Widely recognized in his character of the Tramp, Charlie Chaplin transcended the role of actor to become screenwriter, director, composer, producer, and finally studio head. The subject of numerous biographical studies, Chaplin has been examined as both myth and man, but these treatments fail to adequately address the often-overlooked complexity of his filmmaking.
Refocusing Chaplin: A Screen Icon through Critical Lenses features essays that examine the actor and director through various theoretical perspectives—including Marxism, feminism, gender studies, deconstruction, psychoanalytic criticism, new historicism, performance studies, and cultural criticism. Complementing this range of intellectual inquiry is the wide reach of films discussed, from The Circus (1928), The Gold Rush (1925), and City Lights (1931) to Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and Limelight (1952). Shorter films, such as “The Pawnshop” (1916), “The Rink” (1916), and “A Dog’s Life” (1918) are also examined.
These essays analyze the tensions between the carefully constructed worlds of Chaplin’s films and their cultural contexts. The varied approaches and range of materials in this volume not only comprehensively assess the screen icon but also foster a conversation that exemplifies the best of intellectual exchange. Refocusing Chaplin provides a unique view into the work of one of cinema’s most important and influential artists.
Table of Contents:
Preface: Why Refocus Chaplin?
Lawrence Howe, James E. Caron, and Benjamin Click
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Persisting Appeal of Chaplin and Charlie
Charles Maland
Chapter 1: Chaplin’s “Charlie” as Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological Everyman or, How Bodily Intelligence Manifests the Personae, Styles, and Fable of Slapstick
James E. Caron
Chapter 2: Chaplin and the Static Image: A Barthesian Analysis of the Visual in My Trip Abroad and “A Comedian Sees the World”
Lisa Stein Haven
Chapter 3: A Heart of Gold: Charlie and the Dance Hall Girls
Cynthia J. Miller
Chapter 4: American Masculinity and The Gendered Humor of Chaplin’s Little Tramp
Lawrence Howe
Chapter 5: In the Shadow of Machines: Modern Times and the Iconography of Technology
A. Bowdoin Van Riper
Chapter 6: Deconstruction and the Tramp: Marxism, Capitalism, and the Trace
Randall Gann
Chapter 7: Chaplin’s Presence
Rachel Joseph
Chapter 8: The Paradox of the “Dictactor”: Mimesis, Logic of Paradox, and the Reinstatement of Catharsis in The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux, and Limelight
Marco Grosoli
Chapter 9: Charles Chaplin Sings a Silent Requiem: Chaplin’s Films from 1928-1952 as Cinematic Statement on the Transition from Silent Cinema to the Talkies
Aner Preminger
Chapter 10: Chaplin’s Sound Statement on Silence: The Great Dictator as Rhetorical Encomium
Benjamin Click
Bibliography
Index
About the Contributors
About the Editors
About the Author :
Lawrence Howe is professor of English and Film Studies at Roosevelt University. He is the author of Mark Twain and the Novel: The Double-Cross of Authority (2009).
James E. Caron is professor of English at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. He is the coeditor of Sut Lovingood's Nat'ral Born Yarnspinner: Essays on George Washington Harris (1996) and author of Mark Twain, Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter (2008).
Benjamin Click is Chair of the English Department at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Director of the Twain Lecture Series on American Humor Culture.
Review :
One effective method of teaching theory is to focus on a popular text and provide competing interpretations. Howe, Caron, and Click gather a cluster of such perspectives as they converge on the polysemic, iconic auteur filmmaker Charlie Chaplin. Offering a wide range of theoretical perspectives–Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis–contributors exhume and dissect the body of Chaplin and his work, studying his screen persona and public celebrity. The approach serves both to highlight neglected aspects of the complex artist and to illumine theory. Charles Maland's introductory essay inaugurates this conversation by exploring the enduring appeal of both Chaplin and his cinematic persona Charlie. In his phenomenological study of Charlie's kinesic slapstick, Caron shows the clown as clumsy fool, 'eironic trickster,' and comic acrobat. Several essays offer particularly fascinating perspectives, especially Cynthia Miller's 'A Heart of Gold: Charlie and the Dance Hall Girls' and Click's rhetorical analysis of The Great Dictator. The critical collisions and cross-fertilizations among the contributors foster a lively, worthwhile intellectual exchange. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
Refocusing Chaplin is recommended for libraries and research centers, especially at the university level, for its intelligent, thorough examination of perhaps the most important figure in cinema's history.
This collection proves to be a valuable resource on one of the leading masters of cinema.
