Every little while some critic or other begins to dance about with all
the excitement of a lonely watcher on a peak in Darien and to shout, as
he dances, that Charlie Chaplin is a great actor. The grass on that peak
is now crushed under foot. Harvey O'Higgins has danced there and Mrs.
Fiske and many another, but still the critics rush in. Of course, a
critic is almost invariably gifted with the ability not to see or hear
what any other commentator but himself writes about anything, but there
is more than this to account for the fact that so many persons undertake
to discover Chaplin. As in the case of all great artists, he is able to
convey the impression, always, of doing a thing not only for the first
time but of giving a special and private performance for each sensitive
soul in the audience. It is possible to sit in the middle of a large and
tumultuous crowd and still feel that Charlie is doing special little
things for your own benefit which nobody else in the house can
understand or enjoy.
Personally we never see him in a new picture without suddenly being
struck with the thought, "How long has this been going on?" Each time we
leave the theater we expect to see people dancing in the streets because
of Chaplin and to meet delegations with olive wreaths hurrying toward
Los Angeles. We don't. Unfortunately Americans have a perfect passion
for flying into a great state of calm about things and, for all the
organized cheering from the top of the peak in Darien, we take Chaplin
much too calmly at all moments except when we are watching him. Phrases
which are his by every right have been wasted on lesser people. Walter
Pater, for instance, lived before his time and was obliged to spend that
fine observation, "Here is the head upon which all the ends of the earth
have come and the eyelids are a little weary" upon the Mona Lisa.
The same ends of the same earth have come upon the head of Charlie
Chaplin. Still Mr. Pater, if he had lived, would have been obliged to
amend his observation a little. The eyelids are not weary. Unlike the
Mona Lisa, Chaplin is able to shake his head every now and then and
break free from his burden. In these great moments he seems to stand
clear of all things and to be alone in space with nothing but sky about
him. To be sure the earth crashes down on him again, but he bears it
without blinking. It is only his shoulders which sag a little.
Charlie seems to us to fulfil the demand made of the creative artist
that he shall be both an individual and a symbol at the same time. He
presents a definite personality and yet he is also Man who grins and
whistles as he clings to his spinning earth because he is afraid to go
home in the dark. To be much more explicit, there is one particular
scene in _The Kid_ in which Chaplin having recently picked up a stray
baby finds the greatest difficulty in getting rid of it. Balked at every
turn, he sits down wearily upon a curbstone and suddenly notices that
just in front of him there is an open manhole. First he peers down; then
he looks at the child. He hesitates and turns a project over in his mind
and reluctantly decides that it won't do. Every father in the world has
sat at some time or other by that manhole. Moreover, in the half
suggested shake of his head Chaplin touches the paternal feeling more
closely than any play ever written around a third act in a nursery on
Christmas Eve. We can all watch him and choke down half a sob at the
thought that after all the Life Force is supreme and you can't throw 'em
down the manholes.
Many a good performance on the stage is purely accidental. Actors are
praised for some trick of gesture or a particular note in the voice of
which they are quite unconscious. We raved once over the remarkable
fidelity of accent in an actress cast to play the role of a shop girl in
a certain melodrama and it was not until we saw her the next season,
when she was cast as a duchess, that we realized that there was no art
about it. Chaplin does not play by ear. His method is definite, and it
could not seem so easy if it were not carefully calculated. He does more
with a gesture than almost anybody else can do by falling downstairs.
He can turn from one mood to another with all the agility of a polo
pony. And in addition to being one of the greatest artists of our day he
is more fun than all the rest put together.
There must be a specially warm corner in Hell reserved for those parents
who won't let their children see Charlie Chaplin on the ground that he
is too vulgar. Of course, he is vulgar. Everybody who amounts to
anything has to touch earth now and again to be revitalized. Chaplin has
the right attitude toward vulgarity. He can take it or let it alone.
Children who don't see Charlie Chaplin have, of course, been robbed of
much of their childhood. However, they can make it up in later years
when the old Chaplin films will be on view in the museums and carefully
studied under the direction of learned professors in university
extension courses.