# Talk:City Lights

I changed a paragraph that implied the girl's dreams were dashed upon realizing her benefactor was a tramp. I don't think it mattered either way to her. I think she was 1) just happy to finally meet the dude, and 2) maybe a little surprised that her dude was a man of such modest means. At any rate, she was touched and joyful... nothing dashed or disappointed about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbarta (talk • contribs) 02:16, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I think part of the greatness of the ending is its openness to more than one interpretation. I can see how it could be read as joyful. But personally, I see it as a crushingly sad ending-- Chaplin says, "You can see now?" She replies, "Yes, I can see," and the screen goes black, implying (to me) that any hopes the tramp had for them were ended when he gave her sight, and he knew it. It was a gesture of self-sacrifice on more than one level.
But regardless, the article should probably just describe what happens without putting an interpretation on it. I think it's fine as it stands. Rizzleboffin 04:35, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
While it might make for an interesting essay to imagine modified endings to the film, it's absurd to attempt to interpret the actual ending as anything but joyful. You omit that she pulls his hand to her breast, for crying out loud. EEng 05:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
I beg to differ here. If Chaplin had aimed for a straightforward happy ending, it would have been easy to end the film with an embrace or a kiss. It of course is in the eye of the beholder to interpret the ending (which is a part of its appeal), but I see more signs pointing to ambiguity. Yes, she pulls his hand close, but that to me is a reaction to her realizing the enormity of his sacrifice, given that he is a tramp. She is empathetic, but I don't see her falling in love, I see her struggling with having to re-arrange her whole perception and interpretation of her miraculous healing. After the operation, she had arrived on a different social strata, she has a job, she is not poor anymore, and (as some women do) she looks socially upward when it comes to marriage. He realizes that, and as his motive -- love -- is out in the open, he stands there practically naked. He knows that he is hardly the right match in her eyes, and he stands there hope against better knowledge. As the film fades twice, the two are locked in that moment of mutual recognition, but the film does not insult the audience by deciding one way or another. This film has a perfect ending that way. Dorthonion (talk) 09:31, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

The love theme of City Lights, the Leitmotif of the blind girl, is José Padilla's "La violetera". Only after a trial for plagiarism, in Paris, Chaplin finally admitted the facts.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.216.157.226 (talk) 05:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC) 

Although there are many references to the fact that prominent people praised the film, there is little discussion of why. Among all the studies, there must be discussions of why the film is so moving. It would be useful to have that content, and not just ranking lists.Parkwells (talk) 16:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

IMDb says that there are two actresses named Florence Lee: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0497265/?ref_=nmbio_trv_2 and http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5681967/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1. Who played the role of the Grandmother. While this article states that it's the Florence Lee born in 1888, the appereance and age of the Grandmother's character belong more to the other Florence Lee who played "motherly roles". --Clibenfoart (talk) 22:36, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, this is giving me a headache. After comparing the films (not shorts) of Florence I (8 films) and II (13, including City Lights) in IMDB to those of the only Florence Lee in TCM (12) and AMG (8), I'm even more confused. They were active in the same era, and TCM has 10 of II's films and 2 of I's, while AMG has 7 and 1, respectively. The photo in Florence Lee definitely doesn't match the person in the film, but the Library of Congress, from whence it came, doesn't even say this particular Florence Lee was an actress, just "possibly a fortune teller" "between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915". Florence I would have been about 43, too young compared to the grandmother in the film IMO; the notes for II state she is "Not the same actress as Florence Lee, a younger type of the 1920s", but that's hardly trustworthy. I'm strongly inclined to trust IMDb's credits, but to make this even more murky, the only really reliable sources I've been able to dig up actually support Florence I. The Library of Congress Name Authority File for I lists "City lights [sic]" in its sources, as do most of the other authority controls in her article. AAAARGH. (In any case, I'm going to remove the photo.) Clarityfiend (talk) 03:23, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
I've looked into the Our Gang comedy Ask Grandma (1925) in which Florence Lee (II) played (according to IMDb) the title role of the Grandmother: She appeares among other scenes at 9:30 (https://archive.org/details/AskGrandma) and it's certainly the same actress as the actress of the Grandmother in City Lights. I think the Grandmother is Florence Lee (II) and that her film credits were wrongly put together with the Florence Lee (I) for a long time. --Clibenfoart (talk) 09:57, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
I talked about this with Xquenda on the German wikipedia.

The Florence Lee who played in the Our Gang comedies Ask Grandma and Fair and Muddy is probably the Grandmother, if you compare it with the footage of those filmes.
Florence Lee (1888-1962) was married with Dell Henderson, as you can see there 1. She played in some pictures at Biograph (where she also met Henderson, who worked there as a director/actor), but she probably didn't play the Grandmother in City Lights. The woman in the picture could be Florence Lee, but there's also probably a third Florence Lee, because there 1 is another Florence Lee who doesn't look like the other Florence Lees. --Clibenfoart (talk) 18:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
Two years have passed and I checked Florence Lee at IMDb, and there is now a birth/death year: 1864-1933. Sounds quite plausible. --Clibenfoart (talk) 15:52, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
As of 2019, it seems like there is some kind of consensus here that she is indeed Florence Lee born in 1864, I took the liberty to correct an internal link inserted in 2012 by an IP contributor that was still linking to the other one. Not a regular contributor here, please correct if I did wrong. Icéön Ereminet (talk) 23:58, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

There are a bunch of S. Asian movies dumped into this section, seemingly without rhyme or reason.  Perhaps we should delete them? Gibbousmoon100 (talk) 01:34, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Any reason the current main image is a still from the film and not the theatrical release poster?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.195.165.253 (talk) 20:24, 28 February 2019 (UTC) 

Because it's a great image? EEng 06:08, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

The link for the Biography of José Padilla Sánchez contains a reprint of the Spanish Wikipedia article. Goldnpuppy (talk) 02:58, 10 January 2021 (UTC)