This article originally appeared on the Big Screen Hooligans website and is reposted here with permission.
Over two issues in 1963 and 1964, the French film monthly Cahiers du cinéma printed a dictionary of American filmmakers. Jean-Luc Godard, one of its contributors and now one of the legendary directors of the French New Wave, submitted the entry on Charlie Chaplin, writing,
He is beyond praise because he is the greatest of all. What else can one say? … Charles Spencer Chaplin, while remaining marginal to the rest of cinema, ended up by filling this margin with more things (what other word can one use: ideas, gags, intelligence, honour, beauty, movement?) than all the other directors together have put into the whole book.
Over a career spanning more
than 75 years, Chaplin directed at least 82 films, starring in nearly all of
them, including eleven feature-length films which stand among the greatest in
the art form. It’s out of nothing other than deep affection and warm admiration
that we note today is the 90th anniversary of the release of one of
those features, The Circus, which premiered on 6 January, 1928, at the Strand
Theatre in Times Square, New York City. It’s famous as a particularly difficult
production to complete in early Hollywood history, and one of the most fraught
times in Chaplin’s career. Film equipment troubles, personal legal troubles,
personal financial troubles, and family grief ended up stalling production for ten
months.