Classic Review - City Lights

Sometimes, there are movies so eminently influential and brilliant that they remain in the public lexicon even if nobody knows the extent of their influence or even their name. In the case of Charlie Chaplin, that’s true for many of his films, which established a bar for comedy and satire which explored serious themes that a lot of films today owe much to. And of course, the most famous of his films is City Lights – and it’s damn good too.

City Lights, a silent black-and-white film which came out in 1931, focuses on the character of the Little Tramp played by Chaplin, a cheerful but poor man who through coincidence and happenstance ends up in love and playing to the whims of a crazed businessman. It’s not a particularly complex tale by many standards, but one of the great things about City Lights is its simplicity – it’s not trying to reach and explain every theme it touches on.

For all of the surprisingly mature commentary raised in the film about capitalism, depression, alcoholism, suicide and romance, the movie never stops to explain it and more expects the audience to absorb it as they watch. It becomes ingrained in them, planting an idea rather than a plan, and making it much more effective that many films of the modern era determined to elaborate on everything in a dull way.

All of that thematic baggage surrounds a sweet love story between the Tramp and a blind flower seller (a relationship parodied many times in future media such as Futurama), and his attempts to save her business while also overcoming his fears based on his social instability. It’s crowd-pleasing, sure, but it’s handled with a mature grace and eloquence even if neither character can speak. There’s a respect and an adult formality to their interactions, making each conversation seem ever more meaningful and delightful.

All of this is helped by the excellent lead performances. Virginia Cherrill as the blind woman is enchanting, emotional without being melodramatic and kind with her arm movements alone, and her surrounding cast are equally willing to play their parts to the fullest. But Chaplin in this film…holy hell, it’s one of the best performances ever committed to cinema.

Chaplin’s notorious perfectionism and strictness are the opposite of his Tramp character, almost artful in his discombobulation and clumsiness. He’s charming simply by the way he moves and how his small stature contrasts to the grand halls and expectations built around him. He moves like a devil and flies around the screen with manic grace, but he also brings his character down to earth with his gentle facial expressions – sheepish and embarrassed over his self-image, but also happy and elated whenever he’s with the blind woman.

The final scene of this movie was once called “the greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid”. It certainly gets there.

Another thing about Chaplin’s performance and the film itself is that it’s so damn funny. Maybe entirely reliant on visual slapstick as a silent film, City Lights nevertheless keeps itself fresh and original with each passing skit. Whether it’s a crazy car drive or a drunk night at a bar, or the incredible boxing match near the end of the second act, Chaplin’s physicality and chemistry is high-wire and manages to land every single time.

Part of this is due to Chaplin’s strong sense of comedic foreshadowing. A joke is always given a slight clue in a wide shot, until the viewer starts noticing what’s (maybe) going to happen. Then Chaplin subverts that immediate hint and does something unexpected with it. Simple, yet effective, and deployed time and time again.

That structure of direction and the other things I mentioned are what make films like City Lights so important in our modern day. It’s subtle and quiet, not loud and boisterous. It’s naturalistic, not hammy; characterful, not overconfident; hinting and planting, not yelling and excavating. It’s full of fundamental design elements which so many films these days are missing in some form, maybe due to a view of these films as outdated or oversimplified.

But we need to recognise films like this, or Citizen Kane, or the old Robin Hood’s, or other Chaplin films like The Great Dictator, because they are what created our conceptions of fundamentally great films. Taking their formulas, and combining them with modern day advancements, we could get some truly impactful films once again.

City Lights gets a good-ol’ A+.

This whole movie has been uploaded to YouTube, so you don’t even have to pay for it, which is nice.