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Wednesday, January 19, 2011

City Lights

City Lights is a 1931 American silent film, a romantic comedy written and directed by Charlie Chaplin, who is the star. It also has the leads Virginia Cherrill and Harry Myers. Although"talking" pictures were on the rise since 1928, City Lights was immediately popular. Today it is thought of as one of the highest accomplishments of Chaplin's prolific career. Although classified as a comedy, City Lights has an ending widely regarded as one of the most moving in cinema history.



Plot

The officials of a city are dedicating a new statue, but when it is unveiled, Chaplin's Tramp is discovered sleeping on it. He is chased off by the crowd. Broke and homeless he wanders the streets, getting tormented by two newsboys. He happens upon a blind Flower Girl (Virginia Cherrill), and buys a flower. Just when she is about to give him his change, a man gets into a nearby car and drives away, making her think the Tramp has driven off. The Tramp doesn't correct her and slinks away. The Flower Girl returns home to her simple life with her grandmother (Florence Lee). That evening, the Tramp runs into a drunken millionaire (Harry Myers) who is trying to commit suicide. The Tramp convinces him to live, whereupon the millionaire showers him with gifts. They return to the millionaire's mansion, then go out on the town, where the Tramp inadvertently causes much havok. The next morning, they return to the mansion, and the millionaire gives his Rolls Royce to the Tramp. The Flower Girl walks past, and the Tramp asks for some money and buys all her flowers, then drives her home. But when he returns, the millionaire has sobered up and rudely dismisses him and takes the car back. But later that day, he meets the Tramp again while intoxicated, and invites him back for a wild party that the Tramp manages to ruin. The next morning, having sobered up again and planning to leave for a cruise, the millionaire once more tosses out the Tramp.
Returning to the Flower Girl's apartment, the Tramp spies her being attended by a doctor. He decides to take a job to earn money for her, and becomes a streetsweeper, managing to annoy his new coworker. Meanwhile, the grandmother receives a notice that she and the Flower Girl will be evicted if they cannot pay their back rent, but hides it and goes out to beg. The Tramp visits the Flower Girl on his lunch break, and sees an ad for an operation that cures blindness. He then finds the notice and promises the Girl he will pay it. But he returns to work late and is fired. Dejected, he passes a boxing venue, where a fighter convinces him to spar with him, throw the fight, and they'll split the prize money. But the fighter turns out to be a fugitive from justice and flees, leaving the Tramp to fight a no-nonsense replacement. Despite a valiant effort, the Tramp is thrashed. He meets the drunken millionaire again, who takes him to the mansion and gives him $1000 for the Girl. But two burglars sneak in and clobber the millionaire, and when he comes to, he accuses the Tramp of stealing. The Tramp narrowly escapes the police, and delivers the money to the Girl and promises to return, but he is picked up by the police and thrown in jail.
Several months later, he is wandering the streets again. Searching for the girl, he returns to her original street corner, but she is not there. With her sight restored, the girl has opened up a flower shop with her grandmother. When a rich man comes into the shop, the girl wonders if he is her mysterious benefactor. The Tramp, in ragged clothes and tormented by the same newsboys, suddenly finds himself staring at her through the window. She jokes to her grandmother that she has "made a conquest." Seeing his flower fall apart in his hand, the girl offers him one of hers and a coin. The Tramp begins to leave, then reaches for the flower. The girl takes hold of his hand to place the coin in it and, feeling him, she realizes who he is. "You?" she says, and he nods, asking, "You can see now?" She holds his hand to her heart and replies, "Yes, I can see now." The film closes on Chaplin smiling back at her.

[edit]Cast

[edit]Production

Chaplin's feature The Circus, released in 1928, was his last film before the motion picture industry embraced sound recording and brought the silent movie era to a close. As his own producer and distributor (part owner of United Artists), Chaplin could still conceive City Lights as a silent film. Technically the film was a crossover, as its soundtrack had synchronized music, sound effects, and some unintelligible sounds that copied speech patterns. film. The dialogue was presented on intertitles.[1]
As a filmmaker, Chaplin was known for being a perfectionist; he was notable for doing many more "takes" than other directors at the time. At one point he fired Virginia Cherrill and began re-filming with Georgia Hale, Chaplin's co-star in The Gold Rush. This proved too expensive, so he re-hired Cherrill to finish City Lights. (Approximately seven minutes of test footage of Hale survives and is included on the DVD release; excerpts were first seen in the documentary Unknown Chaplin along with an unused opening sequence from the film.) When Chaplin completed the film, silent films had become generally unpopular. But City Lights was one of the great financial and artistic successes of Chaplin's career, and it was his personal favorite of his films. Especially fond of the final scene, he said, "[I]n City Lights just the last scene … I’m not acting …. Almost apologetic, standing outside myself and looking … It’s a beautiful scene, beautiful, and because it isn’t over-acted."[2]

[edit]Reception

Charlie Chaplin and Virginia Cherrill in City Lights.
Chaplin was nervous about reception of the film because by this time, silent films were anachronistic; Hollywood had switched to sound films by the end of 1929. Enthusiastically received by Great Depression-era audiences, the film was one of Chaplin's most financially successful and critically acclaimed works. In 1949, the critic James Agee wrote in Lifemagazine, that the final scene was the "greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid."[citation needed] The film was re-released in 1950.
Several well-known directors have praised City LightsOrson Welles said it was his favorite film. In a 1963 interview in the American magazine CinemaStanley Kubrick rated City Lightsas fifth among his top ten films.[3] In 1972, the renowned Russian director Andrei Tarkovskyplaced City Lights as fifth among this top ten and said of Chaplin, "He] is the only person to have gone down into cinematic history without any shadow of a doubt. The films he left behind can never grow old."[citation needed]
George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin "the only genius to come out of the movie industry".[citation needed][citation needed] Celebrated Italian director Federico Fellini has often praised this film and his Nights of Cabiria refers to it. In the 2003 documentary Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles ChaplinWoody Allen said it was Chaplin's best picture. Allen is said to have based the final scene of his 1979 film Manhattan on the final scene of City Lights.[citation needed]
In 1992, the Library of Congress selected City Lights for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." In 2007, the American Film Institute's tenth anniversary edition of "100 Years...100 Movies" rankedCity Lights as the eleventh greatest American film of all time.
In 1952, Sight and Sound magazine issued the results of its first poll for the "The Best Films of All Time" and City Lights was voted #2, afterVittorio DeSica's Bicycle Thieves.[4] In 2002, City Lights ranked 45th on the critics' list.[5] That same year, directors were polled separately; they ranked the film as 19th overall.[6]
In June 2008, AFI revealed its "10 Top 10", the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres, from a poll of more than 1500 people in the creative community. City Lights was voted the best film in the romantic comedy genre.[7]
The film has been studied and written about by American and international film critics and scholars. For example, French experimental musician and film critic Michel Chion has written an analysis of City Lights, published as Les Lumières de la villeSlavoj Žižek used the film as a primary example in his essay, "Why Does a Letter Always Arrive at Its Destination?" (first chapter in Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out).

[edit]American Film Institute recognition




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