The Real Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin, both admirable and appalling, is the subject of an honest and superbly made documentary.

Although the silent cinema produced a number of great comedians, the two most famous then and now are Chaplin and Keaton. Both men had troubled lives and careers that went downhill, but it's also the case that each has become the subject of a first class posthumous biopic. The late Peter Bogdanovich's last film was a splendid piece entitled The Great Buster: A Celebration (2018) and, with a slightly different agenda, Peter Middleton and James Spinney give us an equally valuable work in The Real Charlie Chaplin. The very title is indicative of its nature. Whereas Bogdanovich was keen to incorporate substantial movie highlights when looking back at Keaton, this new piece despite not being one that excludes extracts focuses first and foremost on Chaplin the man. While claiming him as a genius (especially in his creation of The Tramp as his screen persona), the film takes an honest look at an individual who had an unusually complex and disturbing character.

The Real Charlie Chaplin reaps the rewards of substantial research including the use of audiotape recordings which with admirable judgement are accompanied by visual enactments discreet enough not to jar. Indeed, the whole presentation is well judged from the choice of a female narrator, Pearl Mackie, to a lively assemblage of the material found (the editor is Julian Quantrill). The film is surely adroit in stressing how, having started out in London in poverty, Chaplin never came to feel secure and at ease. His film career in Hollywood would soon make him the most famous man in the world and the best paid movie star of the day, but it is suggested that he was always aware that it was his creation, The Tramp or The Little Fellow, who was loved while the real Chaplin was somebody else. If today the actor’s fate in being exiled from America in the McCarthy era arouses nothing but sympathy, his behaviour towards women (not least his first two wives and the abused Joan Barry) was unforgivable and, acknowledged as it all is in this film, modern day viewers will be duly horrified whether or not staunch supporters of the #MeToo movement.

However, even if Chaplin’s work tailed off (his last two films are quite reasonably passed by here in a sentence), The Real Charlie Chaplin offers ample evidence of his remarkable artistry and that makes this documentary a prime exhibit in any discussion as to whether or not an abusive man who is also an artist should be treated as somebody whose art should no longer be tolerated. Whatever your stance on that, this documentary gives insights into the man who Chaplin was from his perfectionist struggles over a key scene in City Lights to revealing details about his masterpiece The Great Dictator (with comparisons between Chaplin and Hitler born just days apart thrown in). Chaplin’s last years with his family yield both fond and critical views of him, but perhaps the key observation in this connection is that even in home movies made at that time Chaplin was always acting, thus revealing an unwillingness to be seen as the real Charlie Chaplin.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Featuring  Pearl Mackie (narrator), Jeff Rawle, Paul Ryan, Anne Rosenfeld, Dominic Marsh, Matthew Wolf, Paul Leonard, Eben Young, Haley Flaherty, David Olawale Ayinde.

Dir Peter Middleton and James Spinney, Pro John Battsek, Mike Brett, Jo Jo Ellison, Steve Jamison and Ben Limberg Screenplay Oliver Kindeberg, Peter Middleton and James Spinney, Ph James Blann, Pro Des Neil Allum, Ed Julian Quantrill, Music Robert Honstein, Costumes Natalie Willis.

Archer’s Mark/Film4/Passion Pictures/Ventureland-Altitude Film Entertainment.
114 mins. USA. 2021. UK Rel: 18 February 2022. Cert. 12.