Blind Gestures: Chaplin, Diderot, Lessing

. . . the mise en scène of the blind is always inscribed in a theater or theory of the hands . . .

Derrida, Memoirs of the Blind

I

The centennial of Charlie Chaplin's birth saw the release on video of a commemorative set of his films. With reference to the expressive range of Chaplin's pantomimic art, the trailer advertizing this collection describes such silent landmarks as The Kid and The Gold Rush as "films that let you listen with your eyes." The formulation is revealing, for it points to the effective deafness adopted by the spectator of silent cinema, which relies on a gestural vocabulary not dissimilar from the sign language used by and for the deaf. Chaplin's "tramp," whose trademark muteness persisted well into the era of sound, embodied an irreducible humanity consistent with the utopian potential that silent cinema, with its simplified but universal language, held for many practitioners, Chaplin among them. ¹ City Lights (1931), made after the advent of audio synchronization, used sound largely to ridicule sound, remaining essentially a silent film, in which printed dialogue cards convey the words of characters who are seen to speak but are not heard. Billed as "a comedy romance in pantomime," City Lights announces itself as an aesthetic alternative to the "talkie," upholding the generic integrity that, over the years, has prompted comparisons of Chaplin's work to that of Molière or the Commedia dell'arte. ²

In City Lights the tramp ("Charlie") is mistaken for a millionaire by a young blind woman selling flowers on a busy street corner. He falls in love with her and is eventually able to finance an operation that will restore her sight. The money, which Charlie is accused of stealing, is actually a gift from a real millionaire whom Charlie--ever the Good Samaritan--has dissuaded from committing suicide. On the eve of his arrest, Charlie presents the girl with the money, resigned to the idea that she will reject him once she can see him. Released from jail some nine months later, Charlie happens upon the young woman, no longer blind, arranging flowers in the window of the shop where she now works. Unaware of the tramp's identity but amused by his shy attention, she offers him first a rose, then a coin--gestures that recall their original encounter in which Charlie, out of kindness towards the girl, spent his last penny on a flower he could well have done without (Fig. I). The window separating them reduces their present exchange to pantomime; it also centers Charlie within a visual frame he is anxious to escape. As he timidly retreats she gives chase, coaxing him back with the flower and pressing the coin into his palm. Her eyes suddenly glaze over as she recognizes her benefactor by the feel of his hand. She runs her fingers over the breast of his jacket, retracing the movement by which she had once felt for his lapel. In a gesture of incredulous wonder, she places her hand on her cheek. "You?" she asks. He nods, nervously biting his fingertip. "You can see now?" he indicates, pointing to his eyes, to which she responds, "Oh yes, I can see now," affirming an insight born of touch, the primacy of which this unexpected reunion has revived. She takes his hand in hers and clasps it over her heart, and City Lights fades on a close-up of Charlie, still biting his finger, his characteristic speechlessness now specified as bated breath (Fig. II).

In this final scene, the acceptance Charlie could not dare hope for is granted under the cover of blindness, which the girl momentarily relives, and which allegorizes the just society that Charlie finds so elusive. Indeed, the blind woman personifies the innocuousness that Chaplin's tramp, a poor immigrant habitually persecuted by policemen, brutish waiters and good citizens, understandably cherishes. An attempt to avoid being seen is what leads to Charlie's first encounter [End Page...