This past weekend was the 100th anniversary of
Charlie Chaplin’s introduction of his Little Tramp character in the 1914 short film
Kid Auto Races at Venice and there is probably no single character in cinematic history so
universally recognized or instantly iconic as him. As you can see in these stamps, from various
decades and continents, the Tramp belonged to the world, and was embraced for
the hope and humanity he represented.
But 1923 was an unusual year for Charlie Chaplin. After enormous success at the Essanay and
Mutual studios, he was now at First National, fresh from his first feature
film, the incredibly popular and moving The Kid (1921). He was still making shorts, but with nowhere
near the same manic productivity of the previous handful of years. He was an artist in transition, and faced
with the prospect of creating an ambitious follow-up, he took an unusual turn—one
unlike any in his remarkable career.
A Woman of Paris (subtitled “A Drama of Fate”) opens with
the following disclaimer:
TO THE PUBLIC: In order to avoid any misunderstanding, I
wish to announce that I do not appear in this picture. It is the first serious drama written and
directed by myself. – CHARLES CHAPLIN.
No ambiguity about his intentions, Chaplin wanted to make a
movie that wasn’t propped up by levity or his own comedic presence. And the story is a familiar one: a provincial
ingénue, unhappy with her home and romantic life, goes to the big city, where
she becomes torn between a wealthy benefactor and her beau from her past life.
The film, quite frankly, is an impressive endeavor, but also
a bit of a mess—albeit an illuminating one, because it brings into sharp relief
what a master storyteller Chaplin typically was, and how his rigorous
discipline in creating comic set-ups was a reflection of his insistence on
having motivation and characterization contribute to a larger narrative unity.
When the film opens, we already see Marie St. Clair (Chaplin
regular Edna Purviance) and Jean Millet (Carl Miller) ready to elope. Summarily banished from her own house and
rejected by his parents, she’s taken by him to the train station to purchase tickets
to Paris while he quickly returns home to pack a few items before meeting back
up with her. A family tragedy delays
him, but despite his efforts to explain the situation, she simply hangs up on
him and, without a penny or possession, goes to Paris alone.
While we do later learn that Jean is unreliable and easily
swayed by parental pressure, we haven’t seen this yet. It is his idea to take Marie in when her step-father abandons her. It is his idea to
move forward with their plans to marry.
Why does she give up on these dreams so quickly, and without even giving
him a chance to explain? We know very
little about the couple, but she is quickly characterized as one ready to
appease and acquiesce; so where does this spirit of reckless abandon come from?
Then, an intertitle: “A year later in the magic city of
Paris, where fortune is fickle and a woman gambles with her life.” And now Marie is traveling in the uppermost
circles of Paris society. She has a
stable of vain and fashionable friends, all well-to-do (if perhaps fellow
gold-diggers). She is the kept woman of
the richest bachelor in Paris, Pierre Revel (Adolphe Menjou). She is cavalier enough about her opulent lifestyle
that she isn’t worried about the prospect of losing her meal ticket when Revel
becomes engaged (for business reasons) to another woman, but she is also still conventional
enough that she objects to his remaining her sugar daddy, even though it’s an
arrangement he wants to maintain because of his affection for her.
How did this traditional country girl ascend so fast to this
high social tier? How did she adapt such
a sophisticated, almost cynical, attitude so quickly? We see not a sliver of this potential in the
first act of the film, so this transition feels incongruous and jarring. And then, invited to an upper-class friend’s
party, she happens on the wrong apartment by accident and discovers Jean living
with his widowed mother in the same building.
How did they move to Paris so quickly, and how are they able to support
this quality-of-life change on Jean’s profession as an artist?
And how likely is it that Revel would’ve never heard Marie mention Jean over the course of their affair? Again, no answers.
And this comes as quite a shock coming from Chaplin. His films are brilliant examples of the
intricate mechanism of set-up and payoff, where he establishes early a prop, a
character foible, a deep-seeded intention, a simmering conflict, all so that
when these elements align, a convincing foundation has been laid and the
convergence of these story points harmonize to beautiful effect.
His films are filled with coincidence and unlikely
incidents, but they never stink of contrivance because he has planted the necessary
seeds in a way that is meticulous, visually deft, but also quite
hilarious. And here may be one important
factor—because when we laugh, we as an audience are willing to forgive much
that might otherwise suspend our disbelief.
But I think it goes deeper than that. Chaplin’s obsession with multiple takes and
working out the minutest of details is legendary, and this relentless perfectionsim
was critical in making many of his most famous sequences work so
effectively. A Woman of Paris suggests
that these comic set-ups were instrumental in driving this exacting narrative
cause-and-effect, for divorced from any humorous context, the motivations in
this “serious” drama are flimsy and the characterizations underdeveloped.
“A Drama of Fate” suggests a certain inevitability to Marie’s
story, that her future was preordained by bad luck and the world’s
cruelty. But whereas Chaplin can mine
deep emotional undercurrents from his comic set-ups (another part of his
genius), there is little to invest in with Marie’s tale because she is less the
victim of class or patriarchy and more her own bad, almost random, choices. There is lots of melodrama, but little that
is tragic. Just frustrating.
This translates to the casting as well. Purviance showed great comedic chops in
his films, but also genuine emotional warmth and range; but here she seems adrift,
not quite knowing where to take her character.
Marie is obviously meant to be a complex persona, but it never quite
elevates beyond the contradictory. Unquestionably
the best performance is by Menjou, who controls every scene he’s in, and even
though his part of the wealth, materialistic temptation is usually the heavy in these morality tales, he is not only
the most charismatic person in the film, but also the most sympathetic—because he
knows what he wants, refuses to be a hypocrite, but still displays real
feeling, too. Was Chaplin a better
evaluator of performance when he was acting in a scene? Did performing opposite him bring out
unexpected qualities from his co-stars?
It’s tough to say, but Woman certainly raises these questions.
Don’t get me wrong, there is much to admire in Woman. Chaplin shows his gift for composition often,
and brings enormous amount of energy to the various crowd scenes. The story does have a real adult and
sophisticated sensibility. And there are
still small little touches, visual grace notes, that act as emotional shorthand
in individual moments. Plus, the ending is an unexpected one, although still in compliance with reaffirming gender roles of the time. It is only the larger
arc that I find unsatisfying, these merits notwithstanding. But it
does one make one wonder how Chaplin’s directorial skills would’ve developed if
he’d pursued more projects like this in his career. As it stands, A Woman of Paris remains a
one-off for him—a fascinating experiment in a legendary career.
Chaplin’s last “short”, (actually a four-reeler) was also in
1923, The Pilgrim. After that, it would
only be features, with the masterpiece The Gold Rush (1925) right on the
horizon, though this exacting nature would mean his productivity would slow
down while his contemporaries Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, with two features
each in 1923, would stay at full throttle until the silent era ended. But he would prove with each subsequent film, that the wait was well worth it.
