City Lights (silent film)
"City Lights" is a silent film released in 1931, notable for being created during a time when the film industry was rapidly transitioning to sound. Directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin as his iconic character, the Little Tramp, the film combines elements of slapstick comedy with dramatic sentiment, masterfully alternating between humor and emotional depth. The story revolves around the Tramp's love for a blind flower girl and his attempts to help her regain her sight, all while navigating class divisions and personal sacrifice.
One of the film's remarkable features is its reliance on visual storytelling and pantomime, which Chaplin believed preserved the universality of the Tramp's character across cultures. "City Lights" opens with a comedic scene involving a statue and culminates in a poignant finale that encapsulates the themes of blindness and insight, as well as the ironies of fate. The film is often regarded as Chaplin's greatest work and is celebrated for its artistic innovation, leading to its inclusion in numerous lists of all-time best films and its lasting impact on cinema as a whole.
On this Page
City Lights (silent film)
Identification Silent film about a little tramp who falls in love with a blind girl who sells flowers
Director Charles Chaplin
Date Released in 1931
After the beginning of sound pictures in 1927 and the stock market crash of 1929, Charles Chaplin’s last silent film beautifully combined humor and pathos to speak to Depression-era audiences. A box-office smash, City Lights cemented Chaplin’s reputation as the premier comic genius.
One of the most unusual elements of City Lights is that it is essentially a silent film released after the Hollywood movement toward sound pictures had already started with The Jazz Singer (1927). In the midst of the nearly three-year production, Chaplin conservatively decided to keep City Lights silent, with the exception of certain sound effects and a musical score. He felt the little tramp character’s universality and the international recognition of the pantomime would be compromised by dialogue and the difficulties of translation. His gamble paid off, and the film was a hit.
One of Chaplin’s great innovations was the alternation and mixing of slapstick comedy with dramatic sentiment, creating tears of both laughter and empathy. City Lights exhibits the balance and blend of these two types of scenes in a “dialectic” perhaps better than any other film Chaplin made. Often in a scene, a comic slapstick moment serves as a “punch line” for a more serious mood. For example, in one scene, the tramp pretends to have left the blind girl with whom he is entranced; he sits down beside her while she fills a pail with water. The serious romantic mood of the tramp eyeing the girl is abruptly broken when the girl accidentally throws the water from the pail into the tramp’s face. Other times the reverse effect occurs. In a masterpiece of comic farce, choreography, and ballet, the great boxing sequence exemplifies a chaotic orgy of mistakes. However, the hilarious mood is broken when the tramp is finally knocked unconscious, losing a last opportunity to make money to help the girl.
The film is bookended by a famous comic scene and a final, classic scene of drama and pathos. The film opens with the unveiling of a statue in the city. The speech of the mayor and others is represented by squawking gibberish. Finally, when the statue is unveiled, the little tramp is seen sleeping on the lap of the figure. Outraged by the tramp’s desecrating presence, the authorities and the crowd order the tramp down from the statue. A sword on the statue impales the back of the tramp’s pants, so that he is at first unable to move away. Eventually his nose touches the statue’s huge extended hand—as if the tramp were “thumbing his nose” at the crowd.
Ever the perfectionist, Chaplin reworked, rewrote, and reshot the story until he came up with the last scene. Everything was then revised to prepare for that ending. This scene ties together the film’s themes of blindness and insight, of class divisions, and of the surprising, ironical twists of fate. The tramp, who earlier had played the part of the millionaire to the girl and gave her the money to restore her eyesight, is released from jail and sees the girl in the flower shop. When the girl goes outside to give him a coin and a rose, she runs her hand on his clothes and recognizes him as her benefactor. The tramp asks if she can see now, and she answers yes. The camera holds a close-up and then fades out on the tramp’s smiling face, a mixture of many complex emotions, just as her expression betrays a wealth of conflicting emotions. The scene is the capstone to a film masterpiece, accomplished with the understated acting and perfectionism in which Chaplin so much believed.
Impact
As star, writer, director, producer, editor, and musical composer, Chaplin remains the model for the ultimate auteur film artist. Both audiences and filmmakers alike consider City Lights Chaplin’s greatest film. City Lights is usually on the American Film Institute’s list of all-time best films.
Bibliography
Robinson, David. Chaplin: His Life and Art. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994.
Schickel, Richard. The Essential Chaplin: Perspectives on the Life and Art of the Great Comedian. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006.
Vance, Jeffrey. Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003.