Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) — Movie Discussion
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[NOTE: We will follow up this event with a discussion of another Chaplin movie, The Great Dictator (1940) — his controversial satire of Hitler and authoritarianism — on Friday November 17. Please join us for both!]
City Lights, the most cherished film by Charlie Chaplin, is also his ultimate Little Tramp chronicle. The writer-director-star achieved new levels of grace, in both physical comedy and dramatic poignancy, with this silent tale of a lovable vagrant falling for a young blind woman who sells flowers on the street (a magical Virginia Cherrill) and who mistakes him for a millionaire. Though this Depression-era smash was made well after the advent of sound, Chaplin remained steadfast in his love for the expressive beauty of the pre-talkie form. The result was the epitome of his art and the crowning achievement of silent comedy.
"If only one of Charles Chaplin's films could be preserved, City Lights (1931) would come the closest to representing all the different notes of his genius." (Roger Ebert)
"One of the most beautiful films about seeing (and being seen)." (Sight and Sound)
"This deeply eccentric film stands as the purest and most sublime of Chaplin's masterpieces... Funny, bittersweet, and sensitive on levels that few movies can ever hope to reach, City Lights is one of the definitive romances of the big screen, building from episodic slapstick into one of the most moving endings in film." (AV Club)
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Let's discuss the movie City Lights (1931) by Charlie Chaplin, recently voted the 36th greatest movie of all time in Sight & Sound's international survey of film critics and experts. The movie also ranked the 52nd greatest of all time in the related poll of film directors.
City Lights is considered one of the most influential movies of all time. Many notable filmmakers such as Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Bresson, Federico Fellini, Woody Allen have named it as one of their favourite films. Tarkovsky said of Chaplin: "He is the only person to have gone down into cinematic history without any shadow of a doubt. The films he left behind can never grow old." The movie also holds the distinction of being Chaplin's own favourite of all his films.
Please watch the movie in advance.
You can stream it with a viewing link posted here.
We'll be joined by other participants from the Toronto Philosophy Meetup at this meeting — https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/
Check out other online film discussions in the group happening every Friday, Monday, and occasionally other days.