"The Kid," Charlie Chaplin, dir., 1921
I use that title phrase more in the Scott Pilgrim sense of the term, rather than to indicate that this is Chaplin's best picture.
Though by no means up to the amped-up-to-eleven pathos and tragedy of Limelight,this film does share that one's ability to highlight Chaplin virtues beyond the joys of slapstick, most notably the multi-faceted elements of the tramp. On the one hand he displays an almost hard-wired allergy to hard work and responsibility, on the other a profound and instantly communicable sense of heart and empathy. Furthermore he will at times demonstrate a wildly, manic inventive side that sets a fire under his will to survive.
This last skill takes on an unusual bent in this film, where the Tramp finds an abandoned baby and takes the child under his wing. Faced with the responsibility of parenthood, we see him take on his new charge with this own charmingly inventive take on the parental version of the Levi-Straussian bricoleur, cutting up new diapers, fashioning a hammock/bassinet, and gerry-rigging a baby bottle out of a coffee pot tied up with string. I think scenes like these have two functions, seemingly incongruous: first we laugh at the apparent ineptitude of the Tramp's child-rearing skills, but I think the real parents feel a palpable sense of recognition and acknowledge that parenting is all about having crazy (sometimes literal) shit thrown at you and having to come up with solutions on the fly.
And you know what, I'm not made of stone, I'm not gonna lie: Jackie Coogan, who plays the 5-year-old version of the kid, is flippin' adorable, and Chaplin manages to handle that kind of charisma without milking it or pushing it into maudlin territory. It's very similar to what he usually does with the "Girl" part in his films (and, yes, that character rarely has an actual name, if that gets your feminist rankles up); she manages to convey a sentimentality that is suffused with warmth with out pressing to hard on the confines of cliche. I must, however, admit, that there is one moment, when the Kid is taken into the protective services wagon, where he weeps and gesticulates in a kind of Griffithian heroine's manner. It seemed more likely to me that a real child would just wail and snot and moan.
With the possible exception of City Lights (which strikes an entirely different tone), it seems relatively rare for Chaplin to end things on such an ambiguous, unfinished tone. The Kid's birth mother (Edna Purviance), now a rich actress, is reunited with her son. In the film's final scene, she invites the Tramp into their stately new home. The question of how these three characters are going to cohabitate strikes me as the beginning of an entirely new film.
Comments