Chaplin was famous in a way that no one had been before; arguably, no one has been as famous since. At the peak of his popularity, his screen persona, the Tramp, was the most recognized image in the world. His name came first in discussions of the new medium as popular entertainment, and in defences of it as a distinct art form — a cultural position occupied afterwards only by the Beatles, whose own era-defining popularity never equalled Chaplin’s. He’s the closest thing the 20^th century produced to a universal cultural touchstone.

Film histories will invariably assert that Chaplin’s mass popularity was owed to the way in which the Tramp represented a destitute everyman. His films turned hunger, laziness, and the feeling of being unwanted into comedy. He was an ego artist, a performer with an uncanny relationship to the camera who spent the early part of his career refining his screen persona and the latter part of i deconstructing it.

Many a film critic raises the issue of Chaplin’s actual relationship to the cultural moment of the time — and the fact that his popularity survived several periods of sweeping cultural change. His post-silent films — which include his two most enduringly popular features, Modern Times and The Great Dictator — reflect his own attitudes more than the feelings of American audiences at the time. His mature work is deliberately artificial, set in a world pieced together from chunks of European and American past, present, and, in the case of Modern Times, future.

Ignaty Vishnevetsky A century later, why does Chaplin still matters? Internet: <www film avclub com> (adapted)

Chaplin was famous in a way that no one had been before; arguably, no one has been as famous since. At the peak of his popularity, his screen persona, the Tramp, was the most recognized image in the world. His name came first in discussions of the new medium as popular entertainment, and in defences of it as a distinct art form — a cultural position occupied afterwards only by the Beatles, whose own era-defining popularity never equalled Chaplin’s. He’s the closest thing the 20^th century produced to a universal cultural touchstone.

Film histories will invariably assert that Chaplin’s mass popularity was owed to the way in which the Tramp represented a destitute everyman. His films turned hunger, laziness, and the feeling of being unwanted into comedy. He was an ego artist, a performer with an uncanny relationship to the camera who spent the early part of his career refining his screen persona and the latter part of i deconstructing it.

Many a film critic raises the issue of Chaplin’s actual relationship to the cultural moment of the time — and the fact that his popularity survived several periods of sweeping cultural change. His post-silent films — which include his two most enduringly popular features, Modern Times and The Great Dictator — reflect his own attitudes more than the feelings of American audiences at the time. His mature work is deliberately artificial, set in a world pieced together from chunks of European and American past, present, and, in the case of Modern Times, future.

Ignaty Vishnevetsky A century later, why does Chaplin still matters? Internet: <www film avclub com> (adapted)

Chaplin was famous in a way that no one had been before; arguably, no one has been as famous since. At the peak of his popularity, his screen persona, the Tramp, was the most recognized image in the world. His name came first in discussions of the new medium as popular entertainment, and in defences of it as a distinct art form — a cultural position occupied afterwards only by the Beatles, whose own era-defining popularity never equalled Chaplin’s. He’s the closest thing the 20^th century produced to a universal cultural touchstone.

Film histories will invariably assert that Chaplin’s mass popularity was owed to the way in which the Tramp represented a destitute everyman. His films turned hunger, laziness, and the feeling of being unwanted into comedy. He was an ego artist, a performer with an uncanny relationship to the camera who spent the early part of his career refining his screen persona and the latter part of i deconstructing it.

Many a film critic raises the issue of Chaplin’s actual relationship to the cultural moment of the time — and the fact that his popularity survived several periods of sweeping cultural change. His post-silent films — which include his two most enduringly popular features, Modern Times and The Great Dictator — reflect his own attitudes more than the feelings of American audiences at the time. His mature work is deliberately artificial, set in a world pieced together from chunks of European and American past, present, and, in the case of Modern Times, future.

Ignaty Vishnevetsky A century later, why does Chaplin still matters? Internet: <www film avclub com> (adapted)

Chaplin was famous in a way that no one had been before; arguably, no one has been as famous since. At the peak of his popularity, his screen persona, the Tramp, was the most recognized image in the world. His name came first in discussions of the new medium as popular entertainment, and in defences of it as a distinct art form — a cultural position occupied afterwards only by the Beatles, whose own era-defining popularity never equalled Chaplin’s. He’s the closest thing the 20^th century produced to a universal cultural touchstone.

Film histories will invariably assert that Chaplin’s mass popularity was owed to the way in which the Tramp represented a destitute everyman. His films turned hunger, laziness, and the feeling of being unwanted into comedy. He was an ego artist, a performer with an uncanny relationship to the camera who spent the early part of his career refining his screen persona and the latter part of i deconstructing it.

Many a film critic raises the issue of Chaplin’s actual relationship to the cultural moment of the time — and the fact that his popularity survived several periods of sweeping cultural change. His post-silent films — which include his two most enduringly popular features, Modern Times and The Great Dictator — reflect his own attitudes more than the feelings of American audiences at the time. His mature work is deliberately artificial, set in a world pieced together from chunks of European and American past, present, and, in the case of Modern Times, future.

Ignaty Vishnevetsky A century later, why does Chaplin still matters? Internet: <www film avclub com> (adapted)

Guillermo del Toros’s The Shape of Water is the latest meeting of the whimsical and the grotesque. The plot unfolds as follows: in the 1950s, Elisa is a cleaner at a military research laboratory, who happens also to be mute, which places her among other minorities without a say: there is her African-American colleague Zelda and her neighbour, the artist Giles, who is gay. The screenplay brings together the
disenfranchised to save a fellow outcast.

The amphibious monster kept captive at the lab doesn’t have a name, and his idea of a witty and humorous conversation is to roar in your face. But Elisa takes a shine to him. “When he looks at me, he doesn’t know what I lack or how I am incomplete.”

In this film watertight ideas fight for space with flawed ones. It begins with a dream sequence in which Elisa’s apartment is submerged. When the scene is repeated later for real, causing only a minor leak in the house below, the rational mind has too many objections (the floor would collapse!) for the fantasy to survive. An amphibious humanoid with magic powers we can believe, but a flooded apartment that is as good as new one scene later doesn’t stand up. There are other discrepancies too — like the sophisticated CCTV system in 1962, or the creature’s ability to wipe away the bulletholes in his own body, sealing up the wounds, ET-style.

Newstatesman, February 9th, 2018 (adapted)

Guillermo del Toros’s The Shape of Water is the latest meeting of the whimsical and the grotesque. The plot unfolds as follows: in the 1950s, Elisa is a cleaner at a military research laboratory, who happens also to be mute, which places her among other minorities without a say: there is her African-American colleague Zelda and her neighbour, the artist Giles, who is gay. The screenplay brings together the
disenfranchised to save a fellow outcast.

The amphibious monster kept captive at the lab doesn’t have a name, and his idea of a witty and humorous conversation is to roar in your face. But Elisa takes a shine to him. “When he looks at me, he doesn’t know what I lack or how I am incomplete.”

In this film watertight ideas fight for space with flawed ones. It begins with a dream sequence in which Elisa’s apartment is submerged. When the scene is repeated later for real, causing only a minor leak in the house below, the rational mind has too many objections (the floor would collapse!) for the fantasy to survive. An amphibious humanoid with magic powers we can believe, but a flooded apartment that is as good as new one scene later doesn’t stand up. There are other discrepancies too — like the sophisticated CCTV system in 1962, or the creature’s ability to wipe away the bulletholes in his own body, sealing up the wounds, ET-style.

Newstatesman, February 9th, 2018 (adapted)

Guillermo del Toros’s The Shape of Water is the latest meeting of the whimsical and the grotesque. The plot unfolds as follows: in the 1950s, Elisa is a cleaner at a military research laboratory, who happens also to be mute, which places her among other minorities without a say: there is her African-American colleague Zelda and her neighbour, the artist Giles, who is gay. The screenplay brings together the
disenfranchised to save a fellow outcast.

The amphibious monster kept captive at the lab doesn’t have a name, and his idea of a witty and humorous conversation is to roar in your face. But Elisa takes a shine to him. “When he looks at me, he doesn’t know what I lack or how I am incomplete.”

In this film watertight ideas fight for space with flawed ones. It begins with a dream sequence in which Elisa’s apartment is submerged. When the scene is repeated later for real, causing only a minor leak in the house below, the rational mind has too many objections (the floor would collapse!) for the fantasy to survive. An amphibious humanoid with magic powers we can believe, but a flooded apartment that is as good as new one scene later doesn’t stand up. There are other discrepancies too — like the sophisticated CCTV system in 1962, or the creature’s ability to wipe away the bulletholes in his own body, sealing up the wounds, ET-style.

Newstatesman, February 9th, 2018 (adapted)

Guillermo del Toros’s The Shape of Water is the latest meeting of the whimsical and the grotesque. The plot unfolds as follows: in the 1950s, Elisa is a cleaner at a military research laboratory, who happens also to be mute, which places her among other minorities without a say: there is her African-American colleague Zelda and her neighbour, the artist Giles, who is gay. The screenplay brings together the
disenfranchised to save a fellow outcast.

The amphibious monster kept captive at the lab doesn’t have a name, and his idea of a witty and humorous conversation is to roar in your face. But Elisa takes a shine to him. “When he looks at me, he doesn’t know what I lack or how I am incomplete.”

In this film watertight ideas fight for space with flawed ones. It begins with a dream sequence in which Elisa’s apartment is submerged. When the scene is repeated later for real, causing only a minor leak in the house below, the rational mind has too many objections (the floor would collapse!) for the fantasy to survive. An amphibious humanoid with magic powers we can believe, but a flooded apartment that is as good as new one scene later doesn’t stand up. There are other discrepancies too — like the sophisticated CCTV system in 1962, or the creature’s ability to wipe away the bulletholes in his own body, sealing up the wounds, ET-style.

Newstatesman, February 9th, 2018 (adapted)

Guillermo del Toros’s The Shape of Water is the latest meeting of the whimsical and the grotesque. The plot unfolds as follows: in the 1950s, Elisa is a cleaner at a military research laboratory, who happens also to be mute, which places her among other minorities without a say: there is her African-American colleague Zelda and her neighbour, the artist Giles, who is gay. The screenplay brings together the
disenfranchised to save a fellow outcast.

The amphibious monster kept captive at the lab doesn’t have a name, and his idea of a witty and humorous conversation is to roar in your face. But Elisa takes a shine to him. “When he looks at me, he doesn’t know what I lack or how I am incomplete.”

In this film watertight ideas fight for space with flawed ones. It begins with a dream sequence in which Elisa’s apartment is submerged. When the scene is repeated later for real, causing only a minor leak in the house below, the rational mind has too many objections (the floor would collapse!) for the fantasy to survive. An amphibious humanoid with magic powers we can believe, but a flooded apartment that is as good as new one scene later doesn’t stand up. There are other discrepancies too — like the sophisticated CCTV system in 1962, or the creature’s ability to wipe away the bulletholes in his own body, sealing up the wounds, ET-style.

Newstatesman, February 9th, 2018 (adapted)

Guillermo del Toros’s The Shape of Water is the latest meeting of the whimsical and the grotesque. The plot unfolds as follows: in the 1950s, Elisa is a cleaner at a military research laboratory, who happens also to be mute, which places her among other minorities without a say: there is her African-American colleague Zelda and her neighbour, the artist Giles, who is gay. The screenplay brings together the
disenfranchised to save a fellow outcast.

The amphibious monster kept captive at the lab doesn’t have a name, and his idea of a witty and humorous conversation is to roar in your face. But Elisa takes a shine to him. “When he looks at me, he doesn’t know what I lack or how I am incomplete.”

In this film watertight ideas fight for space with flawed ones. It begins with a dream sequence in which Elisa’s apartment is submerged. When the scene is repeated later for real, causing only a minor leak in the house below, the rational mind has too many objections (the floor would collapse!) for the fantasy to survive. An amphibious humanoid with magic powers we can believe, but a flooded apartment that is as good as new one scene later doesn’t stand up. There are other discrepancies too — like the sophisticated CCTV system in 1962, or the creature’s ability to wipe away the bulletholes in his own body, sealing up the wounds, ET-style.

Newstatesman, February 9th, 2018 (adapted)