CHARLIE CHAPLIN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16738, 20 May 1922, Page 16

CHARLIE CHAPLIN.

AN APPRECIATION. (By ST JOHN ERA'TNK, “ Observer.”) I had remarkable luck. I took my seat just ill tune to see the beginning of a Chaplin film. Hardly had l sat down when that quaint, pathetic, wistful, self-dubious figure snuffled into the circle of lit'ht. He glanced about him in an uncertain fashion, twirled Jus cane twice, adjusted the position of his hat so that it became more unstable, twitched his features as if he were saying, “ Well, what’s the good 1 ami then Aval keel down the street with that air of eiwaghm incompetence which is the characteristic of all great cornedians. And while, enchanted, 1 watched him pursuing his adventuruous career, L began to Avonder what is the peculiar quality which has endeared this comic little man. who spent his early life someAvhere in the neighbourhood of the Walworth Road, to the whole world. Here am I, a dreary liigh-brow, who would go miles to see Charlie. Chaplin on a film- There are you, who may be a low-brow or a no-brow-at-all, willing also to travel great distances for a similar purpose. hat is the quality possessed by this Cockney in California which reconciles such incompatibles in the bonds of laughter? 1 have a mostvivid recollection of th<v first occasion on Avhich I saw a Chaplin film. It was in France. A party of very tired and utterly depressed men came down one of those interminable, ugly straight roads that take the spirit out of travellers. They wpre moving down from the “line” to “rest billets” after an arduous spell in outposts. The Aveather had been very hard and bitter, so that the ground Avas frozen like steel, and many of the men had sore feet and walked with difficulty. The roads were coA r ered with snow that had turned to ice. and at frequent intervals a man Avould lose his balance and fall heavily to the ground with a great clatter of kit and rifle, and a sergeant or a corporal would curse without enthusiasm.- Three times during that desolate journey the parties Avere shelled, once Avith gas. One heard the gas shells going over. making that queer splashing noise that gas shelfs make on their journeys, and wondered whether one Avould have enough desire for life left to induce one to put on a gas mask . . I remember the party losing its wav in a road where the snoAv was soft and knee deep, in a road Avhere misery had settled down so deeply on the men that no one swore and there was .a most terrible silence, broken only by the sound of a man crashing on to the ground as he .slipped on frozen places, or by the sighs and moans of utterly exhausted boys. And I remember one of them, a very cheery lad from Dublin, suddenly losing heart for the first time in my knowledge of him, and turning to me and saying, “ God Almighty’s very hard on us. sir!” Tn that state of dejection, tired and dirty and very verminous, with unshaven faces and eyes heavy with sleep and with a most horrible feeling that it did not matter who Avon the war. that lost party staggered into the rest billets at three o’clock in the morning and was told that at the end of the week, instead of the promised divisional rest, they would receive orders to return to the line ! I recall now that following that night of exhaustion came the job of cleaning up, a morning of bathing and louse hunting, and then, after tea, with some recovery of cheerfulness, the men went off to the big barn in which the Divisional Com cert Party gave its entertainments. There they sat, massed at the back of the barn, looking strangely childlike in tlie foggy interior, and listening without some demonstration to some songs. Their irresponsiveness Avas not due to inappreciation, but to something more terrible than individual fatigue—-to an overwhelming collective fatigue, to a collective disgust, to the dreadful loathing of one’s kind that comes from continuous association in congested quarters. And then the singing ended and the lights were diminished and the “pictures” began. Into the circle of light thrown on the screen came the shuffling figure of Charlie Chaplin, and immediately the man forgot their misery and fatigue and a great welcoming roar oi laughter broke from them That small, appealing, wistful, shuffling nervous figure, 'smiling to disarm punishmenY had only to show himself, forgot where they were and to what thc\’ were doomed and remembered only to laugh. That is an achievement which is very great. But the mere statement of such a thing docs not explain the peculiar quallty of Charlie Chaplin. What is it in him that makes him distinct from not pretend to know what it is that separates him from othet men. nnv more than I know what it was that made Shakespeare supreme and unique in his generation : Imt there are oer tain things about him which make him ni@fioea.blv different from other film actors. He is almost the onlv one of his profession who can carry Ids personality through the camera. Mam Ilouslv he retains the third dimension on the screen, whereas others cannot

muster one. YVTien you look at other comedians on the film you are-conscious of photographs of men, but when, you look at Mr Chaplin you are conscious only of a. distinct human being. Like all great comedians who T have seen, for example, Dan Leno or James Welch, ho demands primarily, not your laughter. but your pit3*. A great comedian is like a child in his attitude towards the world, entirely trusting, rather helpless and a cause for laughter, not so lunch by deliberation as by sheer inability to cope with a complicated world. All the fun made by Mr Chaplin comes, not from attempts to be clever, but from failures to be as other people are. Bergson, in his book on “ Laughter,” tells his readers that laughter is the result of something mechanical being imposed upon something living -an explanation that does not appear to me to be complete or satisfactory. I do not know whether Mr Chaplin can make philosophical speculations. but I do know that by his conduct ho can explain much that puzzle philosophers ; and it seems to me at times that Mr Bergson might profitably study Air Chaplin before he produces, a. revised edition of “ Laughter.”