My tramp is made up of mimicry.
Quoted in Film Weekly, Oct. 22, 1938: “This much is certain. I’ll never talk while doing the Charlie Chaplin character I have used in my pictures heretofore. It’s a question whether I would be wise to do a talking part at all. My tramp is made up of mimicry.”
The desire for peace is universal. [...] Let us try to understand each other’s problems, for in modern warfare there is no victory.
Chaplin accepted an award from the World Peace Council on May 27, 1954, and told the assembled press: “The desire for peace is universal. I do not assume to know the answers to the problems which threaten peace, but this I do know: that nations will never solve them in an atmosphere of hate or suspicion; nor will the threat of dropping hydrogen bombs solve them. The melancholy grooming of people to the acceptance of hydrogen warfare, with all its attendant horrors, is a crime against the human spirit and has created world infirmity. Let us therefore absolve ourselves of the miserable, cancerous atmosphere. Let us try to understand each other’s problems, for in modern warfare there is no victory.”
America has changed [...] The gigantic scale of industrial institutions, of press, television, and commercial advertising has completely divorced me from the American way of life. I want the other side of the coin, a simpler personal sense of living.
After he had left America, Chaplin wrote in his autobiography: “Friends have asked me if I miss the United States - New York? In candour I do not. America has changed, so has New York. The gigantic scale of industrial institutions, of press, television and commercial advertising has completely divorced me from the American way of life. I want the other side of the coin, a simpler personal sense of living - not the ostentatious avenues and towering buildings which are an ever-reminder of big business and its ponderous achievements.”
Pantomime has always been the universal means of communication. It existed as the universal tool long before language was born. Pantomime serves well where languages are in the conflict of a common ignorance.
From “Pantomime and Comedy” by Charlie Chaplin, The New York Times, Jan. 25, 1931, published in connection with the release of City Lights
The silent picture [...] is a universal means of expression. Talking pictures necessarily have a limited field, they are held down to the particular tongues of particular races..(..) There is a constant demand for a medium that is universal in its utility.
From “Pantomime and Comedy” by Charlie Chaplin, The New York Times, Jan. 25, 1931, published in connection with the release of City Lights
If I talked I would become like any other comedian.
Quoted in My Autobiography: “When we arrived home in Beverly Hills, news from the studio was encouraging. Modern Times was a great success. But again I was faced with the depressing question: should I make another silent picture? I knew I’d be taking a great chance if I did. The whole of Hollywood had deserted silent pictures and I was the only one left. I had been lucky so far, but to continue with a feeling that the art of pantomime was gradually becoming obsolete was a discouraging thought. Besides, it was not easy to contrive silent action for an hour and forty minutes, translating wit into action and creating visual jokes every twenty feet of film, for seven or eight thousand feet. Another thought was that, if I did make a talking picture, no matter how good I was I could never surpass the artistry of my pantomime. I had thought of possible voices for the tramp; whether he should speak in monosyllables or just mumble. But it was no use. If I talked I would become like any other comedian. These were the melancholy problems that confronted me.”
I see no tragedy in the loneliness of old age, only the convenience of it. No, I would not mold one atom of the matrix in which life has cast me. I go where the wind blows me.
Extract from an unpublished Preface to My Autobiography (ref. ch00372005): “And as winter descends upon me and our friendships, like the trees, shed their leaves, life takes on another beauty, just as beautiful as the effulgent foliage of summer. And I find myself as I get older more in accord with nature and its wondrous perfection. I would not deny a storm or disturb a weed or alter the inevitableness of the lonely journey we all must take. I see no tragedy in the loneliness of old age, only the convenience of it. No, I would not mold one atom of the matrix in which life has cast me. I go where the wind blows me.”
In all truth there is the seed of falsehood.
From My Autobiography: “As for that much-touted metaphysical word ‘truth’, there are different forms of it and one truth is as good as another. The classical acting at the Comédie Française is as believable as the so-called realistic acting in an Ibsen play; both are in the realm of artificiality and designed to give the illusion of truth — after all, in all truth there is the seed of falsehood.”
Love is life on a higher plain of existence, working through man to unite the forces of nature into a perfect whole. It is the merging force binding every element in existence into a perfect whole.
From Chaplin’s manuscript notes in the archives (Ref. ch15423001)
People miss happiness by chasing after false values and repressing the feelings that make life valuable and beautiful. When you get up in the morning feeling fine your experience during just those few minutes or hours when you are reacting happily to life is an end in itself.
Quoted in “Chaplin’s Heart, Aims Bared in S.F. Talk” by George P. West, San Francisco Call, November 11, 1922
That's all any of us are - amateurs. We don't live long enough to be anything else.
From Limelight (1952):
Postant: Don’t you worry. Tonight you’re going to make them all look like a bunch of amateurs.
Calvero: That’s all any of us are - amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else.
The accumulating complexities of modern life, the kinetic invasion of the twentieth century finds the individual hemmed in by gigantic institutions that threaten from all sides, politically, scientifically and economically. We are becoming the victims of soul-conditioning, of sanctions and permits.
From My Autobiography: “At this juncture, I think it appropriate to sum up the state of the world as I see it today. The accumulating complexities of modern life, the kinetic invasion of the twentieth century finds the individual hemmed in by gigantic institutions that threaten from all sides, politically, scientifically and economically. We are becoming the victims of soul-conditioning, of sanctions and permits.
This matrix into which we have allowed ourselves to be cast is due to a lack of cultural insight. We have gone blindly into ugliness and congestion and have lost our appreciation of the aesthetic. Our living sense has been blunted by profit, power and monopoly. We have permitted these forces to envelop us with an utter disregard of the ominous consequences.
Science, without thoughtful direction or sense of responsibility, has delivered up to politicians and the militaire weapons of such destruction that they hold in their hands the destiny of every living thing on this earth.
This plethora of power given into the hands of men whose moral responsibility and intellectual competence are to say the least not infallible, and in many cases questionable, could end in a war of extermination of all life on earth. Yet we go blindly on.
[…]
Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently, his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterwards. Thus the progress of science is far ahead of man’s ethical behaviour”
Knowledge inspires courage. I’m not sceptical but I’d sooner know than believe.
Manuscript notes in the Charlie Chaplin archives
I’m unconscious while I’m acting. I live the role and am not myself.
Quoted in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, February 22, 1925
It is incongruous that in this atomic age of speed we are shut in and shut out by passports.
Rupert Macabee (Michael Chaplin) says this in A King in New York
I no longer have any use for America at all. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President ... [America is] so terribly grim in spite of all the material prosperity.
Cedric Belfrage of the Amercian socialist weekly National Guardian visited Chaplin in Vevey and published quotes from their private conversation in “Chaplin Looks at USA”, November 14, 1955: “I no longer have any use for America at all. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President. Yes, I feel bitter – very bitter. But remember that for 15 years I was hounded as a ‘communist’ and persecuted as if I were a criminal – and once faced 25 years in jail for ‘white slavery’ and whatever else they could throw in. I do not need the American market for my films. I will never allow any of my pictures which I control to be shown in America again. [America is] so terribly grim in spite of all the material prosperity. I’m not against materialism but look at what the American kind has done. They no longer know how to weep. Compassion and the old neighbourliness have gone. People stand by and do nothing when friends and neighbours are attacked, libelled and ruined. The worst thing is what it has done to the children. They are being taught to admire and emulate stoolpigeons, to betray and to hate – and all in a sickening atmosphere of religious hypocrisy.”
When the United Press Association telegrammed Chaplin asking him to confirm the quotes, he realised he had been manipulated and replied, “Whatever statements were made, true or not true, this man could never have entered my house as a reporter. I received him as my guest.”
When I’m not making pictures, I’m thinking of them, and when I’m not thinking of them, I’m dreaming of them.
Quoted in Spotlight, May 5, 1917
My costume helps me to express my conception of the average man, of almost any man, of myself. The derby, too small, is a striving for dignity. The mustache is vanity. The tightly buttoned coat and the stick and his whole manner are a gesture toward gallantry and dash and ‘front.’ He is chasing folly, and he knows it. He is trying to meet the world bravely, to put up a bluff, and he knows that, too. He knows it so well that he can laugh at himself and pity himself a little.
Quoted in “Chaplin’s Heart, Aims Bared in S.F. Talk” by George P. West, San Francisco Call, November 11, 1922
That is all there is in life — beauty. You find that and you have found everything.
From “Chaplin Explains Chaplin”, an interview with Harry Carr in The Motion Picture Magazine, Nov. 1925. (archive reference ECCI00029676, ch22542001). Carr discusses “A Woman of Paris” of Paris with Chaplin:
Carr: “But you were so sophisticated in A Woman of Paris that the picture failed.”
Chaplin: “Oh, it wasn’t such a failure. It has made $100,000.” […] “It wasn’t because it was too sophisticated; it was because it held out no hope. It was just like life. The people wanted to see the boy saved from suicide; and have the girl go back to him, and have them live happily forever after.”
Carr: “In other words, it was tragedy.”
Chaplin: “Yes, it was tragedy.” […] “I like tragedy. I don’t like comedy.”
Carr: “You what! You don’t like comedy?”
Chaplin: “No. I like tragedy; it is beautiful. The only comedy that is worth while is when it has beauty. That is all there is in life—beauty. You find that and you have found everything. Only it is hard to find.”
I lie down on the beach on my back and look up at the sky and stop thinking, in a sort of empty bliss. Then my tummy tells me it is time to eat—and I eat. Then I lie down again in the sand. And life is worth while.
From “Chaplin Explains Chaplin”, an interview with Harry Carr in The Motion Picture Magazine, Nov. 1925. (archive reference ECCI00029676, ch22542002). Carr asks Chaplin at the end of the interview, “Is life worth while?”
Chaplin: “At times”
Carr: “For instance?”
Chaplin: “For instance, I lie down on the beach on my back and look up at the sky and stop thinking, in a sort of empty bliss. Then my tummy tells me it is time to eat—and I eat. Then I lie down again in the sand. And life is worth while.”