The recent reappearance of Chaplin's The Circus [1928] provides an example of a rich film which has been overshadowed by its predecessor (The Gold Rush, 1925) and its successor (City Lights, 1931). True, The Circus lacks the superb economy of The Gold Rush and it does not plumb to the depths of pathos of City Lights. But its virtues are rather special, and, I think, ones which we, forty years later, are in a special position to notice. For The Circus is one of the few films in which Chaplin's nineteenth-century sensibility deals symbolically with art and despair in a truly twentieth-century way.

It is a commonplace that the conemporary cinema has begun to comment on art as well as life; in Lola Montes, 8 1/2, Persona, and Blow-Up, we see directors exploring the nature of cinema itself. In the light of this tendency, The Circus seems highly modern.

Perhaps Chaplin's most objective analysis of his screen persona, it uses the circus as a metaphor for both Film and Existence. Like Bergman in Sunset of a Clown, Chaplin fills his circus with symbols that suggest both the depths of art and the bleakness of life.

From the star on the hoop that fills the iris in the very first shot to the crumpled-up star Charlie kicks away in the last shot, the film traces patterns of circularity. On the plot level, this pattern is enacted in the rhythm of changes in Fortune—the essence of comedy…. Bad fortune—a twist—good fortune—a twist—bad fortune—ad infinitum: but always, as in all comedy, survival. The recurring scenes—the nightly performances, the ringmaster's blustering—find their place in the rhythm we know must be completed by the circus' eventual departure for a new town.

On the level of symbolism, circularity visually pervades the film. Merna's hoop, the wedding ring Charlie buys, and the controlling symbol of the circus ring itself: we are witnessing the ceaseless cycle of futile love. At the end, the image is almost too powerful: Charlie is imprisoned by the circle in the dirt, trapped in the cycle of life. As he had strolled into the film facing away from us, so he leaves by walking off into the distance, as if the entire film were only a short pause along his way. The road will never end.

This idea of ongoing life, which comedy typically projects, is modulated by the idea of performance—an image from the world of art; in Chaplin's case, cinema. The Circus analyzes the nature of audience-attitudes toward comedy and contrasts Chaplin's art with another variety of screen comedy. (p. 40)

On the screen, we see an audience thirsty for fun (like ourselves) enjoying Charlie's performance, but we are also privy, as they are not, to the clown's private grief. The moment both aspects crystallize—the audience screams, "Where's the Funny Man?" and a title, The Funny Man, takes us to a sleeping tramp curled up in a chariot—we are forced to analyze our own response to the public side of Chaplin's art. Might he not be reminding us—at the time of his much-publicized Lita Grey divorce—of the ultimate loneliness of the artist's private life?

Similarly, Chaplin brings in another comedy style to highlight the uniqueness of his own. The Keystone-Kops chase that opens the film soon tapers off into Chaplin's more intimate comedy of glances, gestures, and feelings…. In Sennett, slapstick is a catharsis of repressed dislike; in The Circus, it is kindness veering out of control. (pp. 40-1)