The Gentleman Is a Tramp by Claudia Clausius (review)

216 LETTERS IN CANADA 1989 now dated. Nor do the collected columns give a real overview of the popular cinema ofthe 1970s. Missing, for example, are such popularfilms of major social significance as Dirty Harry, Apocalypse Now, Star Wars in any extended way (it gets, dismissively, one third ofa page), The Exorcist, anything by Spielberg. Nevertheless, any book based on the premise that contemporary popularfilm has somethingofvalue to offer us, if we viewit thoughtfully, is to be welcomed, and The Crowded Darkness should make its readers more aware, even ifinlimited ways, ofthe powerful connections between contemporary moral and political attitudes and the popular art that flickers before us on the multitudinous screens across North Americaand beyond. Fetherling also writes entertainingly, and the ideas come fast. Indeed, Fetherling's very omissions tell us something important about the necessarily partial vision of any immediately contemporary social/ cultural criticism. The point is ultimately as valuable as any particular social or political argument explicitly made in the text of the work itself. (ANNE LANCASHIRE) Claudia Oausius. The Gentleman Is a Tramp. Peter Lang. 194 Claudia Clausius's centennial exegesis ofChaplin's comedy grew outofa number of associations, direct and indirect, with the film program at the University of Toronto; and it would seem to be the most accomplished and valuable literary production of that program so far published. The present reviewer read the manuscript at an early stage, and feels no compulsion to disqualify himselffrom reviewing the book: withouta blue pencil in sight, what he gave was truly only 'unflagging enthusiasm and encouragement' - to a project which from the beginning was mature, thoroughlycoherent, and more thanany otherbook on Chaplin, offereda convincing explanation of the sometimes mysterious nature of his comic appeal. On her second page, Clausius ponders the propriety of examining by traditional methods a non-verbal, entirely visual kind of comedy 'as antithetical even dangerous to the elusive nature of the subject.' It is true that silent comedy is a genre unto itself, untrammelled by words (and thus encouraging many critics to examine sound comedy as theatrical script). It is also true that the exponents of the purer, silent form, Chaplin himself excepted, all allow for relatively easy, sometimes glib, critical examination. Take three of the most important (Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Raymond Griffith) and concentrate especially upon the question Clausius makes much of in relation to Chaplin: audience HUMANITIES 217 identification. Keaton is the innocent dealing with objects, often mechanical objects: 'in spite of all his ineptitudes, he leads a charmed life; the collapsing building will always find him standing in the doorway, or the cannon pointing directly at him will at the last moment fire in the direction of the enemy. We thoroughly identify with him- he is never sadistic or mean as Chaplin sometimes is - and our feelings of identification are ratified by a series of happy (if sometimes sardonic) endings. Lloyd also constantly falls on his feet; our identificatory stance would never want it otherwise. And Raymond Griffith, in the same costume and air of bemusement as his master Max Linder (who is surely little enough Chaplin's master), has his audience always pulling for him. There is also, with all these comedians- comedy being the image of truth, as Aristotle saw - the question of class. From Chaplin's substandard baggy pants, to Keaton's more acceptable lower middle-class apparel, to Lloyd's collegiate and upper middle-class, to Raymond Griffith's tails, top hat, and cape, there is the whole spectrum; and recent changes in social attitudes have tended to downgrade Lloyd and Griffith against the elevation of the other two (Lloyd was as popular as Chaplin in their own day); a classless society looks askance at their superiority. What distinguishes Chaplin from these three competitors is, first, that there is no certainty that he will fall on his feet-- the enduring image (at the end, for instance, of The Tramp and Modern Times) is of his retreat into an approaching distance; and, second, that, partly because he is not triumphant, partly because he is less than we are (socially, intellectually, morally), we do not identify with him, but rather look down on him- the designation...