CHARLIE CHAPLIN’S THE KID
Like Snow White in her Disneyland forest. Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid is a tale whose underlying archetype has attracted audiences of all ages: the abandoned child found in the wilderness. But unlike his more privileged mythological predecessors, who at least had the good fortune to be deposited in lush, natural surroundings, Chaplin’s castoff child is discovered among the shabby detritus of modern society. A garbage-strewn alley in the dirty Red Light District in Los Angeles’ Chinatown of the 1920s serves as the shooting location, re-creating a mean street from Chaplin’s feral boyhood in the slums of South London.
Ambling down the alley, taking his daily constitutional while swiftly ducking the flying garbage swiftly ducking the flying garbage pushed by householders from the building windows above, the Little Tramp appears. With too gentle manners, he slips off his gloves before selecting a cigarette butt from his smoking case, an old sardine can, Just as he is about to surrender himself to the joys of his first smoke of the day, his tranquility is shattered by the squalling infant who has been abandoned on the garbage heap. Plaintively demanding to be heard by someone anyone.
Taking one glance at that miserable child, streetwise Charlie instinctively looks up as if to quiz both the refuse-throwing householders and the heavens above as to just exactly where this baby has come from. But before he can even begin to explore that question, a rapid-fire series of comic interactions with a neighborhood cop firmly establishes Charlie’s embarrassment of mistaken paternal identity: like it or not, once he demonstrates his better nature by resisting his impulse to toss the unwanted baby down the nearest sewer, the kid is his for life. What follows is a series of wandering father-son adventures for this castoff life from the Industrial Revolution in this comedy that Chaplin introduces in his opening title card as “a picture with a smile—perhaps a tear.”
Perhaps! As the lights go up, audience reveals that there hasn’t been a dry eye in the house. But what is so startling about Chaplin’s comedy of fathering a lost baby is the fact that be first conceived and immediately began to shoot this film barely two weeks after the death of his own three-day-old, firstborn infant son. Having turned his personal pain to such a creative purpose, he gets us to break bread with him and take communion with his grief and loss.
By chancing upon a universal form—the myth of the lost child— to express his own loss， Chaplin succeeds in inviting the whole gang in , European intellectuals, London tradesmen, and all the “kids” of the world can and do receive Charlie’s pantomime tale with empathy.
But to say that grief-stricken Chaplin accidentally stumbled on the lost kid myth happens to suggest an effect of the Little Tramp’s nimblest pratfalls. If ballet is in Charlie’s bones, the sorrowful nostalgia of bittersweet loss already was in Chaplin’s soul—long before his loss over his firstborn child. Periodically left to care for himself by his own alcoholic father and psychotic mother, Charlie already knew what being an abandoned kid was all about—living on the streets, dodging the cops and orphanage authorities, scavenging to survive.
While losing his son undoubtedly reawakened those old boyhood memories. Their artistic treatment took place with Charlie’s heart, not his head, And the idea probably succeeds because it is largely unconscious rather than self-conscious autobiography.
A few days after his personal tragedy, tough-minded Charlie, the professional actor who had clawed his way out of the slums, zipped up his pain and got on with it. Taking the slapstick route, he quarried for bits and shticks, not archetypes and myths. Father and son—practically encounter each other by chance at one of life’s crossroads, so Charlie’s fatherless kid and Chaplin the childless father accidentally meet in a London lane. Unlike their ancient predecessors, whose hearts are filled with mistrust and hate, Charlie Chaplin and the lost child are filled with yearning and affection. And so their tale is a bittersweet ballad of love and hate.
查理·卓別林的“尋子遇仙記”
如同迪斯尼樂園森林中的“白雪公主”，查理·卓別林的“尋子遇仙記”也是一部童話故事，其隱含的原形—那個在荒野中所找到的被遺棄的孩子—吸引了男女老少的觀眾。以前那些受到厚愛的神話人物至少有幸被擱置在蔥翠、自然的環(huán)境中，但卓別林的這個被遺棄的孩子卻是被置于現(xiàn)代社會里的破磚碎瓦中。拍攝地點(diǎn)是在二十年代洛杉磯唐人街里骯臟的紅燈區(qū)一條遍布垃圾的小巷，這再現(xiàn)了卓別林桀驁不馴的童年所生活的倫敦南部一條簡陋街道的情景。
瘦小的流浪漢出現(xiàn)了，他沿著這條小巷緩步而行，做著每天的健身散步，輕巧地躲避樓上窗子里房主扔出的垃圾。他過分文雅地脫掉手套，從當(dāng)作煙盒的沙丁魚罐里找出一只煙蒂。就在他要陶醉于這天第一口煙的歡樂時，那個被遺棄在垃圾堆里的似乎故意要讓別人聽見的哀嚎嬰兒撕碎了他的安寧。
看了一眼這個痛苦的孩子，熟悉都市生活的卓別林本能地仰起頭，似乎要向扔垃圾的房主和上蒼打聽孩子到底是從哪兒來的?？伤€沒來得及去考慮那個問題，與附近一個警察一連串的喜劇過場就注定查理要陷入錯為人父的尷尬境地：不管喜歡與否，他抑制住了要把這個遺棄的孩子丟入附近污水溝的沖動，這種更為善良的天性剛一顯露，此生此世孩子便屬于他了。接下來是這對流浪父子在這個工業(yè)革命所造就的流浪生活中歷險的喜劇故事，卓別林在片頭字幕上寫道：“一部既使人發(fā)笑又可能使人一掬同情之淚的影片。”
可能！ 當(dāng)劇院燈光亮?xí)r，觀眾的眼睛都是潮濕的。但卓別林的這部撫養(yǎng)一個被丟棄孩子的喜劇，令人稱奇的是從他失去自己第一個出生僅三天的親生孩子到構(gòu)思并立即投入拍攝，前后只用了兩星期。他獎自身的苦痛轉(zhuǎn)化成如此創(chuàng)意，使我們能與他一同品味其間的痛苦與損失。
卓別林以一種常見的形式——被丟棄孩子的故事，恰好表達(dá)了他失去親人的哀愁，他成功地引入了三教九流的角色。中國農(nóng)民，班圖部落人，歐洲的知識分子，倫敦商人，以及全世界的“孩子”能而且的確對查理的啞劇故事表露同情。
說到受痛苦打擊的卓別林碰巧被那個丟棄的孩子絆倒的故事，這正好引出他瘦小流浪漢輕巧地跌坐在地的效果。如果說說查理有跳芭蕾的天賦，那么他心靈上早已有了這種傷感懷舊的苦與樂——早在他失去頭一個孩子之前，曾幾何時，他被酗酒的父親和精神錯亂的母親所拋棄，不得不自己照顧自己，查理早已深諳一個被拋棄孩子的全部生活：露宿街頭，閃躲著警察和孤兒院官員，靠揀食維持生命。
失去骨肉無疑又喚醒了他對舊時童年的記憶，對往事的藝術(shù)加工在查理
心里進(jìn)行著，而非在頭腦之中。查理的創(chuàng)意取得了成功，因為它完全是無意識的，而不是自我意識的自傳。
在查理個人悲劇的幾天后，意志堅強(qiáng)的他，一個從貧民窟里摸爬滾打出來的專業(yè)演員，重整旗鼓繼續(xù)他的事業(yè)。本著打鬧劇的戲路，他挖掘小角色與滑稽場面，而不是主題與神話。父與子——本是偶然相遇在人生的十字路上，因而查理的這個失去父親的孩子和卓別林這個失去孩子的父親邂逅在倫敦的街道上。與以往他們的原型不同，那些人的心中充滿了猜疑與憎恨，而查理·卓別林與這個丟棄的孩子之間充滿了渴望與慈愛。因此他們的故事就如同一首愛恨交織、苦中有甜的抒情詩。
Like Snow White in her Disneyland forest. Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid is a tale whose underlying archetype has attracted audiences of all ages: the abandoned child found in the wilderness. But unlike his more privileged mythological predecessors, who at least had the good fortune to be deposited in lush, natural surroundings, Chaplin’s castoff child is discovered among the shabby detritus of modern society. A garbage-strewn alley in the dirty Red Light District in Los Angeles’ Chinatown of the 1920s serves as the shooting location, re-creating a mean street from Chaplin’s feral boyhood in the slums of South London.
Ambling down the alley, taking his daily constitutional while swiftly ducking the flying garbage swiftly ducking the flying garbage pushed by householders from the building windows above, the Little Tramp appears. With too gentle manners, he slips off his gloves before selecting a cigarette butt from his smoking case, an old sardine can, Just as he is about to surrender himself to the joys of his first smoke of the day, his tranquility is shattered by the squalling infant who has been abandoned on the garbage heap. Plaintively demanding to be heard by someone anyone.
Taking one glance at that miserable child, streetwise Charlie instinctively looks up as if to quiz both the refuse-throwing householders and the heavens above as to just exactly where this baby has come from. But before he can even begin to explore that question, a rapid-fire series of comic interactions with a neighborhood cop firmly establishes Charlie’s embarrassment of mistaken paternal identity: like it or not, once he demonstrates his better nature by resisting his impulse to toss the unwanted baby down the nearest sewer, the kid is his for life. What follows is a series of wandering father-son adventures for this castoff life from the Industrial Revolution in this comedy that Chaplin introduces in his opening title card as “a picture with a smile—perhaps a tear.”
Perhaps! As the lights go up, audience reveals that there hasn’t been a dry eye in the house. But what is so startling about Chaplin’s comedy of fathering a lost baby is the fact that be first conceived and immediately began to shoot this film barely two weeks after the death of his own three-day-old, firstborn infant son. Having turned his personal pain to such a creative purpose, he gets us to break bread with him and take communion with his grief and loss.
By chancing upon a universal form—the myth of the lost child— to express his own loss， Chaplin succeeds in inviting the whole gang in , European intellectuals, London tradesmen, and all the “kids” of the world can and do receive Charlie’s pantomime tale with empathy.
But to say that grief-stricken Chaplin accidentally stumbled on the lost kid myth happens to suggest an effect of the Little Tramp’s nimblest pratfalls. If ballet is in Charlie’s bones, the sorrowful nostalgia of bittersweet loss already was in Chaplin’s soul—long before his loss over his firstborn child. Periodically left to care for himself by his own alcoholic father and psychotic mother, Charlie already knew what being an abandoned kid was all about—living on the streets, dodging the cops and orphanage authorities, scavenging to survive.
While losing his son undoubtedly reawakened those old boyhood memories. Their artistic treatment took place with Charlie’s heart, not his head, And the idea probably succeeds because it is largely unconscious rather than self-conscious autobiography.
A few days after his personal tragedy, tough-minded Charlie, the professional actor who had clawed his way out of the slums, zipped up his pain and got on with it. Taking the slapstick route, he quarried for bits and shticks, not archetypes and myths. Father and son—practically encounter each other by chance at one of life’s crossroads, so Charlie’s fatherless kid and Chaplin the childless father accidentally meet in a London lane. Unlike their ancient predecessors, whose hearts are filled with mistrust and hate, Charlie Chaplin and the lost child are filled with yearning and affection. And so their tale is a bittersweet ballad of love and hate.
查理·卓別林的“尋子遇仙記”
如同迪斯尼樂園森林中的“白雪公主”，查理·卓別林的“尋子遇仙記”也是一部童話故事，其隱含的原形—那個在荒野中所找到的被遺棄的孩子—吸引了男女老少的觀眾。以前那些受到厚愛的神話人物至少有幸被擱置在蔥翠、自然的環(huán)境中，但卓別林的這個被遺棄的孩子卻是被置于現(xiàn)代社會里的破磚碎瓦中。拍攝地點(diǎn)是在二十年代洛杉磯唐人街里骯臟的紅燈區(qū)一條遍布垃圾的小巷，這再現(xiàn)了卓別林桀驁不馴的童年所生活的倫敦南部一條簡陋街道的情景。
瘦小的流浪漢出現(xiàn)了，他沿著這條小巷緩步而行，做著每天的健身散步，輕巧地躲避樓上窗子里房主扔出的垃圾。他過分文雅地脫掉手套，從當(dāng)作煙盒的沙丁魚罐里找出一只煙蒂。就在他要陶醉于這天第一口煙的歡樂時，那個被遺棄在垃圾堆里的似乎故意要讓別人聽見的哀嚎嬰兒撕碎了他的安寧。
看了一眼這個痛苦的孩子，熟悉都市生活的卓別林本能地仰起頭，似乎要向扔垃圾的房主和上蒼打聽孩子到底是從哪兒來的?？伤€沒來得及去考慮那個問題，與附近一個警察一連串的喜劇過場就注定查理要陷入錯為人父的尷尬境地：不管喜歡與否，他抑制住了要把這個遺棄的孩子丟入附近污水溝的沖動，這種更為善良的天性剛一顯露，此生此世孩子便屬于他了。接下來是這對流浪父子在這個工業(yè)革命所造就的流浪生活中歷險的喜劇故事，卓別林在片頭字幕上寫道：“一部既使人發(fā)笑又可能使人一掬同情之淚的影片。”
可能！ 當(dāng)劇院燈光亮?xí)r，觀眾的眼睛都是潮濕的。但卓別林的這部撫養(yǎng)一個被丟棄孩子的喜劇，令人稱奇的是從他失去自己第一個出生僅三天的親生孩子到構(gòu)思并立即投入拍攝，前后只用了兩星期。他獎自身的苦痛轉(zhuǎn)化成如此創(chuàng)意，使我們能與他一同品味其間的痛苦與損失。
卓別林以一種常見的形式——被丟棄孩子的故事，恰好表達(dá)了他失去親人的哀愁，他成功地引入了三教九流的角色。中國農(nóng)民，班圖部落人，歐洲的知識分子，倫敦商人，以及全世界的“孩子”能而且的確對查理的啞劇故事表露同情。
說到受痛苦打擊的卓別林碰巧被那個丟棄的孩子絆倒的故事，這正好引出他瘦小流浪漢輕巧地跌坐在地的效果。如果說說查理有跳芭蕾的天賦，那么他心靈上早已有了這種傷感懷舊的苦與樂——早在他失去頭一個孩子之前，曾幾何時，他被酗酒的父親和精神錯亂的母親所拋棄，不得不自己照顧自己，查理早已深諳一個被拋棄孩子的全部生活：露宿街頭，閃躲著警察和孤兒院官員，靠揀食維持生命。
失去骨肉無疑又喚醒了他對舊時童年的記憶，對往事的藝術(shù)加工在查理
心里進(jìn)行著，而非在頭腦之中。查理的創(chuàng)意取得了成功，因為它完全是無意識的，而不是自我意識的自傳。
在查理個人悲劇的幾天后，意志堅強(qiáng)的他，一個從貧民窟里摸爬滾打出來的專業(yè)演員，重整旗鼓繼續(xù)他的事業(yè)。本著打鬧劇的戲路，他挖掘小角色與滑稽場面，而不是主題與神話。父與子——本是偶然相遇在人生的十字路上，因而查理的這個失去父親的孩子和卓別林這個失去孩子的父親邂逅在倫敦的街道上。與以往他們的原型不同，那些人的心中充滿了猜疑與憎恨，而查理·卓別林與這個丟棄的孩子之間充滿了渴望與慈愛。因此他們的故事就如同一首愛恨交織、苦中有甜的抒情詩。