“You can see now?” “Yes, I can see now.”

Life was hard for the Blind Girl (Virginia Cherrill). Lacking vision was difficult enough without scraping by on the meager earnings from selling flowers on the sidewalk. It was barely enough to pay the rent on her Spartan tenement. Her Grandmother (Florence Lee) was old and frail and could not be a breadwinner, nor did the Great Depression give most people the wherewithal to keep her canary fed and her Grandmother warm. She was daydreamy and not without her limitations, but it was hard not to hope for something better. Yet when confronted with her sightless gaze and simple flower basket, people saw someone blind and poor and alone—someone on whom…

In a time when film industry was making its transition to talkies & silent films were becoming obsolete, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights entered into the theatres as a late example of its era yet in the long run, it didn't just turn out to be the greatest achievement of silent filmmaking but has endured the test of time so well that it still remains the quintessential romantic comedy.

The penultimate silent feature from Charlie Chaplin, City Lights chronicles the adventures of The Little Tramp who falls in love with a beautiful blind girl who sells flowers for a living. His desire to make her life better becomes a possibility when he saves a suicidal, drunken but wealthy man from killing himself…

"Live life! Be brave!"

Charlie Chaplin makes pure cinematic comedy. Silent (or "pantomime") comedies like this deserve an incalculable amount of respect for being able to deliver jokes without the crutch of dialogue. They truly utilize all the tricks available from film.

During the eight decades since City Lights was released, the comedy genre seems to have forgotten how to do this entirely. Modern comedies rely almost exclusively on funny dialogue, and often on improvised dialogue at that, and while I can appreciate the talent behind these types of performances, they utilize only a very small amount film's potential. Jokes have to be told in flat, close-up shots of actors because the unpredictable nature of that sort of comedy demands…

"Tomorrow the birds will sing."

Before Raging Bull or Rocky, Charles Chaplin brought us one of the most memorable boxing scenes in film history. The scene is so well choreographed and performed by Chaplin that it proves what a genius he truly was. It's been more than 80 years since the film was released and it still remains as one of the best romantic comedies ever made. City Lights has a lot of heart, several funny moments, and a perfectly executed final scene that will touch even the hardest hearts. I've seen many famous scenes from Chaplin's work, but this is the first time I sat through a full movie of his. It was a unique and joyous experience despite…

Greatest treat: Chaplin is truly a genius of physical comedy. Dynamic, funny and impressively creative! Reminds me of this one time when my friends gave me a bottle of whiskey on my birthday. I drank half of it within a shamefully short time span. We then went to a restaurant. I drank some beer, wanted some more. A friend handed me a jar of pepper and I mistook it for a drink. Probably the most Chaplin-esque moment I've ever had and I'll never hear the end of it.

Weakest element: Can't quite put it into words. I really enjoyed it, but fell just short of loving the film. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for it. Or it could…

Viewing this in the context of the Great Depression, I noticed things I hadn't before. The film opens with public officials speaking on the microphone for a crowd, but instead of just their mouths moving and not making any noise (equivalent of normal speaking in silent cinema), we hear some vague, funny mumbling. Of course, this is not only unusual in silent cinema or Chaplin's own silent works, but it's not even repeated throughout this particular film either. Here, Chaplin seems to be taking a shot at politicians whose words had become meaningless by that point into the depression, when people were starving to death in the streets and government didn’t offer anything to them, but empty promises. Next, these…