Charlie Chaplin
Luci della città

A vagabond, wandering among the lights of the city (of New York), encounters a beautiful blind flower girl. He wants to help her, as he accidentally learns that across the ocean an ophthalmology luminary could restore her sight. He seeks help from a perpetually drunk millionaire (whom the Vagabond saves from suicide) who is willing to help him only when he is not sober; he ends up fighting for money in a boxing ring and then, well, in the end there's the most beautiful and moving scene in the entire history of cinema, and if one doesn't cry at every viewing, they should have, at the very least, their heart checked.

"It was the era of City Lights, which I visited during editing. The scene where he swallows a whistle seemed excessively long to me, but I didn't have the courage to tell him. Neville (an interpreter, ed.) who thought like me, told me that Chaplin had already shortened it. He would later shorten it even more. Chaplin was not very sure of himself. He hesitated, often seeking advice. Since he composed the music for his movies while sleeping, he had quite a complicated recorder installed next to his bed. He would wake up halfway and whistle a few notes before falling asleep again. That's how, quite naively, he recomposed from start to finish the music of the song La Violetera, which cost him a lawsuit and quite a bit of money" (Luis Buñuel).

"Watching City Lights, I then realized his depth as a filmmaker, because it is a film that tells the story of love better than any treatise, book, or movie on the subject. I was really very impressed by Chaplin, by the level of his interpretation, and the mastery with which he tackled the dramatic moments of the film" (Woody Allen).

The premiere of "City Lights" is dated January 30, 1931, at the Los Angeles Theatre. In the audience, among others, were Albert Einstein (who would leave in tears accompanied by his wife Elsa) and George Bernard Shaw. The film, note, went into production in 1928, right after the release of "The Circus" (another masterpiece, perhaps a bit less recognized as such) and sound existed since 1927, the year of "The Jazz Singer". Chaplin, despite strong pressure from producers, created a silent film with sound gags, but essentially silent. A gamble, given that the public, at the time, was eager for voices, sounds, and words.

In a newspaper of the time, dated 1930, one can read this (the mentioned film is, of course, "City Lights"):

"The film currently in production has successfully reached its final stages. According to President Charlie Chaplin, the decision to make the film without dialogues was a very difficult one. He had strong reservations, shared by his interlocutors within the film industry, about the reception the public might reserve for a silent film. [...] After a long discussion, which saw the participation of the board of directors on the fate of the film, it was decided to keep within the company enough capital to be ready to face the losses that a possible failure could cause, and at the same time, in the event of such a contingency, set aside enough funds to produce another film".

No one in Hollywood is willing to produce silent films anymore, but the savings put away by the company of which Chaplin was president were not needed. The film was a global success and quickly became an inimitable and indispensable work.

On the brink of the Great Depression, Chaplin narrates a lost New York where wealth and poverty tragically go hand in hand. Outside the villa of the drunk millionaire works the poor girl to whom Chaplin would like to restore sight; on the streets of the Big Apple, luxury shops are confused with destitute vagabonds forced to sleep on the street (or on a statue, like the gag of the dramatic opening sequence of the film). Chaplin, with meticulous mastery, balances the comedic (the majority) and dramatic moments, never allowing one to overshadow the other emotionally and narratively. The gags are long sequences brought to the point of exasperation: the evening at the millionaire's house with the swallowed whistle; the match in the ring and all the unfortunates who, for a couple of bucks, try their luck getting beaten up; the suicide at the river. And the use of outdoor locations is remarkable: it's a film with great indoor moments, but it celebrates (and in 1931, it was not customary) the streets and squares of New York, portrayed, perhaps for the first time, in a way as truthful as it is brutal.

In 1972, Jean Mitry, in his "Tout Chaplin" (one of the most important literary works on the Chaplin world), would write:

"City Lights is definitely the most beautiful among all Chaplin's films. The most painful, the cruelest, and the sweetest. Here, romantic comedy is elevated to the levels of tragedy. And if it seems less bitter than that of The Gold Rush, it is actually even more poignant because at the center of the story is no longer a man lost among the glaciers of Alaska, but a man lost among men. Here, the acceptance of the Vagabond within society is based on a misunderstanding. Among similar people who do not recognize him [...] By restoring sight to the blind girl, he knows he is signing his own sentence."

"City Lights" lasts 83 minutes, a little, but Chaplin shot, more or less, nine hours, cutting down practically everything during editing, and of all that footage nothing, it seems, remains, except a few minutes included in "Unknown Chaplin", 1982 (Charlie Chaplin - City Lights Flower Scene Outtakes (youtube.com). But his perfectionism bordered, or rather touched, madness, so much so that the famous final scene required a remarkable 342 takes, becoming the most filmed scene in the entire history of cinema.

And the testimonies of such perfectionism are countless. Worth mentioning is Virginia Cherrill's account, the blind girl actress.

To Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, the two most influential Chaplin historians ever (also authors of the phenomenal "Unknown Chaplin"), Cherrill, in a long interview, confided:

"The most extravagant thing is that Charlie didn't care how many takes he did. To be honest, I often thought he repeated the same scene a thousand times when he didn't know how to proceed, waiting for an idea. He was a perfectionist, we didn't see any difference, but he did. He kept repeating a scene endlessly even when he had shot enough material to sink the Queen Mary, until finally, at his: This is good! We would breathe a sigh of relief, and then he would say to me: Well, maybe we'll do another one."

"I remember that during the shooting of the boxing match scene, Chaplin had a lot of fun and went on for days, for weeks. It was also a wonderful experience for us. Everyone in the city came to watch. It represented one of the few moments of social life for us since everyone in Hollywood at that time loved boxing. The scene was so comical that we all had a great deal of fun."

"City Lights" enjoyed success well beyond 1931, and was one of the most beloved films by the so-called Beat Generation in the 1960s. It was also one of the last occasions in which Chaplin appeared before the audience with a cane and a bowler hat (the last time would be with "Modern Times", 1936) before the great adventure of sound and "The Great Dictator", 1940. But that's another story.

In Italy, the film was released at the end of 1931; fascism had not yet ostracized American works, which would happen shortly thereafter (with the sole exception of Walt Disney), and it was an enormous success even here.

How to explain such success? Surely, the work is a masterpiece, of which much has been written and spoken. Certainly, the blend of comedy and drama is so well achieved that even the most insensitive soul will hardly resist shedding a tear (despite Chaplin never resorting to emotional blackmail to move the audience, he leads them to tears, not forces them). Perhaps the reason is explained by Chaplin himself. At the Los Angeles premiere, he whispers to a moved Einstein: "You see, they applaud me because everyone understands me; they applaud you because no one understands you."

Chaplin's language was, and is, universal. It speaks to everyone, then, clearly, not everyone intends to understand, but even those people feel touched, somehow.

The Italian movie poster said: "You’ll laugh as a child, you’ll cry as an adult." I cried as a child and I still do today; I laugh today and I did as a child as well.