My First Look at Chaplin

I watched a film for the first time that caught my attention with its black-and-white visuals. Actually it was a documentary, but the life of CharlieChaplin made me feel as if it were a movie—exciting and somehow distant. Because Chaplin seemed like the “invisible man”.

For years before creating his tramp character, he had been someone present in life but always in the background. That is why he felt to me both familiar and completely unknown at the same time.
When Chaplin first appeared on screen, his eyes startled me a little. I had never actually watched any of his films in full, yet even as a child they had seemed somewhat unsettling to me. As the documentary also noted, his eyes could suddenly shift from warm and comforting to cold and frightening.

I believe that with his warm gaze he said, “I am one of you, love me”; with his cold gaze he asked, “Why did you never love me until now?”
He grew up without knowing what love was. He grew up believing that people only noticed him when they laughed at him. That is why his struggles to form emotional bonds in his personal life felt very understandable to me.
Yet on the other hand, it was clear how much this world, where Chaplin was so popular, took from him, his family, and his surroundings. While representing all the invisible “tramps” of his youth, he later embodied the people who paid the price of fame.

As I said, I truly enjoyed watching a film composed of black-and-white frames for the first time.