Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: THE REAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN [Camden International Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

The texture of what movie stars or cultural icons are like behind closed doors is always a balance of mythic and human. People want their stars to be bigger than life and not just people living their lives with a grand scale on the side. Charlie Chaplin was on the first huge movie stars but also was a perfectionist. The biopic "Chaplin" starring Robert Downey Jr. back in 1992 was fairly dynamic while still approaching the more darker textures of the man. The new Showtime documentary "The Real Charles Chaplin" does a similar job but using mostly archive footage from his films, behind the scenes and outtakes still surviving and select interviews. It does give a much more textured view into his final years through home movies which the 1992 biopic glossed over save for the honorary Oscar. The film is remarkably detailed and at times incredibly moving especially when it is just the images. The scene from "The Kid" (when the child is taken away and then rescued) still has unbelievable resonance nearly 100 years later as does the parting shot of the tramp retreating into the distance.

Understanding why Chaplin did what he did and how he approached life is interesting while being ambitious but also distinctly flawed in many viewpoints. His romantic relationships obviously belied a deeper perspective which might have been pushed from his childhood, a need to be mothered, whatever it was....yet it is still not explained, not by any of his wives save for Lita. Even Oona O'Neil never really spoke which is an interesting perspective we hear in a recorded interview over home movies from Geraldine Chaplin which ironically starred as her own grandmother in the 1992 film. The home movies in Chaplin's later years in the end (many of which this reviewer had not seen before) are both fleeting and sad in certain ways. When the camera is on, even in his 70s, the tramp comes out in his pratfalls yet many said when the camera was off he turned inward. His kids say as much. But you see that genius that was smothered by his exile and creative suppression in that setting. Geraldine says interestingly enough that her father repeated over and over "I am not bitter with America" to a point at which it became an irony. He, like many that burned bright, [Burt Reynolds is an example though not in the same league) but had some trouble or ego transferring when things changed [although Chaplin was noticeably dramatic in the pangs of Communism witch-hunts and World War II). '

The talkie element first changed his game (though Chaplin's films always had deeper themes) but the reality is that The Tramp was so popular around the world, because as the film points out, the character had no culture and no language...he could be the everyman. Even The Dictator and Modern Times did a very good job showing this. A very telling moment captured on audio was a press conference for his film "Monsieur Verdeaux" in the midst of him being declared a Communist as well as a Jew of which he was neither. A female reporter says he has become a bad comedian as soon as his films had messages (which is unfair and short sighted on her part) but time is reflective. Like cancel culture today, it was about a downfall by someone who had an opinion and wasn't afraid to show it yet likely regretted it. This was of course made real when he was exiled from the US just when he left to go on a press tour in Europe for his latest movie. The film does many things and reenacts certain interviews with actors lip syncing to the actual audio interviews which is a new approach and quite effective. This new documentary does cover a lot of ground but also much of the same territory (though nothing quite specific with Douglas Fairbanks). It is interesting to see Chapin also at one point with Gandhi (since "Chaplin" director Richard Attenborough made that biopic as well in 1982). "The Real Charlie Chaplin" is engrossing and had significant cooperation from the Chaplin Estate so it feels like the real deal, warts and all. A

By Tim Wassberg