Chaplin
Tags: dramatic, cult, flashback

Plot synopsis:
The film is structured around lengthy flashbacks as the elderly Charlie Chaplin (now living in Switzerland) recollects moments from his life during a conversation with fictional character George Hayden, the editor of his autobiography.
Chaplin's recollections begin with his childhood of extreme poverty from which he escapes by immersing himself in the world of the London music halls. After his mother Hannah Chaplin has an attack of nerves on stage during a performance, the four year old Chaplin takes his mother's place on the stage. Hannah retires from performing and is eventually committed to an asylum after developing psychosis. In the years that follow, Chaplin and his brother Sydney gain work with variety show producer Fred Karno, where Chaplin becomes a hit with his comedy drunk act. He begins a relationship with his first love Hetty Kelly; the night before he is due to leave for America he proposes to her but she declines, reasoning she is too young. Chaplin promises to return to England for her when he is a success.
Chaplin is sent to America by Karno and is given a job by Mack Sennett, the most famous comedy producer in Hollywood. While there, he creates his iconic Tramp persona and due to the terrible directorial capabilities of Sennett's wife Mabel, Chaplin is allowed to direct his own movies. Before the year is over, Chaplin directs over 20 movies. After Sydney joins him in America to become his manager, Chaplin decides to break away from Sennett to have complete creative control over his films with the goal of one day owning his own studio. In 1917, Chaplin completes work on The Immigrant which causes some concern over the film's political subject matter and starts a brief romance with actress Edna Purviance.
Years later at an industry party thrown by Douglas Fairbanks, Chaplin meets and begins dating child actress Mildred Harris. Chaplin eventually becomes wealthy and profitable enough to set up his own studio and becomes "the most famous man in the world" all before his thirtieth birthday. Chaplin reveals to Fairbanks that he is to marry Harris as she is pregnant, but later at a party thrown by William Randolph Hearst, the pregnancy is revealed to be a hoax. At the same party, Chaplin has an uncomfortable confrontation with J Edgar Hoover about actor / directors and their responsibilities with regards to audiences, this confrontation sparks a forty year long vendetta and Hoover attempts to ruin Chaplin's reputation.
Chaplin and Mildred separate after the premature death of their only child and Chaplin's utter devotion to his films. During the divorce proceedings, Harris's lawyers attempt to steal Chaplin's movie The Kid reasoning that it is an asset, however Chaplin and Sydney finish editing the film in a remote hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah, and smuggle it successfully back to Los Angeles.
The brothers eventually arrange for their mother to join them in America. Chaplin is initially happy to see her but has been away from her for so long that he is unable to cope with her worsening mental illness. In 1921, seeking a break from film-making and his private life, Chaplin returns to England to attend the UK premiere of The Kid. He reunites with Karno and hopes to locate Hetty, but Karno sadly informs him that she died in a flu epidemic shorty after the war. Chaplin also discovers that although most are happy to see him, his success has meant that the poverty stricken working class British no longer consider him to be one of their own and resent him for not fighting in the war as they did.
Back in America, Hoover is beginning to investigate Chaplin's private life, suspecting that he may be a member of the Communist Party, and Chaplin is forced to consider the implications the introduction of "talkies" may have on his film-making career. Despite the arrival of sound pictures drawing nearer, Chaplin vows never to make a talkie featuring the Tramp.
In 1923, Chaplin makes The Gold Rush and marries his leading lady Lita Grey, with whom he goes on to have two children, however Chaplin later confides to George that he always thought of her as a "total bitch" and dedicates no more than five lines to her in the finished autobiography. Years pass and although Chaplin finds a new wife in Paulette Goddard he feels a sense of guilt and sympathy to the millions of Americans who have recently been made unemployed due to the Wall Street Crash (Chaplin avoided losing all of his money in The Great Depression by selling most of his shares the year before). Chaplin decides to address the issue in his next movie Modern Times (The final movie to feature The Tramp) but his complete dedication to getting the movie finished puts excessive strain on his home life and eventually results in the breakup of his marriage.
At an industry party Chaplin causes a minor scandal when he refuses to shake hands with a visiting member of the Nazi party. Fairbanks (with his health in great decline) comments that Chaplin looks a lot like Adolf Hitler, providing Chaplin with inspiration for his next movie in their final encounter before Fairbanks' death in 1939. Chaplin's film satirizing the Nazis The Great Dictator is a huge hit throughout the world but Hoover tries to portray the film as a work of anti-American propaganda.
Chaplin settles down with and marries Oona O'Neil, an actress who looks identical to his first love Hetty Kelly and the woman he will spend the remainder of his life with. However Chaplin is hit with another scandal when it is alleged that he is father to the child of his former lover Joan Barry and despite a blood test proving that the child is not his, Chaplin is ordered to provide financial support for the child. His reputation severely damaged, Chaplin stays out of the public eye for over seven years until re-emerging to produce a new film Limelight.
In 1952 during the height of the Joe McCarthy scandal, Chaplin leaves America with Oona on a trip back to Britain, but subsequently finds out that the U.S. Attorney General has revoked Chaplin's permit to re-enter the United States.
In 1972, 10 years after Chaplin and George complete his autobiography, Chaplin is invited back to America in order to receive a special Lifetime Achievement award at the 1972 Academy Award ceremony. Though initially still resentful at being exiled from the country and fearful that no-one will remember him, the audience happily rejoices upon seeing his classic film clips. Chaplin stands on the stage and is moved to tears when the audience provide him with a standing ovation.

Review: You can't help noticing how this corresponds with the constantly youthful look of the Tramp (in Modern Times, for example, Chaplin was in his late 40s but looked like a teenager), and the coins tossed on stage may have played a significant role in helping him realize that this could be a good way to make money.Charlie moves to America to pursue his dream, and we see the landmark events that punctuated his dizzying rise to stardom.
There are dozens of other references to the development of his cinematic personality - such as his sudden realization of how to make the Tramp appear rich to the blind girl in City Lights without talking, as well as the dance of the dinner rolls, which Charlie performs here at a dinner at an expensive restaurant - but there is an even more significant portrayal of Charlie's beliefs and his values in this movie that are more recognizable as well as more memorable to people not familiar with his earlier and less known work.Charlie Chaplin was one of many filmmakers' in the earlier times of the medium that resented and disapproved of the coming of sound to the movies.
He was a fascinating personality both onscreen and off, which is another element of his life that was necessarily and skillfully presented in this film, this time directly in the dialogue in what is probably the single most important line in the entire film  `If you want to understand me, watch my movies.' Chaplin's ever-present sympathy for the underprivileged is subtly but effectively portrayed as two poor people approach him on his way out of a nice restaurant, right at the beginning of the Great Depression, asking for his autograph.
I watched it many a time and enjoyed both the biographical aspect and the comedic one but it has also increased my interest in silent comics of this great era.The film begins by exploring the early life of Charlie, his Brother Sid and his Mother as they try to scrape a living.
He puts in an amazing performance, his London accent is excellent and ability to do slapstick even better he also really makes you believe that the great man is alive and on the screen again.The film rightly concentrates on the private life of Chaplin and the development of the cinema.
His Jewish connections are also highlighted by the Great dictator,  which shows his sensitivities to the European Jews were more at heart than just a making a heap of cash by having a laugh at Hitler's moustache and goose stepping troops.The film doesn't get bogged down by Chaplin's hectic love life, as Dickie explores Charlie's political beliefs and how J Edgar Hoover was convinced of he was a communist party member.
Chaplin isn't really a great bio-pic, but there are moments when Richard Attenborough's direction shines and it's consistently got an amazing Robert Downey Jr. performance as the title character.
What made me pleasantly surprised is what Attenborough *did* decide to show with Chaplin the private man; I thought that he would cut out much of the stuff with Chaplin's penchant for young (usually underage) girls, or some of the things regarding his mother, but most of the notorious facts are put in for good measure to counter-balance some of the pompous, though fascinating, scenes of "cinematic history." Now as a fan of Chaplin's films and the given acknowledgment that he's one of the most talented comic actors and filmmakers of the 20th century, I do get a little choked up seeing that final clip-show at the Oscars of great clips from his most famous movies.
And it's interesting always, from just a movie-buff stand-point, to watch the history behind Chaplin's transition from vaudeville to Max Senett's film company to slowly becoming an independent and world-famous auteur/star.
But for the most part the writing and the direction make it entertaining just on that conventional, rise-fall-rise-fall-struggle-success-at-end story with maybe less drugs and a bit more politics than one might usually see (save for one fantastic scene when Chaplin and his brother and friends are sneaking around the film footage of The Kid from the brass who want it for tax purposes).What makes it almost outstanding, however, is Downey Jr. He's funny as Chaplin when he needs to show how he was a great clown (i.e. the 'old-drunk' bit), he's melancholy when needed, he plays Chaplin as young, middle-aged, and old perfectly, and there's just the slightest details that keep you glued to the screen to see what he'll do next.
The direction is very good; I particularly liked how some of the straight scenes were filmed in a comic, surrealist style (Chaplin's escape from the police w/ his cans of "the Kid" reels is staged like a Keystone Komedy), while some of what might have been more comic elements are played straight (Chaplin's attempt to convince his brother that "The Tramp" cannot talk in a movie is both funny and serious, for example).
Perhaps the problem is that, Chaplins life might not be the most suitable for a MOVIE,purely because his life was so eventful, and might have translated itself better as a TV Mini Series, but for getting the best out of what screen time available and still coming up with some very credible work, you must hand it over to Richard Attenborough and everyone at Carolco.
Just as good are Ellen Mirojnick and John Mollo's costumes designs, in fact, Chaplin offers a production so rich that at once i forgot that this was a period film, and felt transported back to the various different time zones the movie had to offer, and this is a good sign of a genius at work.
Charlie Chaplin himself was a couple of years before my time, but Downey JR is so fantastic, so realistic in the role that i didn't for one minute doubt the genius of the REAL Chaplin and in fact only became a fan of the little tramp after seeing this Biopic, as though the missing pieces of Chaplins life had come together to complete the jigsaw.
However, the story hops around a few too many times, and the scenes with Anthony Hopkins are weak and obviously placed in order to clarify things to non- Chaplin fans who watch the film.
Robert Downy Jr is good , especially when he's playing a young Chaplin and the rest of the cast do a good job but i cant help but feel this film never really works.
The women were very interesting: from Geraldine Chaplin playing Charlie's insane, pathetically-sad mother to beauties like Milla Jovovich, Diane Lane and Moria Kelly, the latter playing Chaplin's final and devoted wife "Oona." Also in here are some big names: Anthony Hopkins, Dan Ackroyd, Penelope Ann Miller, Marissa Tomei, James Woods, Nancy Travis and Paul Rhys.
For my money this is one of the weakest of Attenborough's catalogues.It does however have a HUGE saving grace in Robert Downey Jr who as Chaplin the star is simply brilliant.I personally disliked the plot device of Anthony Hopkins as Chaplin's biographer and found it quite irritating.While all performances are solid, especially Kevin Kline if you see the Thief of Bagdad then watch this he really does capture something of Fairbanks charisma and energy, the film is strangely the same: another girl (Literally often) appears, disappears etc; it became almost formulaic after a while.Great in its scope, and the sets, attention to detail etc; are good - just didn't me the first time I saw it or this time - perhaps tellingly the real Chaplin with the Kid at the end is magnificent.Definitely worth watching for Downey's tip-top performance as the young Chaplin, but the rest is too linear and flat to make a great film..
It is worth it.Other actors were fantastic too, and there is quite a list of big names who performed wonderfully well: Kevin Klein (as Douglas Fairbanks), Anthony Hopkins, Marisa Tomei, Dan Aykroyd, Geraldine Chaplin (portraying her own grandmother, and what a portrayal!) etc.Photography, sets, costumes, everything was just as one would hope it would be in a biopic about such an important artist as Chaplin.
He plays him as a tortured bad boy and somehow makes the audience (like the film's director) turn a blind eye to the more scandalous aspects of Chaplin.Downey skillfully navigates director Richard Attenborough's loving yet ambivalent handling of Chaplin's scandals.
Robert Downey, Jr. does a fantastic job as Chaplin, and deserves all the credit he has gotten for his performance.But the fact is, Chaplin's life is too complex and multi-faceted to fit into a two-and-a-half hour film - maybe even into a four hour epic, like "Lawrence of Arabia".
jailbait), starting from his first crush Hetty Kelly (Moira Kelly), to first wife Mildred Harris (a barely 16-year-old Milla Jovovich striking the bull's eye of the ingénue seduction with flaming lips), an ill-fated union with the independent Paulette Goddard (a classy Lane), until his last spouse Oona O'Neill (Kelly again to finish the circle), a none-too-subtle way of intimating that the right one is actually the one who gets away, which to a certain degree, cunningly shifts the blame on Hetty, the undertone seems to suggest that if she had accepted Chaplin's marriage proposal before he would put his name on the map in the celluloid boom town, his subsequent failed marriages would have no place in the history, a low move that hurts the film's integrity.
The frame narrative is actually set in Switzerland where an aging Chaplin discusses his biography at length with a fictive writer George Hayden (Hopkins), the tactic doesn't quite work out, not just because Downey Jr.'s somewhat unconvincing warpaint (he looks rather hale beside Hopkins and the sparks in his eyes cannot disguise his real age of 26), but also it is padding out the story, only to prepare audience for the coda when Chaplin is given an overdue gong in the 1972 Academy Award ceremony for a special Lifetime Achievement, with footage of Chaplin's films playing to make the most of one's nostalgic admiration, but the emotional punch never packs, after 140 minutes, we still have a very indeterminate image of Charlie Chaplin, is he a Communist?
But in the end of the day, CHAPLIN has its inherent edge, it is a film about the king of comedy, so at the very least, it is never tedious on the eyes, not with a charismatic Robert Downey Jr. fleetly mimicking the tramp's slapstick (he makes them look as effortless as Chaplin himself) and conscientiously emanating Charlie's more subdued affect when he has his own hurdles to grapple with, may it be the resistance to the sound cinema, or a bigoted lawsuit from his former lover Joan Barry (Travis).
I think this movie is good reference to learning the history of film- you can see many movie stars at the time- such as Mary Pickford and Fairbanks, and I think that it is a well made movie because it did a great job in making it look really like Chaplin's life, and didn't miss out on the many historical events.
Now I must admit there are some things of Chaplin's personal life that were of interest, but too much time was wasted on his various tyrsts and his unending appetite for young ladies.Downey Jr. plays Chaplin to the best of his tremendous acting ability and was definitely merited in getting the academy award nomination.
Perhaps with the exception of Geraldine Chaplin who did a wonderful job playing her own grandmother.I was very touched by the end of the film in which we see Charlie in the dark at the 1975 Academy Awards wacthing clips of his movies.
The old chestnut of flashbacks from an old man works to produce a story but doesn't help make a person; I was happy with the rough facts and the historical context it gives to some of Chaplin's films but I never felt much about him as a person.Part of the problem with this is Downey Jnr himself.
It was interesting to explore his history, and the film history along with it, and that is why I gave it a 6, and not something like a 4 or 5.The acting from Robert Downey Jr. was also very well performed and performed, which helped carry the film a lot, especially considering how good he is at doing a British accent.In conclusion, it is a film worth watching, just for the history, but it definitely isn't a masterpiece..
Whilst Robert Downey Jr makes a good stab at Chaplin's physical characteristics, the film falls at the first hurdle, as Attenborough has failed to depict the disparity between the Charlie that walked onto the Keystone lot, and the one that exited the gate a year later.
No wonder there are no later works of Chaplin.Most of the cast continued to be famous actors in their own right, Mila Jovovich was very convincing as seductive Lolita, whereas the movie continuously fails to provide any background information that would explain why 16 year olds would be left to wine and bed with much older gents in a time period that frowned upon so many other things.I would have loved to know why Chaplin didn't continue his directing career from Europe, like Roman Polanski did?All in all, a fantastic movie that provides insight into the baby days of Hollywood..
Robert Downey Jr. was made for the role: not only is him as funny and charismatic as Charlie, but he actually looked and acted exactly like him as the 'Little Tramp' character.
Geraldine Chaplin (Charlie's real life daughter, who plays his mother here), Kevin Kline and Paul Rhys are good in their supporting roles, as are the many others in smaller roles (Anthony Hopkins, James Woods, Kevin Dunn, Moira Kelly, among others).The ending is excellent.
The narrative of the movie that tries to let it with some kind of a explanation behind each scene, moving through the past to the future is a little annoying sometimes, but it can't take the credit of the movie that tries to do a Chaplin's narrative-biography.I strongly recommend to watch, if you don't like Charles Chaplin's work, you might be interested in see what is his real history and the wonderful performances of the film..
It captures the genius of Chaplain and sets the right tone for the time it was depicting.Robert Downey Jr really deserved an Oscar for this.Apart from Jamie Foxx' near perfect depiction of Ray Charles in Ray, Robert Downey Jr does one of the best acting jobs portraying such a well known person.All the supporting cast are also excellent and although this is a long movie I never once get bored while watching it.It is rare to find a fairly recent movie that could be termed a classic, but Chaplin is one of those films..
In one sense, Richard Attenborough's film can hardly go wrong, and Robert Downey Junior is very good in the role, although as with many biopics, a linear treatment of the highlights of 80 years of life can seem undramatic: things happen, good or bad, usually after another character warns Charlie not to do them and he does them anyway.
Easier money, I guess...).Great supporting cast: Kevin Kline as Douglas Fairbanks, Geraldine Chaplin (Chaplin's real-life daughter) playing Chaplin's mother (her real-life grandmother), Paul Rhys, John Thaw, Moira Kelly (in two roles), Anthony Hopkins, Dan Aykroyd, Marisa Tomei, Penelope Ann Miller, Diane Lane, James Woods and Milla Jovovich, plus David Duchovny in a minor role.A must-see, not just because it is a biopic on one of history's greatest geniuses, but also for Robert Downey Jr's performance..
Sir Richard Attenborough's biographical film of the life and times of Charles Chaplin is a little thin as a narrative, but it is so charmingly creative and ultimately moving, it's hard to care about any deficits.
And everybody's talents all come together in a mesmerizing scene at the end that is so powerful that it compelled and begged me to forgive the movie for all of the flaws that I observed in the preceding hundred and twenty minutes.Mr. Attenborough's film does not realize its full potential and he should have realized that Charles Chaplin's life was so expansive that it would be difficult to contain it all within one film, but he did succeed in making a nice little biopic.
It was very interesting to learn more about the life of perhaps the worlds greatest and most known comedian of the 20th century.I like slapstick humor, so naturally I also have a great interest in Charlie Chaplin and his movies.
There are lots of well known big name actors in the movie such as Anthony Hopkins, Geraldine Chaplin (who plays her own grandmother in this movie), John Thaw, James Woods, Nancy Travis, Milla Jovovich, Kevin Kline, Marisa Tomei, Dan Aykroyd, Diane Lane, Penelope Ann Miller, David Duchovny, Paul Rhys, Maria Pitillo.
Robert Downey Jr. did an excellent job at capturing the magic of the tramp, especially during sequences where they recreated iconic scenes from actual Chaplin films.
When it comes to the development of motion picture Charlie Chaplin is a really important person and even if you are only a little bit interested in his life and the history of motion picture, you should watch this movie.
But the movie has more pro's than con's as i said earlier Robert Downey Jr. does a great portrayal as Chaplin and the supporting cast also does an excellent job with Dan Aykroyd and Paul Rhys in particular.
Chaplin (1992) *** (out of 4) Richard Attenborough's flawed but entertaining look at the life and career of Charles Chaplin features a terrific performance from Robert Downey, Jr. who picked up an Oscar-nomination for his work.
I just watched this film for the second time tonight and I must say that despite all its flaws, Chaplin is a must see if just for Robert Downey Jr's performance.