Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin

A documentary about the master comedian Charlie Chaplin would obviously contain a lot of humor and laughter. As director Woody Allen says of the gags in his films: “It will be funny a thousand years from now”.
But sorrow is also a major feature in this film by film critic, TV-producer and author Richard Schicker. He introduces the audience to the multiple sides of Charlie Chaplin. There is the filmmaker, who directs not through words but through action – if an actor is supposed to beat up someone in a scene, that is exactly what Chaplin first does to him on the set. Also, there is the well known womanizer, and the convinced leftist who is watched by the F.B.I. But most of all the film centres around Chaplin as a person depending upon the love, applause and appreciation of other people. His children tell of a man who could not take his family out for a quiet dinner in a restaurant, but felt the need to take on the part of the fool until the whole place was filled with laughter and people shouting: “That’s Charlie Chaplin over there!”
Through scenes from acclaimed films such as The Gold Rush (1925) and Limelight (1952) as well as previously unreleased material, a lovable but slightly tragic person who always felt the pressure to do more comes into sight.
EMMA JÖNSSON