, Eisenstein gives reasons for com­ half Tyl Eulenspiegel. He has created in paring Chaplin's attitude in comedy in some in­ Chariot8 a radical with an extraordinarily logical stances to that of a child. I do not agree with these. mind." But these speeches are like those of a child—that is, the Hans Andersen child who pointed out to Chaplin the Creator the courtiers around him that the Emperor had no A table will help us to follow the progress of clothes.