Behind-the-scenes footage of Chaplin directing City Lights, filmed c. 1929 by Chaplin’s friend, Ralph Barton. I find this footage interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, Chaplin is dressed in his Tramp outfit, yet he’s not acting like the Tramp at all. In one scene, you see him chewing out his Asst. Director Harry Crocker (who was later fired from the production), in other scenes he looks annoyed and preoccupied. You also see him chewing gum, spitting, and in one cute clip, clowning in front of the camera.
Charlie Chaplin & Paulette Goddard in Modern Times (1936, dir. Charlie Chaplin)
“Happiness doesn’t last, however, and before long the two vagabonds are forced back onto the open road for one of cinema’s most beautifully wistful exits. Despairing alongside a country road, the gamin (Paulette Goddard) sobs, ‘What’s the use of trying?’ The Tramp — once again the scruffy no-surrender optimist the world had watched for an entire generation — urges her to ‘Buck up. Never say die. We’ll get along!’ Then he reminds her how to put a smile on her face. She agrees, and the spark returns to her eyes.
In Chaplin’s best-remembered fade-out, the two tramps set off hand in hand down the dusty road toward a mountainous horizon, silhouetted against a welcoming sunrise. Two survivors, resolute and no longer alone, with the totality of their worldly possessions tied up in kerchief bundles, walk away toward an unknown, but also unprescribed, future.
If you don’t think that last scene is a lump-in-the-throater, there’s no hope for you.”
-excerpted from Mark Bourne’s Modern Times: The Chaplin Collection
You can find out if you’re hopeless here.
