In the film industry, perfectionism rarely leads to greatness. Relying on an abundance of takes can make a movie too expensive to produce, especially with the use of film cameras rather than digital. It’s common to hear about interesting sequences cut for budget reasons or technical problems, shots and entire scenes scrapped simply because they can’t be completed within the given timeframe. Charlie Chaplin is one of the few lucky auteurs who never had to deal with these issues while making his masterpiece City Lights (1931).
For City Lights, Chaplin was his own writer, producer, director, editor and main composer. As a millionaire and owner of his own studio, he had the unlimited freedom of funding his own project. He had the potential to make whatever he wanted and oversee every part of the creative process. With this freedom, he would make his cast and crew wait on him for hours or even days. In Chaplin’s official production records, 368 of the 534 days of shooting were marked as “idle.” He constantly took over roles and was extremely detail-oriented when it came to production. Chaplin’s situation was a director’s dream, but a crew and cast’s nightmare.
For City Lights, Chaplin set a record for the most takes of a single scene. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, 342 retakes were shot of the Tramp, played by Chaplin, meeting the Blind Girl, played by Virginia Cherrill. A documentary on Chaplin argues that he shot even more takes: originally 352, before returning to the scene later to shoot an extra 99. Tensions with Virginia Cherrill, playing the role of the Blind Girl, escalated throughout the production. Cherrill’s own lack of acting experience didn’t mix well with Chaplin’s extremely tedious style. She once asked to leave production early to go to a hair appointment. Chaplin eventually fired her, and tested other actresses for the role. None of them had the nuance that Cherrill brought to the production, and Chaplin brought her back on, begrudgingly agreeing to raise her salary to $75 an hour. The only fun Cherrill admitted to having on set was during the shooting of the boxing scene, in which Chaplin invited as many people as possible, including friends, to watch the performance as extras.
The care for art, lived experience and humor, contrasted with the lack of care for money created the dichotomy that defines both Chaplin and City Lights. As shown, Chaplin was able to thoughtlessly throw as much money as he wanted at this project to make his dream a reality. In stark contrast, the character of the Tramp has no desire for money. He proves that he can get a job to provide for the Blind Girl, but he never earns money for his own good. He gives the Blind Girl the Millionaire’s money, and keeps none of it for himself. He lives happily without it. Maybe this is the dream Chaplin aspired for, a separate kind of freedom that infinite money isn’t able to buy.
Chaplin asked a lot of his cast and crew, and there were punishments when they didn’t do what he wanted. When starting production on the alcoholic millionaire’s first scene, Henry Clive–the original actor playing the millionaire–caught a cold. He refused to jump into the chilly 5 acre pool of water Chaplin had constructed to film the scene, asking if they could wait until the sun warmed it. Chaplin angrily stormed off of set and replaced him with Harry Myers.
Chaplin also cared about every detail in City Lights, and he was known for taking things into his own hands. This wasn’t just true for a couple scenes or prominent actors. This was the case for every role and sequence in the film. Robert Parrish, who played a newsboy, recounted in his autobiography how Chaplin would play every character in a scene in order, meticulously performing each part for the actors: “Everyone watched as he acted out all the parts for us. When he felt he had it all worked out, he reluctantly gave us back our parts… I believe he would have much rather played them all himself if he could.”
Additionally, Chaplin edited the entire film himself, which was routine for him. He also hired a composer to write down the melodies he invented (and sometimes stole). Chaplin did not credit this composer, leading to a lawsuit he lost. He not only wanted to do everything himself, but also wanted to make it look that way, even when it wasn’t true. When he went to New York for the city’s premiere of the film, he was aghast to see how little publicity had been spread about the movie there. So yet again, he did it himself. He spent an extra $60,000 on advertisements in the newspaper and an electric sign for the theater, all only a few days before the screening. He also granted as many interviews with the press that he could on the day of the premiere.
It worked. Chaplin’s efforts created a movie that went down in cinematic history as a triumph. There’s timeless, endless praise for City Lights from other brilliant directors including Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky. Albert Einstein joined Chaplin for the premiere, and Chaplin recalls Einstein’s eyes watering during the climax. Chaplin wrote in his autobiography: “During the final scene I noticed Einstein wiping his eyes – further evidence that scientists are incurable sentimentalists.”
Chaplin had the perfect situation every artist dreams of: unlimited time, unending control and millions of dollars at his disposal. These resources helped him create a masterpiece. But they also meant he was a pain to work with. He took as much as he could into his own hands, fought for perfection, and wore out his actors and crew as much as he could. It’s undeniable that if artists were given the seemingly infinite resources Chaplin had, the world wouldn’t just be filled with many more timeless classics, but also many more burnt out crew members and actors.
