Charming Chaplin

A NEW DOCUMENTARY CELEBRATES THE FIRST KING OF HOLLYWOOD

Richard Schickel's documentary Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin is an eloquent, informative overview of our greatest slapstick clown. Charlie was first screened in May at Cannes, where it created much excitement. This fall it will open in Los Angeles for one week to qualify for a documentary Oscar; then it will be shown on Turner Classic Movies.

To moviegoers, Chaplin will always be "the Little Tramp"—a gallant, harassed, mustached figure in baggy pants and oversize shoes; he was Everyman, invariably holding on to his dignity while being challenged over and over again by a brutal world. Behind the scenes, Chaplin was a driven workaholic and a womanizer—a poor boy turned millionaire involved in Hollywood scandals and left-wing politics, and an artist who remained terrified that in spite of his huge success he might lose his ability to make people laugh.

From 1914 to 1967, Chaplin made 81 films, and in Schickel's documentary we can watch clips from his silent one-reelers interspersed with episodes from his "talking pictures." Throughout, there's newsreel footage, poignant home movies of an old, ailing Chaplin in exile in Switzerland, and fascinating interviews with three of Chaplin's children, as well as insightful comments from the likes of Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Marcel Marceau, and Johnny Depp, who imitates Chaplin's famous "dance of the rolls" in Benny & Joon.

Finally, Charlie revolves around dazzling cinematic images—the long shot in Modern Times of Chaplin and Paulette Goddard walking down a road which seems to lead to infinity. The image is about surviving and the beauty of the human spirit. It's a reminder of what movies at their best can give us.

PATRICIA BOSWORTH