Limelight

38085 / G / US 1952 /Chaplin, Charles /drama
Limelight / Parrasvalot. PC: Celebrated Films. P+D+SC+M: Charles Chaplin. CAST: Charles Chaplin, Claire Bloom. 140’. B&w. Viewed at SEA, Cinema Orion, Helsinki, on Sunday, 7 September 1997. The print was fine. The screening ran 137’. **** I had had difficulty adjusting to Limelight because Chaplin is not funny in it. But the point of the film is that Calvero the comedian no longer makes people laugh. Even more importantly, Chaplin no longer is the center of everything. This is a film about devotion to another. Claire Bloom radiates in her difficult breakthrough role. Previously I resented the emotionality of Limelight. This time, I cried as soon as Chaplin’s ”Song of Life” started to play during the opening credits. The sets are sometimes distractingly makeshift and the screenplay is too wordy. But faces speak more eloquently than words, and the whole cast is great.