The Real Charlie Chaplin (2021)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Having unprecedented access to the Chaplin archives, 'The Real Charlie Chaplin' blends dramatic reconstructions with never-before-heard recordings, intimate home movies, behind-the-scenes material, and newly restored classic films to reveal a side of the worldwide icon that - until now - has been shrouded in mystery. Tracing back a century ago - when Chaplin first stepped onto the screen - the film recounts his meteoric rise from the slums of Victorian London to the heights of Hollywood superstardom to his scandalous fall from grace. For decades, he was the most famous man in the world. But who was The Real Charlie Chaplin?
- Actors:
- Jeff Rawle, Paul Ryan, Anne Rosenfeld, Dominic Marsh, Paul Leonard, Eben Young, Haley Flaherty, David Olawale Ayinde, Dickie Beau, Anthony Eden, Matthew Wolf, Charlie Carter
- Directors:
- Pete Middleton, James Spinney
- Producers:
- John Battsek, Mike Brett, Jo Jo Ellison, Steve Jamison
- Narrated By:
- Pearl Mackie
- Writers:
- Oliver Kindeberg, Peter Middleton, James Spinney
- Aka:
- Chasing Chaplin
- Genres:
- Documentary, Special Interest
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Reviews (1) of The Real Charlie Chaplin
Flawed Documentary of Charles Chaplin with way too much woke #metoo focus on his marriages/women - The Real Charlie Chaplin review by PV
Good things about this documentary: the early footage of Chaplin-mania in 1916 and other early real-life clips; the radio interviews of Charlie's childhood friend recorded early 80s; footage of Charlie in London in 1960s and 70s - though I'd LOVEto see the original TV film of him visiting his old house, footage of which is here too, the small attic room he called home before his mother went into an asylum and him into a workhouse; details of how Charlie ONLY got his film break because a Keystone Cops actor left, so Canadian producer Mack Sennett telegrammed his New York people to find the funny actor he';s seen in the Fred Karno American tour of British music hall, asking for Champion, Chapin etc. A lucky break.
Bad things: the very prissy priggish pofaced puritanical #metoo manblaming of now, as if somehow a man is wrong to be sexual and fancy young women; the absurd claims Chaplin was gender-fluid and pioneered LGBTQRSTUVWX+ rights JUST because he put on a dress for some short funny films and did feminine mannerisms - it's called ACTING and COMEDY; the narrator is annoying and it seems it's a young black actress doing it - though the script is written by 3 white men - probably to tick boxes as BAFTA demands a certain % of BAME in all films now or they are banned from awards; the lack of ANY details of Charlie's older half-brother Sid, to whom he was so close; the clarification that Sid';s father was NOT Charlie's real biological father - Charlie never knew who he was, though a great TV doc years ago explored this, I think done by Richard Attenborough (could have been a fellow performer a one-off encounter in a tent, acc to a letter someone posted to Chaplin later.
It asks more questions that it answers really. The greatest rags to riches story in history with Chaplin's grinding childhood poverty and likely abuse in London - Kennington, Lambeth - and his remarkable life story and contradictions.
I'd recommend watching the BRILLIANT film CHAPLIN (1989) which does it so much better.