Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin

Kicking off Turner Classic Movies's month-long tribute to one of cinema's greatest comic stars is writer/director Richard Schickel's Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin (2003). The documentary, which played the film festival circuit last year, lovingly explores the career high and lows of the man best known as the Little Tramp. Details about Chaplin's notorious personal life are interspersed throughout, but the film refreshingly avoids the sensationalistic E! True Hollywood Story format that has come to dominate similar projects, and instead chooses to focus on what made this actor/director/producer/editor/composer famous in the first place: his movies.

Over the years, there has been an increasing amount of critical hesitation (if not downright denigration, as Paul Merton recently asserted in Sight & Sound) towards Chaplin. As Buster Keaton's films have been warmly re-embraced by audiences, Chaplin's Little Tramp has been left wandering down that famous open road on his own, with accusations of pathos and sentimentality tripping him up along the way.

While Charlie fails to confront these criticisms directly, it remains very much invested in celebrating the director's genius. Indeed, one of the film's most intriguing segments is its consideration of A Woman of Paris (1923), a little-seen film Chaplin wrote and directed as vehicle for his former lover, Edna Purviance. Although this dramatic venture received a rapturous response from critics, Chaplin's decision not to appear in the film ultimately doomed it to box office failure. Even so, A Woman of Paris provides a pure glimpse into Chaplin's talents as a director, talents which are so often overshadowed by the focus on his prodigious skills as a comic performer.

A diverse array of Chaplin fans, friends, and family members are on hand to comment throughout the picture. Johnny Depp and Robert Downey, Jr. praise his remarkable dexterity and comic timing; Martin Scorcese, Milos Forman, and Woody Allen appreciate his directing skills; Claire Bloom and Norman Lloyd recollect working with man himself; and Chaplin children Geraldine, Michael, and Sydney offer memories of their famous father.

Narrated by Sydney Pollack, the documentary also manages to cram in thoughtful (albeit brief) considerations of Chaplin's masterpieces, including The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952). However, Charlie would have undoubtedly benefited from a more comprehensive examination of the Chaplin's performing roots, especially the music hall tradition he emerged from in England and the way in which he was able to refine his craft while working on the early two-reelers. While Schickel demonstrates admirable restraint in commenting on the scandals that often engulfed the director's life, it comes at the price what could have been a fascinating look into Chaplin's background. Still, the film succeeds as a primer on Chaplin's work, and should wind up on any fan's must-see list.