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unit2
Charlie Chaplin
He
was
born
in
a
poor
area
of
south
London. He
wore
his
mother's
old
red
stockings
cut down for ankle socks. His mother
was temporarily declared mad. Dickens might
have created Charlie Chaplin's
childhood. But only Charle Chaplin could have
created
the
great
comic
character
of
"
the
Tramp
",
the
little
man
in
rags
who gave his creator
permanent fame. Other countries
—
France, Italy, Spain, even
Japan
and
Korea
—
have
provided
more
applause
(and
profit)
where
Chaplin
is
concerned than the land of his birth.
Chaplin quit Britain for good in 1913 when he
journeyed to America with a group of
performers to do his comedy act on the stage
where talent scouts recruited him to
work for Mack Sennett, the king of Hollywood
comedy
films.
Sad
to
say,
many
English
people
in
the
1920's
and
1930's
thought
Chaplin's
Tramp
a
bit,
well,
"
crude
".
Certainly
middle-class
audiences
did;
the
working-class
audiences
were
more
likely
to
clap
for
a
character
who
revolted
against
authority,
using
his
wicked
little
cane
to
trip
it
up,
or
aiming
the
heel
of
his
boot
for
a
well-placed
kick
at
its
broad
rear.
All
the
same,
Chaplin's comic beggar didn't
seem all that English or even working class.
English
tramps
didn't
sport
tiny
moustaches,
huge
pants
or
tail
coats:
European
leaders
and
Italian
waiters
wore
things
like
that.
Then
again,
the
Tramp's
quick
eye
for
a
pretty
girl
had
a
coarse
way
about
it
that
was
considered,
well,
not
quite
nice by
English audiences
—
that's how
foreigners behaved, wasn't it? But
for
over
half
of
his
screen
career,
Chaplin
had
no
screen
voice
to
confirm
his
British
nationality. Indeed, it was a headache
for Chaplin when he could no longer resist
the talking movies and had to find
"the right voice" for his Tramp. He
postponed that day as long as possible:
in Modern Times in 1936, the first film in
which
he
was
heard
as
a
singing
waiter,
he
made
up
a
nonsense
language
which
sounded
like
no
known
nationality.
He
later
said
he
imagined
the
Tramp
to
be
a
college-educated
gentleman who'd come down in the
world. But if he'd been able to speak with
an
educated
accent
in
those
early
short
comedy
movies,
it's
doubtful
if
he
would
have
achieved
world
fame.
And
the
English
would
have
been
sure
to
find
it
"odd".
No
one
was
certain
whether
Chaplin
did
it
on
purpose
but
this
helped
to bring about his
huge success. He was an immensely talented man,
determined to a
degree
unusual
even
in
the
ranks
of
Hollywood
stars.
His
huge
fame
gave
him
the
freedom
—
and,
more
importantly,
the
money
—
to
be
his
own
master.
He
already
had
the
urge
to
explore and extend a talent he discovered in
himself as he went along. "It
can't be me. Is that possible? How
extraordinary," is how he greeted the
first
sight
of
himself
as
the
Tramp
on
the
screen.
But
that
shock
roused
his
imagination.
Chaplin
didn't
have
his
jokes
written
into
a
script
in
advance;
he
was
the
kind
of
comic
who
used
his
physical
senses
to
invent
his
art
as
he
went
along.
Li
feless
objects
especially
helped
Chaplin
make
"contact"
with himself as an artist. He turned them into
other kinds of
objects.
Thus,
a
broken
alarm
clock
in
the
movie
The
Pawnbroker
became
a
"sick"
patient
undergoing
surgery;
boots
were
boiled
in
his
film
The
Gold
Rush and their soles
eaten with salt and pepper like prime cuts of fish
(the nails
being removed like fish
bones). This physical transformation, plus the
skill with
which he
executed
it again and again, are surely the
secrets
of
Chaplin's great
comedy.
He also had a deep need to be loved
—
and a corresponding fear
of being
betrayed. The two were hard to
combine and sometimes
—
as
in his early marriages
—
the
collision between them resulted in disaster. Yet
even this painfully-bought
self-
knowledge
found
its
way
into
his
comic
creations.
The
Tramp
never
loses
his
faith
in
the
flower
girl
who'll
be
waiting
to
walk
into
the
sunset
with
him;
while
the
other
side of Chaplin makes Monsieur
Verdoux,
the French
wife killer, into a
symbol
of hatred for women.
It's a relief to know that life eventually
gave Charlie
Chaplin
the
stable
happiness
it
had
earlier
denied
him.
In
Oona
O'Neill
Chaplin,
he
found
a
partner
whose
stability
and
affection
spanned
the
37
years
age
difference
between them
that had seemed
so threatening that when the official
who was marrying
them in 1942, turned
to the beautiful girl of 17 who'd given notice
of their
wedding
date
and
said,
"And
where
is
the
young
man?"
—
Chaplin,
then
54,
had cautiously waited outside. As Oona
herself was the child of a large family with
its
own
problems,
she
was
well-
prepared
for
the
battle
that
Chaplin's
life
became
as
unfounded
rumors
of
Marxist
sympathies
surrounded
them
both
—
and,
later
on,
she
was the
center of rest in the quarrels that Chaplin
sometimes sparked in their own
large
family
of talented children. Chaplin
died
on Christmas
Day
1977. A few
months
later, a couple of almost comic body-
thieves stole his body from the family burial
chamber
and
held
it
for
money:
the
police
recovered
it
with
more
efficiency
than
Mack
Sennett's clumsy Keystone Cops
would have done. But one can't help feeling
Chaplin would have regarded this
strange incident as a fitting memorial
—
his way
of
having the last laugh on a world to which he had
given so many.
他出生在伦敦南部的一个贫困地区
。他穿的短袜是从妈妈的红色长袜上剪下来的。
他的妈妈一度
被诊断为精神失常。狄更斯或许能创作出查理·卓别林的童年故事，
< br>但只有查理·
卓别林才能塑造出了不起的喜剧角色
“流浪
汉”
，
这个使其创作者声名永驻的衣
衫
褴褛的小人物。就卓别林而言，其他国家，如法国、意大利、西班牙，甚至日本，都比他
的出生地给予了他更多的掌声（和更多的收益）
。在
1913<
/p>
年，卓别林永久地离开了英国，与
一些演员一起启程到美国进行舞
台喜剧表演。在那里，他被星探招募到好莱坞喜