September 18th was a double feature. The Castro Theatre is holding a Charlie Chaplin retrospective and I am hoping to find time to see a few of his films. In the meantime I decided to revisit the 1992 bio-pic starring Robert Downey Jr.
Directed by Richard Attenborough, Chaplin attempts to tell the whole story of Charlie Chaplin's life from the early days of poverty at the age of five, all the way to his triumphant return to the U.S. to achieve a special honorary Oscar at the 1972 Academy Awards. The story uses flashbacks to tell the story, as the older Chaplin discusses his autobiography with his editor, played by Anthony Hopkins. The character played by Hopkins, George Hayden, is the only fictional character. Everyone else, Kevin Kline, Kevin Dunn, Moira Kelly and Dian Lane plays a real person. Geraldine Chaplin has the unique role of playing her own maternal grandmother.
The film is a tour de force for Robert Downey Jr. and the primary reason for watching the movie. His transformation into Charles Chaplin is so complete that they use real footage of Chaplin at the end of the film and it is difficult to tell them apart. Beyond Downey's performance, the film is entertaining and humorous, but an extremely old-fashioned style of movie biography. It is overly long because it attempts to touch on all the major events in Chaplin's life, but never explores any of them fully. And there is so much emphasis on the scandals that occurred in his life that we really never get to know why he was such a genius at making movies.
At the Movie House rating **1/2 stars.
3 comments:
Not sure I could get myself to sit and watch this...I think I'll rely on your review and imagine it...Was Chaplain a Commie?
Throughout his life Chaplin was accused of being a commie and a jew. he was neither. He described himself as humanist. He did have leftist leanings and viewed those in power with some contempt, which showed in his movies. J.Edgar Hoover had a vendetta against him and since Chaplin was never a naturalized citizen, Hoover was able to have his visa cancelled and he was exiled from the U.S. in the early 50's. he did not return till the early 70's.
I take it, Hoover was not a fan of the silent film genre...I guess Chaplin did not want himslef called a Commie, but he could have been more clever and come up with something better than saying he was a human...I guess because he did not speak, he thought he would fool us.
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