#30: The Kid
Release Date: January 21st, 1921
Format: Streaming (Max)
Written by: Charlie Chaplin
Directed by: Charlie Chaplin
3.5 Stars
I remember my first experience watching a Chaplin movie. It was in a film studies class at Boise State, and we watched City Lights. I was probably 20 or 21-years-old, and going into the movie I figured that it was going to be a purely intellectual experience. I thought this 80-year-old black and white silent movie might have been interesting for its time, but will probably be a bit of a slog by today’s standards. It’s the 2000s babeee! I’m out here trying to watch The Matrix and Fight Club. Chaplin’s City Lights will probably be a bit boring in comparison. A bit of a task to watch.
I was wrong. The first thing I realized with Chaplin is how intimate his movies are. I don’t think any actor can convey as much emotion into a camera lens as when he stares into one. It captures your attention immediately.
I also had no idea how beautiful his movies are. They are Humanist works with a capital H. The goodness of humanity is imbued into his stories. They make me teary-eyed when I watch them.
But ironically this goodness can only seed and grow in a cold, cold world. Chaplin belongs to a long list of artistic geniuses who come from poverty, where their trauma and neglect makes their art stronger. Watching The Kid, you’re wondering how much Chaplin borrows from his own experiences living in the streets of London at the end of the 19th century. You sense he is speaking firsthand about hustling money, fist-fighting neighborhood kids in front of betting adults, and going without a meal for a day (or two). It all feels authentic and beautifully sad.
The Kid is almost a perfect film. Maybe it is. I keep toggling back and forth from a 3.5 to a 4.0 star rating. I’m not sure the dream sequence at the end works. It feels like just a bit of an overreach without much of a payoff. I don’t need fantastical whimsy in this story. The first 40-minutes seem more magical: the little tramp and his orphan child eating stew, stealing from the gas meter, and fighting in the streets, all in the name of love.
