Text retyped by David A. Gerstein
I think that ["Charlie the Kid"], this combination of Chaplin's name and the title of one of the most popular of his films, is worthy of being used to identify its creator; the appelation reveals his inner nature, just as "Conqueror", "Coeur de Lion" and "Terrible" describe the natures of William of Normandy, of the legendary Richard and the wise Tsar Ivan IV of Muscovy . . . .
When I think of Chaplin I want, first of all, to penetrate that strange system of thinking which perceives phenomena in such a strange way and responds to them with such strange images. I would like to penetrate that part of this system of thinking which, before it becomes an outlook of life, exists in the stage of contemplation of the environment . . . .
As H. A. Overstreet said, 'to imply . . . that a person has a fine sense of humour is to imply that he has still in him the spirit of play, which implies even more deeply the spirit of freedom and of creative spontaneity . . . . At the end of the world we [Soviets] do not escape from reality to fairy tale; we make fairy tales real.
Our task is not to plunge adults into childhood but to make the children's paradise of the past accessible to every grown-up in every citizen of the Soviet Union . . . .
[Chaplin's viewpoint is British.] Chaplin's genius was born and developed at the other end of the world and not in a country where everything has been done to make the golden paradise of childhood a reality.
That is why his genius was bound to shine in a country where the method and type of his humour was a necessity, where the realization of a childish dream by a grown-up man comes up against unsurmountable obstacles.
To be able to perceive the image of things spontaneously and quickly -- without their moral and ethical interpretation, without speculating or passing his judgement on them, just as a laughing child sees them -- that is what distinguishes Chaplin, makes him unique and inimitable.
The spontaneousness of seeing engenders the perception of the ridiculous and the perception overgrows into a conception.'
[When the conception is harmless, Chaplin clothes it in] inimitable buffonery. When the event is dramatic in a personal way' -- that is, sentimental or pathetic, Chaplin's perception gives rise to a humorous melodrama of the best specimens of his individual style in which smiles are mixed with tears . . . . [When the event is tragic in a social way] it is no longer a child's toy, no longer a problem for a child's mind, and the humorously childish look gives rise to a series of horrible scenes in Modern Times.
Text retyped by David A. Gerstein