Those who think that Charlie Chaplin’s use of simple, mostly passive
camerawork and compositions stemmed from poor craftsmanship ought to think a
bit more about the hall of mirrors scene in the filmmaker’s The Circus (1928). Chaplin’s technique was meant to find
precisely the right angle to communicate the pictorial, intellectual, and
emotional values of the shot, foregrounding character, acting, theme, and story
over cinematic elements. His chaste, even static camera was confined largely to
patient waiting while he reached through it to make contact with us, but if Chaplin
wanted to be flashy, Chaplin could be flashy. Almost a full two decades before
the similar celebrated sequence of Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai (1946), Chaplin had mastered the cinematic
technique necessary to shoot an infinite series of reflections at once.
In The Circus scene, the
Tramp finds himself dodging both a policeman and a pickpocket when he runs into
the hall of mirrors. Chaplin choreographs the cross-eyed images in the hall so
precisely that the two men, running away from each other, bump headlong. The
main character’s own figure is multiplied a hundred times so that it is
impossible to distinguish the reflection from the man. The sequence serves,
however, a thematic purpose much more important than the visual magic it
creates. Chaplin, through the numerous reflections and repetitions of his own
character, communicates a fractured sense of self, an incomplete identity.
Caught between legitimate society (represented by the cop) and a wayward life
of crime (represented by the pickpocket), Charlie must choose his own persona;
he must discover, as he will throughout the movie, who and what he is and how
that relates to all the other facets of himself (the reflections): who and what
he appears to be to others, who he wants to be, and who he will never be.
