The infamous Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) befriends a sightless flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) and vows to cure her blindness. Every penny as poor as the girl is, he embarks on a series of misanthropic adventures that transport him from the center of a boxing ring to the house of an eccentric millionaire (Harry Myers), who shuns the Tramp when sober and treasures his company when drunk. All the while, the flower girl, unable to see his face, mistakes the Tramp for a rich philanthropist, unable to believe that one so destitute could care so deeply for the woes of another.
City Lights joins an embarrassingly long list of films that moved me to tears, though not, perhaps, for the typical reasons. On an absolute level, there's something profoundly touching in the Tramp's devotion to the blind girl, but I found myself even more caught up in what Chaplin seemed to be saying about class. That the rich characters are only capable of empathy when alcohol levels the playing field is only one part of the critique. That the Tramp exists in a moral vacuum, that the needs of others are a constant inspiration for everything he does, that his lack of attachments enables him to come to the rescue not only of the flower girl but of the millionaire himself, whose attempted suicide would have been successful if the Tramp hadn't intervened . . . these are just a few of the reasons for why Chaplin's hobo-protagonist is, ironically, the wealthiest character in the movie. Thematically speaking, it's a well-worn path (the charitable bum versus the miserly aristocrat) yet Chaplin attacks the subject in such a simple, exacting, and unobtrusive way that we forget we've encountered it before. We don't come away feeling like we've swallowed a sermon with characters attached to it. We feel like we've witnessed something fresh and new, something funny and tearful and void of baggage.
Rare is the movie that combines comedy and drama quite so fluently. While farcical sequences often distract from the film in question, Chaplin's slapstick actually underscores the drama, since the more ridiculous the Tramp's situation becomes, the more impressed we are at the lengths he'll go to in the service of his friend. And the performances in the final scene are about as good as any of seen, if only because they work with so little, and still say so much.
City Lights joins an embarrassingly long list of films that moved me to tears, though not, perhaps, for the typical reasons. On an absolute level, there's something profoundly touching in the Tramp's devotion to the blind girl, but I found myself even more caught up in what Chaplin seemed to be saying about class. That the rich characters are only capable of empathy when alcohol levels the playing field is only one part of the critique. That the Tramp exists in a moral vacuum, that the needs of others are a constant inspiration for everything he does, that his lack of attachments enables him to come to the rescue not only of the flower girl but of the millionaire himself, whose attempted suicide would have been successful if the Tramp hadn't intervened . . . these are just a few of the reasons for why Chaplin's hobo-protagonist is, ironically, the wealthiest character in the movie. Thematically speaking, it's a well-worn path (the charitable bum versus the miserly aristocrat) yet Chaplin attacks the subject in such a simple, exacting, and unobtrusive way that we forget we've encountered it before. We don't come away feeling like we've swallowed a sermon with characters attached to it. We feel like we've witnessed something fresh and new, something funny and tearful and void of baggage.
Rare is the movie that combines comedy and drama quite so fluently. While farcical sequences often distract from the film in question, Chaplin's slapstick actually underscores the drama, since the more ridiculous the Tramp's situation becomes, the more impressed we are at the lengths he'll go to in the service of his friend. And the performances in the final scene are about as good as any of seen, if only because they work with so little, and still say so much.