{"id":36554,"date":"2016-12-12T20:21:28","date_gmt":"2016-12-13T04:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=36554"},"modified":"2016-12-12T20:21:28","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T04:21:28","slug":"challenge-week-47-limelight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/challenge-week-47-limelight\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenge Week 47: Limelight"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been wanting to see Limelight<\/em> for quite some time, as what most people consider Chaplin’s last great film, so I really appreciate the push to see it. I had high hopes and they were both met and exceeded. Interestingly, the FB group where I’ve been tracking this challenge seemed to think I wouldn’t care for this one as much as its week partner The Ghost and Mrs. Muir<\/em>. That kind of baffles me, as this seemed like as shoo-in to me, and sure enough.<\/p>\n

Here Chaplin plays an aging vaudeville comedian, the great Calvero, who can now barely get a gig at the bottom of a bill and when he does, basically bottoms out of it. He saves a despondent ballerina who’s trying to commit suicide (Claire Bloom) and they end up giving each other reasons to live, basically. It’s not a particularly unique story, but treating an attempted suicide so frankly is pretty unusual for 1952, anticipating Wilder’s The Apartment<\/em> by eight years.<\/p>\n

\"tf-head\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chaplin’s well-known for mixing comedy and pathos, and here the pathos almost completely eclipses the comedy – even when you smile and laugh it’s bittersweet rather than straight-up hilarious like the silents, but for the story he’s telling here, that’s actually perfect. (Caveat for the extended sequence with Buster Keaton, which I quite enjoyed). The May-December “romance” isn’t wholly believable, but if Chaplin as a writer had to get himself into it, he at least got himself out of it pretty well. The film as a whole is lovely and heartbreaking and beautiful and just wonderful.<\/p>\n

Chaplin made two more films after this (neither of which I’ve seen yet, admittedly), but this really should’ve been his swan song. The themes of aging and art are the perfect capstone to his career, his character plays on the Little Tramp character without being a rehash, and the end would’ve been such a fitting farewell. That said, I guess I should never begrudge more films from a master filmmaker.<\/p>\n

There are a handful of films that have made me weep during this challenge, and Limelight<\/em> proudly joins them…and the overall Top Five for the whole challenge.<\/p>\n

\"tf-both-preparing\"<\/p>\n

Stats and stuff…<\/h3>\n

1952, UK<\/em>
\nwritten and directed by Charles Chaplin<\/em>
\nstarring Charles Chaplin, Claire Bloom, Sydney Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Nigel Bruce, Norman Lloyd<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m ranking all my Challenge films on Flickchart (as I do all the films I see), a movie-ranking website that asks you to choose your favorite between two movies until it builds a ranked list of your favorites. Just for fun, I will average out the rankings and keep a running tally of whose recommendations rank the highest. When you add a film to Flickchart, it pits it against films already on your chart to see where it should fall. Here’s how Limelight<\/em> entered my chart:<\/p>\n

Limelight<\/b> > Courage of Lassie
\nLimelight<\/b> > The Shining
\nLimelight<\/b> > The Three Musketeers (1973)
\nLimelight < Wings of Desire<\/b>
\nLimelight<\/b> > Moonrise
\nLimelight<\/b> > A Dog of Flanders
\nLimelight < Chungking Express<\/b>
\nLimelight<\/b> > The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
\nLimelight < Private Lives<\/b>
\nLimelight<\/b> > Office Space
\nLimelight<\/b> > Europa \u00e2\u20ac\u212251
\nLimelight < The Double Life of Veronique<\/b><\/p>\n

Final #270 out of 3725 (93%)<\/p>\n

It is now my #5 Charlie Chaplin film, my #1 Claire Bloom film, my #27 Comedy Drama, my #9 Melodrama, my #9 Showbiz Drama, and my #5 film of 1952.<\/p>\n

Limelight<\/em> was recommended by Patrick Gray, a friend and founder of Flickchart.com. Averaging together this #270 ranking with my #804 ranking of his other film, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir<\/em>, gives Patrick an average ranking of 537.<\/p>\n

A few more screenshots…<\/h3>\n

\"tf-calvero-poster\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-stairs\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-passed-out\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-embrace\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-restaurant\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-routine\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-keatonchaplin-prep\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-clowning\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-keaton-chaplin\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been wanting to see Limelight for quite some time, as what most people consider Chaplin’s last great film, so I really appreciate the push to see it. I had high hopes and they were both met and exceeded. Interestingly, the FB group where I’ve been tracking this challenge seemed to think I wouldn’t care […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3027],"tags":[2554,3273],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tf-feat-limelight.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7587,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/charlie-chaplin-in-one-a-m\/","url_meta":{"origin":36554,"position":0},"title":"Charlie Chaplin in One A.M.","author":"Jandy","date":"October 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Cinefamily rep cinema has been doing a Chaplin series for the past couple of months (all the features and a bunch of silent shorts), and they capped it off last night with Modern Times - but first they played probably my all-time favorite Chaplin short, One A.M. Chaplin is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/oneam-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":34574,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/charlie-chaplin-the-lone-adventurer\/","url_meta":{"origin":36554,"position":1},"title":"Charlie Chaplin, the Lone Adventurer","author":"Jandy","date":"September 3, 2014","format":"quote","excerpt":"\"In the meantime, it may be that his present series of pictures - The Kid, The Pilgrim and The Gold Rush - with their gags and their overtones of tragedy, their adventures half-absurd, half-realistic, their mythical hero, now a figure of poetry, now a type out of the comic strips,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commonplace"","block_context":{"text":"Commonplace","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/commonplace\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34589,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/american-movie-critics-robert-e-sherwood-and-edmund-wilson\/","url_meta":{"origin":36554,"position":2},"title":"American Movie Critics: Robert E. Sherwood and Edmund Wilson","author":"Jandy","date":"September 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Ryan McNeil of The Matinee and I are reading through the American Movie Critics anthology and discussing each chapter as we go, crossposting on each of our blogs. After a few weeks of interruption (thanks, TIFF!), Ryan and I are back with another installment of our conversations about the American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Movie Critics"","block_context":{"text":"American Movie Critics","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/american-movie-critics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Greed-1924-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30743,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/rep-cinemagoing-modern-times\/","url_meta":{"origin":36554,"position":3},"title":"Rep Cinemagoing: Modern Times","author":"Jandy","date":"March 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The thing that makes me happiest in the world is seeing audiences respond to classic films with joy and wonder, and that's exactly what I saw Wednesday night when Cinefamily screened Modern Times to a nearly full audience. First off, it's awesome that 150 people will choose a Chaplin silent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/modern-times-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30847,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/scorecard-march-2012\/","url_meta":{"origin":36554,"position":4},"title":"Scorecard: March 2012","author":"Jandy","date":"April 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"[At the end of every month I post a rundown of the movies I saw that month, tallying them according to how much I did or didn't like them. You can always see my recent watches here and my ongoing list of bests for the whole year here.] Yes, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Virginia-Woolf-005.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35505,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/2016-challenge-debrief\/","url_meta":{"origin":36554,"position":5},"title":"2016 Challenge Debrief","author":"Jandy","date":"March 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it's been almost three months since my year-long movie challenge officially completed, and it's taken me that long to decompress, rerank everything, and generally get ready to post a recap of the year. The short version: it was awesome! I watched a ton of movies I really liked, very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/crop-400-Blows-watching.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}