Public image
Risk
I thought I would miss Chaplin’s
But on the last day I managed to see it.
Chaplin’s speech at the end of “The Great Dictator” is a bit sentimental, maybe even unnecessary; the ending of Monsieur Verdoux is not less moralistic but far more effective.
Once again I’ll quote J. Hoberman writing in the Times:
‘“Monsieur Verdoux” may once again be timely, but the audacity of its statement derives less from Chaplin’s antiwar polemic than from his antiheroic pose. No star ever took a greater risk with his public image or more directly challenged his audience. If Chaplin ridiculed Hitler by transforming him into the Little Tramp, he did something far more disturbing in socializing the Little Tramp. “By his very existence,” Bazin noted, Verdoux “renders society guilty.” Approaching eternity, the convicted killer subtly reverts to the Tramp’s distinctive gait. Has humanity sunk to this? In the movie’s ultimate gag it becomes apparent that, as Bazin wrote, “They’re going to guillotine Charlie!”’
One thing that Hoberman does not touch on is that in “Monsieur Verdoux” older women’s hunger for love and attention is a costly and sometimes deadly affair.
Not only in “Monsieur Verdoux.” And aren’t we all older women?
Arnon
How is your toe doing?Jeanette
I would urge you to see the movie, and I don't see why you should rust to judgment when it comes to other's people hunger or lust.Arnon
The first sentence I wrote was a question, in the second I used the word "might". My comment was cenrtainly not intended as a judgement, and if I read like one, why would it only concern others and not include myself?? The question is whether risks make the persuit of something (like love , attention or money) more rewarding as soon as one achieves his or her goal. I don't know the answer.Did you ever attended Molieres Don Juan?
Jeanette
Risk makes an enterprise probablymore interesting and more rewarding, but many people opt for less risk. For good reasons. Have you ever attended a wedding ceremony? Do the symbols of this ceremony give you the impression that marriage is a risky business?Oscar
My toe was getting better and better until I visited Irina, the manicurist. She is angry becauseI I'm not married yet and she took revenge on my toe.While she worked on my toe I tried to picture Laura naked.
Arnon
Well, I was lucky enough to attend a few weddings and must say I always dreaded the moment the happy copple was placed on chairs to be pushed in the air and tossed around. Besides that, the breaking of a glass by a groom is something that scared me the most. That sound of crushing something fragile....Some months ago I read in a Dutch newspaper that more and more people in western society tended to seek bigger risks in their lives, f.i. to escape boredom and feel that they are alive . Do you think getting married can fullfil that need or is it an entrancehall to boredom?
(Charlie behaves sometimes like Basil in Fawlty Towers, or it vice versa?)
