Chaplin, (Sir) Charles (Spencer) - Gavin Lambert
GAVIN LAMBERT
Thirty years ago Chaplin had encompassed tragi-comedy with a purity of form and feeling unique in the cinema, and from a historical point of view the qualities of Limelight are beautifully logical; what is less logical, perhaps, is the intense success with which they have been realised. At 63 Chaplin has executed an imaginative portrait of the artist as an old man and shown his creative powers to be at their height. The cinema is apt to exhaust its great talents early, but Limelight has all the vitality and sureness of Chaplin's best work, and it touches some new moments of experience. (p. 123)
The poetic unity of Limelight is a deep, calm, fatal emanation of sadness…. (p. 124)
The directness of sentiment in Limelight has found its detractors, as direct sentiment always does; nothing exposes an artist more. It is easy enough to write about today's Chaplin as "sententious" …, as "self-pitying" … or...
[The entire page is 777 words long]
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