Lights of the city

the Lights of the city ( City Lights ) is an American silent film carried out by Charles Chaplin, left the January 30th 1931.

Synopsis

A crowd is joined together on a large avenue of the center town for the inauguration of a monumental statue dedicated to peace and prosperity. The mayor, a citizen of honor, the sculptor, follow one another the platform, each one going of his speech of circumstance. Then the veil rises discovering the statue in the middle of which, among the hieratic installations serious and solemn characters, a vagrant sleeps peacefully.

Comment

the Lights of the city are as well as Modern times a long good-bye that Charlie Chaplin makes with the Silent film while passing by two sound films without dialog before finally penetrating in the true word with the Dictator .

The safeguard of the Pantomime requires this temporary retreat towards attracting the technology of speaking. The interest visual and gesticulant of the character must override a more restricted mobility due to the word which positions more in the opposition to progress.

Chaplin also wishes to preserve the supremacy of the technology of the pure movement, the contribution of the voice being likely to uncover in the natural character one second.

In spite of this approach, the Lights of the city are an enormous paradox: the vagrant who cannot be seen by the young blind florist has only his voice to communicate and this voice is not heard by the spectator. Here a more or less hermetic manner to safeguard still a little the dumb man who dies out irremediably while advancing slowly in manner symbolic system towards the new concept of speaking.

Data sheet

Title: Lights of the city
original Title: City Lights
Realization: Charles Chaplin
Scenario: Charles Chaplin
Production: United Artists
Music: Charles Chaplin, Jose Padilla, for the topic " Flower Girl" (Violetera)
Photography: Roland Totheroh
Assembly: Charles Chaplin
Country of origin: the United States
Format: Black and white - dumb man
Kind: Dramatic comedy
Beginning of turning: Fine December 31st, 1927
of turning: October 5th, 1930
Lasted: 86 minutes
Coming out date: January 30th 1931 in Los Angeles Theater

Distribution

Charles Chaplin: The vagrant
Virginia Cherrill: The young florist plugs
Florence Lee: The grandmother of the young girl
Harry Myers: The suicidal millionaire
Allan Garcia: The manservant
Hank Mann: The boxer
Henry Bergman: The mayor and the neighbor of the young blind man
Victor Alexander: The superstitious boxer
Albert Austin: The sweeping one and the burglar
Joe Van Meter the other burglar
James Donnely: the foreman
T.S. Alexander: The doctor
Eddie Baker: The referee
Granville Redmond: The sculptor
Robert Parrish: The young newsvendor
Harry Ayers: The police officer
Eddie Mc Auliffe: The boxer who flees

Around film

the production of film is spread out over three years, including 534 days of turning. The scene during which the blind florist takes the vagrant for a rich man in particular required anything less than one record of 324 catches, to find its final version only at the last day of turning. Richness not being a priori a state perceptible by other directions which the sight, Chaplin indeed had to deploy all the springs of its talent of director to imagine a sufficiently credible coincidence.
the scene of the elevator in front of the store of antiquity was preferred with the assembly with another scene during which the vagrant plays with a piece of wood wedged in a ventilation grill without managing to slip it there. Curious crowd piles up soon around him and an employee behind his window, very learned, explains to him by gestures, the most rational method to make fall the end from wood.
All the sequence of boxing is inspired by the short film Charlot boxer . Waiting in the cloakroom during which the vagrant becomes aware of the violence of the engagements while seeing returning the inanimate losers and the combat itself, when it benefits from all the means which are placed at its disposal (the referee, cords…) to avoid the blows of its adversary, appear already in this preceding film of Chaplin. The sequence nevertheless is enriched by new gags as well as neater intrigue and by a setting in scene.

Distinction

National Film Registry 1991: Selected and preserved at the Library of the American Congress.

External bonds

Historical of the Lights of the City on the official site
Card IMDb
an analysis of film on www.charlie-chaplin.net
an analysis of film on www.analysefimique.free.fr

Random links: