Distant Relatives: Modern Times and WALL•E

Robert here with my series Distant Relatives, which explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. This week we jump into the admittedly pointless but always fun Chaplin vs. Keaton debate and contrast it with the Pixar vs Dreamworks animation debate. The important thing is to remember that you can love all of these films and it's not a competition.

But if it were a competition (and it's not), we start with Chaplin and Pixar because they're the obvious frontrunners. By that I don't mean that they're better, but they have the name recognition, the marketing, the cultural branding. Chaplin built for himself an image that now almost a century after his first shorts, is still recognizable. Pixar meanwhile, in just over fifteen years in the feature business has introduced a slew of films and characters that have become iconic. While quality is mostly the cause, it doesn't hurt to have most of your films named after their title characters (why Nemo will always be more recognizable than Carl Fredricksberg). So, Chaplin and Pixar are both heavyweights. They share that. They also share a sense of style and innovation, a desire to elevate their genre beyond it's conventional expectations, a love of traditional arcs, and a soft spot for over-sentimentalization.

Lovelorn tramps in the future

Among the Pixar canon, the best film for our Chaplin comparison is WALL•E because, well a fair portion of its marketing to the online film geek world involved the constant reminder that animators took much inspiration from Charlie Chaplin, although the connections were already pretty evident. To put it another way: you didn't have to read an article on the Chaplin/WALL•E inspiration to see it, but you probably did. WALL•E follows a hapless, lonely, poor protagonist who falls in love and must suddenly achieve something great to get the girl while simultaneously getting the girl to achieve something great. It's one of the few Pixar films that places a strong emphasis on its romantic plot, and WALL•E himself, the nearly silent, occationally prat-falling protagonist is the perfect Chaplin descendent. So WALL•E is an easy choice, but why Modern Times?

Modern Times is unique among Chaplin's films in that a unusually strong focus is placed on the source of The Tramp's discontent. In most other films, The Tramp is a generic vagrant, downtrodden for many unnamed reasons. In Modern Times, he's not a vagabond, he's a worker. His oppressor isn't whatever bully or police brute or aristocrat might be antagonizing him that scene, it's the whole out-of-control industrial complex. It's the giant face of the uncaring corporate class. Yes, it's undeniably political. And so is WALL•E. As much as Pixar attempted to quell controversy, insisting that any politics present were simply there to serve the story, there's no escaping the fact that WALL•E's oppressor is also a giant corporation that cares far less for its workers (in WALL•E's case robots) than for its image and its profits.

Romance and politics and a happy ending.

For both films controversy was unavoidable, and in both cases the filmmaker's weren't shy about subtley commenting on what they were stirring up. A scene in Modern Times where The Tramp inadvertantly leads a communist parade and ends up cast out from society was prescient in regard to Chaplin's eventual career. As for WALL•E, it's hard not to see a sly wink to that year's upcoming US presidential election in a scene where the whole of humanity decides that "blue is the new red." Yet, overtly political as they are, both films do a good job of avoiding platitudes and focusing their attention on their little man main characters whose humanities are being crushed under the threat of their brave new world. Of course, throughout it all, love prevails. Love, that great cinematic motivator, proves that our heroes are more than just cogs in a machine, and capable of doing great things; little great things in the case of The Tramp or big great things in the case of WALL•E.

This is probably the most significant thematic difference between the two films. Chaplin's Tramp wants to get the girl, but WALL•E is tasked with getting the girl and saving the world. Of course, WALL•E's plot gives the film no other choice. Perhaps it the modern mindset that demands a whole world-saving happy ending, or perhaps it was impossible to place that old trash compator WALL•E in a trash-ridden world and not expect him to exceed in the biggest scale imaginable. Either way, Chaplin's film can leave the world a mess while Pixar's cannot. Still, both films serve up a decent serving of uncertainty for their finales, emphasizing that the real important goal, the pursuit of love, has been met and the rest will somehow be okay. Sentimental yet socially conscious, Modern Times and WALL•E are brethren that aim to entertain and enlighten and propell their lovable protagonists into a satisfying future.

Other Cinematic Relatives: Meet John Doe (1941), The Apartment (1960), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Avatar (2009)

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "THE CIRCUS"

In the weekly "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series, we select what we view as the best shot from a pre-selected movie. Everyone who does the same gets linked up! This week's film is Charlie Chaplin's somewhat underappreciated slapstick comedy The Circus (1928).

Don't you love it when a movie character is so iconic that you only have to see their backside as intro? The movie's plot kicks into gear when a pickpocket puts his catch into the Tramp's pocket to prove his innocent. Comedic complications ensue.

In truth, I have never quite understand the Little Tramp's appeal being mostly a Buster Keaton man. With Water For Elephants coming out on Friday, I thought a circus movie was in order and why not give Chaplin a second chance... or a fifth. In the past I've found his films a touch too saccharine -- it's a personal taste thing -- but it turned out that The Circus was just what I needed since it went light on the "awwwww" and sniffly pity and leaned into its gags with something in the general vicinity of wicked glee. I was super drepressed and ended up laughing for two hours. Win!

The best illustration of the naughty comic touch might be the late in the film when the Tramp, who usually squirms from delight, reveals that his squirming while watching a tight rope walker (his rival for the love object's affection) is actually something like physical exertion to telekinetically will the walker into falling and I laughed heartily at an early variation on that old saying "stealing candy from a baby" as he devours an entire pastry from the hands of an infant.

But in the end I kept going back to this very simple shot near the beginning which is much much funnier in context.

It's part of the perfectly judged opening slapstick theft with hilarious confusions and plot consequences. Both the Tramp and the thief have been running from the cops and from each other and they suddenly enter the frame looking like partners in crime; Chaplin's hat tip at the tail end of the run is a super funny nod to this odd turn of events (they'll be enemies again in a second).

It got me to thinking about why slapstick is mostly dead in the movies. We don't have any Tatis or Chaplins or anyone left anymore and it's not because it's 2011 or because comedy is dead or because [cue nostalgic violins] "they don't make it like they use to" or  because the movies found sound. It's because the currently preferred style of rapid cutting and the absolute manic attachment to closeups --even in scenes without heavy emotional components -- prevents the longform comedy of careful set-up and physical punchline; it's tough to maximize the humor of a pratfall or a surprise twist in the action when you can't see the entirety of a comedian's body in motion. The modern musical has the same problem in finding its voice, if you will. If you can't see the choreography it's awfully tough to join in the dancing.

Other Tramps

• Movies Kick Ass "You're supposed to be funny" Chaplin's resistance to sound.
• Awww, the Movies! ♥  Strike a pose, Charlie.
• Serious Film "The Keaton Man's Guide To Loving Chaplin"
• Ahora the sorrow of circuses and Chaplin's hall of mirrors

The complete index of "Hit Me" episodes

UPDATE. We were supposed to do Sofia Coppola's Somewhere next. But we keep running into snags with this series. I know the majority of you rent from Netflix (as do I) and for some reason though the movie is out on DVD and Blu-Ray it is strangely not available on Netflix for another month. Perhaps this is some new contract problem between studios and Netflix? SIGH.

So next Wednesday no episode. But stay tuned for more news on this series.