Review of City Lights (2014) by Brandon S — 09 Feb 2017

An endearing and sublimely beautiful piece of film history. Arguably, Chaplin's masterpiece, just barely edging out "The Gold Rush".

A masterful piece of silent era filmmaking so timeless and yet so brilliantly about a place in time. It lives in the 1930s almost as vividly as it lives in the heart of the viewer. So lovely in Chaplin's admiration of the beautiful flower girl (played with magnetic sweetness by Virginia Cherrill) and so thoroughly hilarious in its hijinks with the millionaire (played with superior comedic ability by the great Harry Meyers) even after over eighty years. It tells such a tender and sweet story; performing a cinematic high wire act of balancing outlandish slapstick humor with moments of subtlety and nuance not commonly found in silent cinema, nor in modern film for that matter.

"City Lights" is a work of sheer genius that thrives on the ceaselessly funny shoulders of the Tramp, a true cinematic renaissance man that showed the power of the image before film had a voice.

Also, just as an aside, if that final shot doesn't melt your heart, you may have fallen asleep or are otherwise without a soul.