Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Limelight
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
(Review based on DVD release)
Limelight is Chaplin’s last Hollywood movie, a moving piece about a famous comedian star (Calvero) who fell from popularity in his old age and fell in love with a ballet dancer, Thereza (Claire Boom) who committed suicide and harbours no hope in life. Calvero nurses the damsel in distress and encouraged her to stood up to life’s difficulties.
Limelight, unlike Chaplin’s Tramp movies, is a somber piece of work mediating on the meaning of life. Critics see it as one of his most personal work because of various biographical connotations such as the starting street scene which features the London neighbourhood he grew up in. It was made at a time when he had fallen out of favour in America and accused of being a communist. In Europe, Chaplin was received with open hands and he even met Jean Cocteau while promoting Limelight.
Event though the film is “moralistic” in tone and dramatic with a classic portrayal of ageism, Limelight is a tear jerker that has withstood time, largely due to its unfailing theme of love – be it the love for life that Calvero preaches to Thereza and how it contradicts with his own drinking behaviour. Calvero in a sense, retain Chaplin’s trademark character, the tramp, because the man retains an optimistic outlook despite knowing his audiences found him no longer funny.
The ideas for his skit in his dream ends with him looking at a blank theatre. It would be performed on stage which represents actualization into reality. This time round, he had a full house of roaring audiences. Yet, the audience who are in the know will know that they have been cued – hence it translates into Chaplin’s most cruel joke onto his own personae – a man with self-delusions right before his death.
Thereza who falls in love with Chaplin is an interesting microscopic study because Chaplin was married in real life to a young woman. While Bernardo Bertolucci in an interview from the DVD extras claims that it is more of pity than real love; Thereza seems so strong willed and convinced that it is hard to believe what Bertolucci says. It is likely Thereza is in love with Calvero; and the ideal which Chaplin was trying to prove – is that love does not age and knows no age.
Limelight, a mix of drama, comic dancehall and ballet, shows Chaplin’s mastery of storytelling and using film to entertain the audience.
Classic.
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
(Review based on DVD release)
Limelight is Chaplin’s last Hollywood movie, a moving piece about a famous comedian star (Calvero) who fell from popularity in his old age and fell in love with a ballet dancer, Thereza (Claire Boom) who committed suicide and harbours no hope in life. Calvero nurses the damsel in distress and encouraged her to stood up to life’s difficulties.
Limelight, unlike Chaplin’s Tramp movies, is a somber piece of work mediating on the meaning of life. Critics see it as one of his most personal work because of various biographical connotations such as the starting street scene which features the London neighbourhood he grew up in. It was made at a time when he had fallen out of favour in America and accused of being a communist. In Europe, Chaplin was received with open hands and he even met Jean Cocteau while promoting Limelight.
Event though the film is “moralistic” in tone and dramatic with a classic portrayal of ageism, Limelight is a tear jerker that has withstood time, largely due to its unfailing theme of love – be it the love for life that Calvero preaches to Thereza and how it contradicts with his own drinking behaviour. Calvero in a sense, retain Chaplin’s trademark character, the tramp, because the man retains an optimistic outlook despite knowing his audiences found him no longer funny.
The ideas for his skit in his dream ends with him looking at a blank theatre. It would be performed on stage which represents actualization into reality. This time round, he had a full house of roaring audiences. Yet, the audience who are in the know will know that they have been cued – hence it translates into Chaplin’s most cruel joke onto his own personae – a man with self-delusions right before his death.
Thereza who falls in love with Chaplin is an interesting microscopic study because Chaplin was married in real life to a young woman. While Bernardo Bertolucci in an interview from the DVD extras claims that it is more of pity than real love; Thereza seems so strong willed and convinced that it is hard to believe what Bertolucci says. It is likely Thereza is in love with Calvero; and the ideal which Chaplin was trying to prove – is that love does not age and knows no age.
Limelight, a mix of drama, comic dancehall and ballet, shows Chaplin’s mastery of storytelling and using film to entertain the audience.
Classic.
