Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Charlie Chaplin on Air

Charlie Chaplin on Air


The night before, I saw a Chaplin's movie aired by Japan's public TV station.

Also, last night, I saw another Chaplin's movie on the same channel.

Tonight, I might see other Chaplin's movie in the same broadcast time.

According to him, the silent movie is a kind of ballet shows.

Yes, Charles Chaplin is a cool entertainer, but not a hero himself of permanently unemployed persons on the street whom he played.

I am always amazed, whenever I saw his movie, at a stark difference in presence, not a simple visula appearance, between a hobo hero Chaplin played and other figures surrounding him except a girl he loved in a story.
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For example, I can confirm how ordinary people in America, say, in 1918, looked like from his movie "Dog's Life." But, Chaplin in the film looks aloof from all the others and the time. Put extremely, it is as if an Asian comedian in 2006 were in a street of the U.S. in 1918.

His expressions are very universal rather than American, British, or Western at a fundamental level.

Such techniques could be only absorbed by having experienced a very poor life and a real human tragedy in one's youth.

Indeed, a very poor life and a real human tragedy in 2006 must be the same as those in 1918 in terms of effect on human spirit.
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So, if somebody could show a stark difference in appearance or personality among many colleagues or peers, he or she should have learnt something deeply concerned with humanity somewhere beforehand.

Therefore, I am enjoying seeing him in a movie, wondering how he had succeeded in acquiring such a charm but failed in his life in extending what he had learnt to the real world to become another Mahatma Gandhi or a Martin Luther King Jr., if I may say.
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I hope that someday a Chaplin in the 21st century, no matter if he is a Muslim or an Israelite in Palestine, will make such a film as those Charles Chaplin produced, according to the wish of the Supreme God.



"NOT FAR FROM THE KINGDOM OF GOD"