David Farnor | On 19, Feb 2022

Director: Pete Middleton, James Spinney
Cast: Jeff Rawle, Dickie Beau, Anne Rosenfeld, Pearl Mackie, Matthew Wolf
Certificate: 12

“I grew up with the icon, but had no idea who the man was.”

Who was the real Charlie Chaplin? That question is the driving force behind this probing documentary, which delves behind the screen persona of the friendly “little tramp” – a persona so universally loved that a legal battle unfolded at the height of his popularity over his many imitators. Fast forward to today, however, and we’re not that much closer to understanding the man in full.

Directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney (Notes on Blindness) attempt to reconcile the many threads of his life and personality, assembling a knowingly tangled web. Narrated by Doctor Who’s Pearl Mackie, it’s a seemingly conventional journey through his chronological life and career, from his 1921 feature debut, The Kid, to navigating the rise of talkies after the success of his silent cinema heyday. We trace his increasing ventures into the political arena, from The Great Dictator to the grudge against him held by the FBI – and the hostility he faced at the pen of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, ultimately leaving him in exile from Hollywood.

All this won’t surprise cinephiles and the familiarity of what’s covered may well disappoint some viewers seeking something more surprising – one sequence exploring the parallels between Chaplin and Hitler feels like a slight stretch. But The Real Chaplin also examines the filmmaker’s private life, specifically his relationships with questionably young women, his cruel treatment of them and them other troubling aspects that cinemagoers don’t tend to focus on – when we hear from his second wife, Lita Great, whom Chaplin married when she was 16, she points out that, even then, journalists would quickly change the subject away from allegations she wanted to discuss to focus on Chaplin’s genius instead.

It’s here that The Real Charlie Chaplin finds its insightful power – by giving a voice to the women in his life who, as is noted multiple times, have either been overlooked or will never now be heard. This is done by Middleton and Spinney with a playfulness befitting of Chaplin’s childlike on-screen presence, from their use of audio footage and lip-sync re-enactments to beautiful snapshots of celluloid and montages of photos assembled with wit and nostalgia.

That approach, though, also enables the film to incorporate more than just Chaplin’s own perspective via interview clips, while simultaneously acknowledging the difficulty of reconciling all the truths about Chaplin into one person. Footage of him late in life with sound and in colour is startling to witness, but that only reinforces the striking comments that come from his fourth wife, Oona O’Neill (18 at marriage, vs his 54), and his daughter, Jane Cecil Chaplin. In an age where re-evaluating public figures has become commonplace due to abusive behaviour, The Real Charlie Chaplin is a candid acknowledgement of that process needing to take place. Beginning with footage of his little tramp gazing down the lens at the camera, this is a timely, challenging look right back at a man who was always putting on some kind of performance.

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