Chaplin was a unique presence in the history of the early cinema. Coming up through the ranks, he gradually achieved a god-like stature, being awarded total control of every facet of the production.
Not only was he often the sole person who knew what the end product was to be (as in "The Kid") but he was also allowed to elaborately improvise in the creative process. This often meant doing countless scores of retakes over days, weeks and even months; holding up the cast and crew for days while he brooded over just what to do next; and even (in the case of "The Gold Rush") cancelling expensive weeks of location shooting and returning to the studio to start all over again.
He cleverly duped chief studio- and bank chiefs into somehow going along with his free-wheeling and gross inclinations, thus mesmerizing their conservative senses into supporting his hit-and-miss schemes and trial-and-error "madness."
In other words, Chaplin used the entire productional company as merely as his paintbrush, with which he toyed at his pleasure to create his personal canvases. Fortunately, he was a genius, and at the right place in time to be allowed to get away with such unprecedented extravagence.
It was a young and growing industry when Chaplin began emerging, and there were no set rules. People were still trying to figure out just what could be done with the medium -- and Chaplin helped to establish its early parameters.
He was certainly and autocrat, yet that doesn't really matter when it comes to film works. It's the product that counts. In the case of "City Lights," all the blood-sweat-and-tears that it took to achieve the finished product was more than worth the effort.
Now that all the frustration, anger, and outrage associated with the behind-the-scenes unfoldment of this highly troubled production are well in the past, what remains is a genuinely moving film classic.
Sometimes great enterprises require considerable hardship to forge them into being. The greater the achievement, often the greater the challenge and period of endurance. Whatever the case, we are the appreciative recipients of this masterwork, which takes its place besides "Modern Times" and "The Gold Rush" as one of Chaplin's consummate expressions.
Not only was he often the sole person who knew what the end product was to be (as in "The Kid") but he was also allowed to elaborately improvise in the creative process. This often meant doing countless scores of retakes over days, weeks and even months; holding up the cast and crew for days while he brooded over just what to do next; and even (in the case of "The Gold Rush") cancelling expensive weeks of location shooting and returning to the studio to start all over again.
He cleverly duped chief studio- and bank chiefs into somehow going along with his free-wheeling and gross inclinations, thus mesmerizing their conservative senses into supporting his hit-and-miss schemes and trial-and-error "madness."
In other words, Chaplin used the entire productional company as merely as his paintbrush, with which he toyed at his pleasure to create his personal canvases. Fortunately, he was a genius, and at the right place in time to be allowed to get away with such unprecedented extravagence.
It was a young and growing industry when Chaplin began emerging, and there were no set rules. People were still trying to figure out just what could be done with the medium -- and Chaplin helped to establish its early parameters.
He was certainly and autocrat, yet that doesn't really matter when it comes to film works. It's the product that counts. In the case of "City Lights," all the blood-sweat-and-tears that it took to achieve the finished product was more than worth the effort.
Now that all the frustration, anger, and outrage associated with the behind-the-scenes unfoldment of this highly troubled production are well in the past, what remains is a genuinely moving film classic.
Sometimes great enterprises require considerable hardship to forge them into being. The greater the achievement, often the greater the challenge and period of endurance. Whatever the case, we are the appreciative recipients of this masterwork, which takes its place besides "Modern Times" and "The Gold Rush" as one of Chaplin's consummate expressions.