Modernism Is the Literature of Celebrity

Chapter 4. Charlie Chaplin, Author of Modernist Celebrity

[ 111 Charlie Chaplin, Author of Modernist Celebrity harlie Chaplin is thought to have been the most famous person in the world during the 1920s,1 and his films show him to be very much a modernist, fashioning himself as an exceptional figure, a high-culture author embodied in an object. His high modernism displays itself most clearly in Modern Times (1936), which features what is surely one of the strangest endings in Hollywood history. The film concludes with its otherwise nameless protagonists the Tramp (Chaplin) and the Gamin (Paulette Goddard) walking down a dusty road, east toward the sunrise, away from the camera, penniless.They leave behind the city, their hopes for employment, and, it seems, civilization itself. The iconography is clear: it is 1936, millions are unemployed, and to march into the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl means destitution if not death. Chaplin invokes a familiar trope of 1930s texts, that of the “marginal men,” for whom “life on the road is not romanticized” and who “do not participate in any culture,” as Warren Susman puts it (171). C ChaPter 4 112 ] Modernism Is the Literature of Celebrity The Tramp and the Gamin seem destined for this non-existence. For the duration of the film they have tried to live and work within society, but now they are cast out. Happy Endings This is supposed to be a happy ending, however. Before pressing on into poverty, the Tramp whistles a tune and tells the Gamin to “buck up” and smile; the soundtrack’s string section swells around them. The film is sure to show us the illogicality. Before they walk down the country road away from the camera, the Tramp and the Gamin walk toward us. The camera is positioned so that the pair can march forth with their optimistic and determined smiles fully visible. As they approach the apparatus, the fantasy becomes obvious. The machinery of cinema stands in their path; the audience’s own spectatorial position is impossible, makes it impossible to accept the narrative. Only when the pair have nearly walked into the apparatus does the film cut to the rear view, showing the characters walking away from their audience. Why, exactly, does this cynical take on transcendence , and the resulting signal of poverty and despair, encourage any optimism? How do we resolve these contradictory signs? Figure 4.1. Still from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. United Artists, 1936. Charles Chaplin/Photofest. Charlie Chaplin, Author of Modernist Celebrity [ 113 The answers to these questions lie outside of the narration. There is another iconography at work here; the rearview silhouette of the Tramp strolling down the road, in the foreground against a natural vista, complete with bowler hat, baggy pants, and duck-toed walk, recalls previous Chaplin films, including The Tramp, which was named for this shot. By invoking similar moments in his oeuvre, Chaplin prompts recognition of the Tramp not merely as a movie character, but also as the mass-reproduced trademark image of Charlie Chaplin, multimillionaire entertainer and worldwide celebrity.This figurative double exposure, the overlaying of the character with the performer/filmmaker/celebrity, reconciles the contradictions between the cheerful atmosphere and the grim story by alleviating the suggestion that the protagonists are doomed. Rather than being reduced to one of the “marginal men”—in Susman’s terminology—the Tramp is heading for the Hollywood hills, where Chaplin, far from “not participat[ing] in any culture,” engages in one of the most prominent and widespread forms of cultural production—making hit movies for huge audiences.2 Nice work if you can get it, indeed. Modern Times thus provides resolution by overriding narrative logic with celebrity logic, shifting the attention of the audience from the story to the producer of that story. Chaplin’s celebrity is encoded within the text. By mobilizing celebrity in this manner Chaplin intensifies the effect Figure 4.2. Still from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. United Artists, 1936. United Artists/Photofest. 114 ] Modernism Is the Literature of Celebrity of the typical Hollywood star, as it is described by Miriam Hansen: “The star’s presence in a particular film blurs the boundary between diegesis and discourse, between an address relying on the identification with fictional characters and an activation of the viewer’s familiarity with the star on the basis of production and publicity” (Babel and Babylon 246). That is to say, the cinematic image of the star gestures...