Bruce Calvert
2009-03-09 03:12:31 UTC
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article5853049.ece
Chaplin: The Tramp's Odyssey by Simon Louvish
The Times review by Valerie Grove
I was there when Charlie Chaplin was knighted in 1975. Crowds lined up
to clap and cheer when his black Rolls-Royce arrived at Buckingham
Palace and it was, I reported, “a tender and moving moment” when the
frail 85-year-old - returning to London from years of exile - was
wheeled before the Queen. The orchestra in the Palace ballroom played
the theme from Limelight. “Then Sir Charles's chair was wheeled
backward and his white, fluffy head disappeared from the ballroom.” I
recall his broad smile, and Oona, now Lady Chaplin, at his side in
blue-tinted spectacles, along with two of his nine surviving
children.
I suddenly remembered this while reading Simon Louvish's handsome and
absorbing book. It is aimed primarily, I imagine, at cognoscenti of
Chaplinology. Not being one of these, I have not read the hundreds of
books about Chaplin's life, genius and enduring influence. In youth, I
preferred Harold Lloyd to what I saw as the slapstick clowning of the
Little Tramp.
But Chaplin has always been an object of curiosity, there were so many
facets to him. He was attracted exclusively to girls aged 16 or 17,
taking three brides at about that age. He was a valiant victim of the
McCarthy era. His hippy son Michael's book, I Couldn't Smoke the Grass
on My Father's Lawn, slotted well into the 1960s. The second-best joke
in When Harry Met Sally was Meg Ryan's: “It's not fair! Charlie
Chaplin had a baby when he was 70!” and Billy Crystal's rejoinder:
“But he was too old to pick it up!”
Radio 2 recently celebrated Chaplin's musical brilliance in composing
film scores. My friend Dan Kamin, who created the physical comedy
sequences for the 1992 Robert Downey Jr film, Chaplin, explained to me
exactly how Chaplin's physical virtuosity communicates comedy.
Related Links
Chaplin by Simon Louvish
It was time to look afresh, with a mature eye, at The Kid, City
Lights, Modern Times, The Gold Rush, The Great Dictator and Limelight.
I found it enormously illuminating to do this with Louvish's book as a
companion, observing how Chaplin's physical virtuosity is central to
his comic routines, how he combined every filmic art (mime, dance,
music, writing and directing) and how his tramp character evolved into
his “absolute, destitute essence”.
The Chaplins' life as a performing family has been much excavated. But
it is still exhilarating to read about the London music hall of the
1890s, when “all one needed was a modicum of talent for song, dance,
some sort of physical dexterity or a novelty or some trained animals”.
Charlie was a clog dancer at 7. Booze, penury and the asylum split the
family, and Charlie and his brother Sydney did time in the workhouse
and the poor law school at Hanwell. These Oliver Twist years were much
rehashed after Chaplin got to Hollywood, via New York, where he
arrived in 1910 as one of Fred Karno's zany troupe.
He may have been an “ordinary street Arab” (“cheeky, honest, self-
reliant, philosophical”), but he was a cut above the raw Cockney: even
at primary level English schools were then “more rigorous than now” as
Louvish points out. (“I am a bookworm of no slight avidity,” the young
Chaplin solemnly declared to an American newspaper.) Music-hall
entertainers travelled the globe before the First World War.
R.G.Knowles could transfix an audience of thousands for 2 hours simply
by relating his “Trifles that Trouble the Traveller”. Stand-up comics
were “monologuists”. Those were the days when repartee such as “And
was the water up to your expectations?” “No, only up to my knees”
brought the house down.
The mean London alleyways, peopled with petty crooks and hungry
hoboes, became Chaplin's habitual mise-en-scène. Fred Karno was once
an itinerant glazier, which may explain why the Kid, Jackie Coogan,
throws stones so that Chaplin can con householders into reglazing
their windows. At 21 he was not only the Tramp but the Toff (Lord
Helpus, whose first taste of water sends him into a paroxysm of
poisoned panic), the Swell (with a snort of “Fnuh!” like Harry
Enfield's Tory Boy), the Rowdy and the Lush. Hindsight is a plague of
biography, Louvish warns, guarding against imputing too much genius to
early performances: giving a synopsis of a plot, he will say, “In
short, it was rubbish”. An early Keystone film wound up with mayhem
and the laconic onscreen words “Consternation, etc.” “No notable
advances in the grand art of comedy are logged here,” Louvish
remarks.
Mountains of money and the excesses of celebrity threatened to engulf
him as early as 1917. But his professional meticulousness, his
tireless retakes, were legendary. Louvish says that Chaplin told
“porkies” (a jarring word) and mythologised his background, and “waxed
wroth” when truths emerged. Lionised in Hollywood, phenomenally rich,
he was embraced by intellectuals and luminaries as diverse as G.B.
Shaw, Apollinaire, Léger, Buñuel, Picasso, Dalí, Frank Harris and
Churchill.
When accused of Bolshevism (“I am an artist: I am interested in life.
Bolshevism is a new phase of life. I must be interested in it”) he
would say, “I have $30million worth of business - what am I talking
about communism for?” His failure to rebut accusations of “a sneering
attitude toward a country that has enriched him”, or to express
remorse for supporting Russia, doomed him to exile. Though tarnished
by scandal Chaplin emerges with decency intact.
His diligence at work was remarkable. “If anything goes wrong
technically, give me a signal,” said his assistant director, Robert
Aldrich. “We'll stop if anything goes aesthetically wrong,” Chaplin
replied. That was on the Shepperton set of Limelight, when he unmasked
himself as Calvero the clown, in ageing dignity.
“For those for whom Charlie Chaplin means little or nothing, or who
never ‘got it', Limelight is unlikely to inspire a conversion,”
Louvish writes, acknowledging its broad melodrama, lush score and
“mawkish overload”.
Louvish's tone is that of the dissecting surgeon, overlaid with
affection. One begins to comprehend the power Chaplin's films still
hold over buffs and interpreters. With gratitude I read, on page 334,
“Our tale is almost done, though Charlie Chaplin lived another 24
years.” (A model of biographical restraint.)
In his epilogue, Louvish writes: “One goes round in circles. He was
famous because he was famous. The Tramp caught on, as a universal
figure.” He says that the world's most written-about film-maker
remains an enigma, and concludes that we must all make a personal
response. For him, it was the image of the “little fellow”, alone in
the world. I think that will suffice.
Chaplin: The Tramp's Odyssey by Simon Louvish
Faber & Faber, £25 Buy the book
Chaplin: The Tramp's Odyssey by Simon Louvish
The Times review by Valerie Grove
I was there when Charlie Chaplin was knighted in 1975. Crowds lined up
to clap and cheer when his black Rolls-Royce arrived at Buckingham
Palace and it was, I reported, “a tender and moving moment” when the
frail 85-year-old - returning to London from years of exile - was
wheeled before the Queen. The orchestra in the Palace ballroom played
the theme from Limelight. “Then Sir Charles's chair was wheeled
backward and his white, fluffy head disappeared from the ballroom.” I
recall his broad smile, and Oona, now Lady Chaplin, at his side in
blue-tinted spectacles, along with two of his nine surviving
children.
I suddenly remembered this while reading Simon Louvish's handsome and
absorbing book. It is aimed primarily, I imagine, at cognoscenti of
Chaplinology. Not being one of these, I have not read the hundreds of
books about Chaplin's life, genius and enduring influence. In youth, I
preferred Harold Lloyd to what I saw as the slapstick clowning of the
Little Tramp.
But Chaplin has always been an object of curiosity, there were so many
facets to him. He was attracted exclusively to girls aged 16 or 17,
taking three brides at about that age. He was a valiant victim of the
McCarthy era. His hippy son Michael's book, I Couldn't Smoke the Grass
on My Father's Lawn, slotted well into the 1960s. The second-best joke
in When Harry Met Sally was Meg Ryan's: “It's not fair! Charlie
Chaplin had a baby when he was 70!” and Billy Crystal's rejoinder:
“But he was too old to pick it up!”
Radio 2 recently celebrated Chaplin's musical brilliance in composing
film scores. My friend Dan Kamin, who created the physical comedy
sequences for the 1992 Robert Downey Jr film, Chaplin, explained to me
exactly how Chaplin's physical virtuosity communicates comedy.
Related Links
Chaplin by Simon Louvish
It was time to look afresh, with a mature eye, at The Kid, City
Lights, Modern Times, The Gold Rush, The Great Dictator and Limelight.
I found it enormously illuminating to do this with Louvish's book as a
companion, observing how Chaplin's physical virtuosity is central to
his comic routines, how he combined every filmic art (mime, dance,
music, writing and directing) and how his tramp character evolved into
his “absolute, destitute essence”.
The Chaplins' life as a performing family has been much excavated. But
it is still exhilarating to read about the London music hall of the
1890s, when “all one needed was a modicum of talent for song, dance,
some sort of physical dexterity or a novelty or some trained animals”.
Charlie was a clog dancer at 7. Booze, penury and the asylum split the
family, and Charlie and his brother Sydney did time in the workhouse
and the poor law school at Hanwell. These Oliver Twist years were much
rehashed after Chaplin got to Hollywood, via New York, where he
arrived in 1910 as one of Fred Karno's zany troupe.
He may have been an “ordinary street Arab” (“cheeky, honest, self-
reliant, philosophical”), but he was a cut above the raw Cockney: even
at primary level English schools were then “more rigorous than now” as
Louvish points out. (“I am a bookworm of no slight avidity,” the young
Chaplin solemnly declared to an American newspaper.) Music-hall
entertainers travelled the globe before the First World War.
R.G.Knowles could transfix an audience of thousands for 2 hours simply
by relating his “Trifles that Trouble the Traveller”. Stand-up comics
were “monologuists”. Those were the days when repartee such as “And
was the water up to your expectations?” “No, only up to my knees”
brought the house down.
The mean London alleyways, peopled with petty crooks and hungry
hoboes, became Chaplin's habitual mise-en-scène. Fred Karno was once
an itinerant glazier, which may explain why the Kid, Jackie Coogan,
throws stones so that Chaplin can con householders into reglazing
their windows. At 21 he was not only the Tramp but the Toff (Lord
Helpus, whose first taste of water sends him into a paroxysm of
poisoned panic), the Swell (with a snort of “Fnuh!” like Harry
Enfield's Tory Boy), the Rowdy and the Lush. Hindsight is a plague of
biography, Louvish warns, guarding against imputing too much genius to
early performances: giving a synopsis of a plot, he will say, “In
short, it was rubbish”. An early Keystone film wound up with mayhem
and the laconic onscreen words “Consternation, etc.” “No notable
advances in the grand art of comedy are logged here,” Louvish
remarks.
Mountains of money and the excesses of celebrity threatened to engulf
him as early as 1917. But his professional meticulousness, his
tireless retakes, were legendary. Louvish says that Chaplin told
“porkies” (a jarring word) and mythologised his background, and “waxed
wroth” when truths emerged. Lionised in Hollywood, phenomenally rich,
he was embraced by intellectuals and luminaries as diverse as G.B.
Shaw, Apollinaire, Léger, Buñuel, Picasso, Dalí, Frank Harris and
Churchill.
When accused of Bolshevism (“I am an artist: I am interested in life.
Bolshevism is a new phase of life. I must be interested in it”) he
would say, “I have $30million worth of business - what am I talking
about communism for?” His failure to rebut accusations of “a sneering
attitude toward a country that has enriched him”, or to express
remorse for supporting Russia, doomed him to exile. Though tarnished
by scandal Chaplin emerges with decency intact.
His diligence at work was remarkable. “If anything goes wrong
technically, give me a signal,” said his assistant director, Robert
Aldrich. “We'll stop if anything goes aesthetically wrong,” Chaplin
replied. That was on the Shepperton set of Limelight, when he unmasked
himself as Calvero the clown, in ageing dignity.
“For those for whom Charlie Chaplin means little or nothing, or who
never ‘got it', Limelight is unlikely to inspire a conversion,”
Louvish writes, acknowledging its broad melodrama, lush score and
“mawkish overload”.
Louvish's tone is that of the dissecting surgeon, overlaid with
affection. One begins to comprehend the power Chaplin's films still
hold over buffs and interpreters. With gratitude I read, on page 334,
“Our tale is almost done, though Charlie Chaplin lived another 24
years.” (A model of biographical restraint.)
In his epilogue, Louvish writes: “One goes round in circles. He was
famous because he was famous. The Tramp caught on, as a universal
figure.” He says that the world's most written-about film-maker
remains an enigma, and concludes that we must all make a personal
response. For him, it was the image of the “little fellow”, alone in
the world. I think that will suffice.
Chaplin: The Tramp's Odyssey by Simon Louvish
Faber & Faber, £25 Buy the book