Charlie Chaplins Review

Write a review of Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Kid’

Discuss:

The story and background

The technology

Symbols within the film

The story is about the Chaplin character who is a tramp, adopting a young kid and bringing him up.   He finds the kid as a baby by some dustbins, because the mother has left the baby in a car.  The car was then taken by two men who abandoned it and they left the baby by the dustbins.

Chaplin and the kid have a fun life even though they are living amongst the poor.  Chaplin teaches the kid to help him earn money by throwing stones through a window so that Chaplin can repair them.  There are some comic scenes of their life together including meals and a fight with another boy and his older brother (or father).

When the kid gets ill, a doctor comes in and questions whether Chaplin is the real father.  The kid gets taken away to an orphanage.

There are various shots of the kid’s mother during the film so far, but we don’t really know what has happened to her until the end.

It ends up happily with Chaplin going off to live with the kid and his mother.

In terms of the background to the film, some have suggested that the story is a direct reflection of Chaplin’s background – the poverty and cruelty of welfare workers (Wikipedia).  Chaplin’s childhood was also in an orphanage from the age of 7.  Also, Chaplin’s real child died just before the production began.

Technology

Chaplin did the whole film.  He wrote, directed, edited and starred in it.  Nowadays a film would involve many more people.

A circle surrounds the image and then widens out on different shots.  Totally different from how cuts would be today.  In most of the shots at the end of a scene, it has a circle which gets smaller so you know it’s the end of the scene.

The actors have to overdo facial expressions, like mime artists, because there is no sound.

The film is in black and white .  A lot of teenagers nowadays wouldn’t bother to watch.

The music has to be very powerful because it’s a silent movie.  If you just have the music you don’t always need dialogue to make an impact, because the music tells you what mood everything is in – comedy, sadness or action.

Symbolism

Early on when the mother leaves the baby, there is a shot of a woman throwing  rubbish on to Chaplin.  This reminds of the theme of the baby being left, and also maybe how little value people have.

Someone throws rubbish on Charlie Chaplin which is a possible symbol with the young lady and then the men throwing the baby away.

Very early, at 1.40 there is a still shot of Jesus Christ on the Cross.   Later, there is a dream sequence of heaven and all the characters are angels in heaven.  This is very different from the life they actually live.