MONSIEUR VERDOUX (1947) *** Having retired from writing, Kurt Vonnegut took up painting. His paintings may not have taken the art world by a storm, but they are striking. Great spirits seek great expression. The cinematic world did not leave Charlie Chaplin behind so much as never catch up to him, and wonder where he went. For about two hours Charlie gives the appearance of a talented actor/director/writer (with a little nudge from Orson Welles/producer/composer)...is that even a category that anyone else fits in?...presenting a simple, but original film. The audiences of the day surely must have been shocked to find themselves identifying, perhaps even secretly voting for, an adulterer. But that's not all! Such an arch-adulterer that he carries it on to the obvious conclusion....murder! Aieeeee!!! And worst of all...stealing money and using that ill-gotten gain to buy stock!!! The horror, the shame, I certainly hope no one ever gets away with that sort of thing because I'd kind of like some stocks myself... So it's ground breaking as black comedy, but carried primarily by the innate sense of dignity of the protagonist. As a Marxist, Chaplin cut quite a bourgeoisie gentleman, even when he occasionally lurks into high-speed silent mode. But hark, the horns of propaganda awaken us from that genuine contemplation (no, you must, must be a boring capitalist to be a gentleman, and you definitely can't listen to the Grateful Dead). Martha Raye has some moments as the bimbo who won the lottery (painting with thick brushes today, are we Mr. Chaplin?), but the only truly great moments of the first two hours occur with both Chaplin and William Frawley in the picture. Frawley would take this experience with him into network television-"I can't be intimidated by Lucille Ball, hell, I've held my own with Charlie Chaplin!" And he does. The two vaudevillians show every young whippersnapper ever to be born how it's done: they're absolutely hysterical just standing there shifting weight, and once they get to talking...fuhgeddabawtid! And so the morality play winds down, the guillotine is sharpened, and the yokels in the audience are to be assured that there's no better way to engage in the stock market than to allow themselves to be ripped off by brokers. Then, my friends, then in a metamorphosis equaled in history perhaps only by St. Paul and the Grinch, Chaplin reveals his true colours. He has not been a competent technician offering a yeoman-like performance. He's been setting us up, creating a facade of a construct just like the one we recognize as our culture. And it's a fraud, and he'll tell you why if you listen. Is Chaplin's palate of situational ethics so broad as to render the situation irrelevant? I don't believe that it is, no more so than Sartre or Camus, who have also been denounced for their inaccessibility to the lazy. The trick is getting out of the flawed and contrived paradigm that you're given, and creating a proper and meaningful paradigm that is your own (Kierkegaard's "truth" being "subjectivity"). Verdoux' paradigm is not entirely acceptable to me...but it's more palatable than Pilate, Hitler, Stalin, Kissinger, Reagan, Sharon, Thatcher or Bush. "I used my brain..."
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