City Lights

No one can make you laugh like Sir Charles Chaplin. No one can make you cry like he can.

For a moment, City Lights (1931) actually made me lament the advent of sound in the movies. Did we actually take a step back by moving on from the silent era to the talkies? Aah...that's how the movie affects you. That's how eloquent, moving and sublime City Lights is. It almost mocks the superfluousness of the dialogue ridden, talking pictures which had already forebode the demise of the pantomimes as Lights was being shot.

However, my usual inane comments apart, City Lights is one of those greats which attest the power of the screen and the ways in which it can affect us. Haven't watched many of Sir Chaplin's movies (others being The Great Dictator (1940) and Limelight (1952))but solely on the basis of City Lights, I must revise one of my earlier beliefs: The Little Tramp, by a flicker, beats Travis Bickle as the greatest character ever portrayed in cinema. Just one of my 'humble' opinions.

I can't recommend City Lights enough. Must be cherished, and the DVD owned. And while resisting the lump in your throat during the climax, you shall experience greatness.