Word: chaplins
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...part of the film; the critics pounced on awkward exchanges (NATASCHA: "Careful, these pajamas are transparent!" OGDEN: "So are you!") and lines like Brando's "I want you to know this is the first real happiness I've known." But criticizing the dialogue on conventional grounds is meaningless; in Chaplin's film, lines have little significance in themselves. The dialogue cannot be divorced from how a character says his line or what he looks like while he's saying it: these factors combine to form complete characterizations. Chaplin has carefully directed the line-readings of his cast...
Criticism of Chaplin's old-fashioned visual style and relentlessly stationery camera not withstanding, few directors use the camera as successfully to convey characterizations: he holds a close-up of Tippi Hedren just long enough for the actress to become uncomfortable, and in the context of the scene, Chaplin is able to transfer that quality of detached restlessness from her to the character she is playing...
...Countess From Hong Kong is, on occasion, old-fashioned, but only when Chaplin Clings to anti-quated dramatic devices. Sometimes the dialogue becomes overly expository, as if he were substituting lines for title cards reading, "Four days later," or "Meanwhile". But frequently his instinctive use of silent film mechanics works successfully. In silent comedy, one of the primary goals was to break down the defensive barriers between the audience and the film-maker by manipulating audience emotions to involve them in the action. Having discovered that audiences laughed at the misfortunes and embarrassments of other people, Mack Sennett, and later...
Though it resembles Chaplin's earlier films, Countess contains much of the bitterness of Limelight and A King in New York, giving the romance a darkly pessimistic overtone. The 70-year-old director's point of view has soured over the years, and certain feelings can be inferred from his new film. Chaplin can neither take comfort in the security of old age or have faith in youth. The society girl with whom Brando dances is self-centered and vapid, a Marxist parody of upper class Capitalism. Her continual references to the beliefs of her father imply that...
...general, Chaplin has little sympathy for modern society: the ship's Captain is slightly corrupt; Ogden's wife, Martha excudes coldness and cares only for money: Ogden's best friend, Harvey (Sydney Chaplin), is ineffectual, his part consisting mainly of reacting and commenting on the action. Natascha tells him she thinks Ogden doesn't love her; he thinks for a moment and finally says, rather tentatively, "I don't agree." It is the best...