The truth about Charlie
15 OCT 2008 • by Nathan Gelgud
When Charlie Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux was first released in 1947, critic James Agee — writing for The Nation — called it "one of the best movies ever made" and devoted three consecutive weekly columns to it ...
The big issues are couched in a story about Henri Verdoux, a former bank teller who lost his livelihood in the Great Depression. He has since become a bluebeard, a man who marries and murders a series of wives for their money. Simultaneously ruthless and dainty, cold-blooded and skittish, Verdoux is a character composed of contrasts. He practices vegetarianism, tends to stray kittens, teaches his son that violence begets violence, and is also serial murderer. In fact, he's a career murderer in the true sense: Verdoux murders in order to make a living, and Chaplin goes to some lengths to drive this home—when he gets a call from his accountant that he needs to deposit some funds, Verdoux checks his black book of potential victims the way others would check their bank balance ...
But more importantly, Chaplin collapses the distance between Verdoux's actions and their motivation. How Verdoux murders is not important—what matters is that murder is inextricably linked with the economy, that peaceful citizens are not imaginable in a warmongering society. Verdoux does not simply wire the money home but invests it, greasing the wheels of the economic machine with his victims' blood.
In the end, what's so impressive about Verdoux—and what makes it hold up—is the clarity of ideas and image. In the final minutes of the film, Chaplin more clearly takes over for Verdoux, openly using him as a mouthpiece for his own ideas. Instead of seeming obtrusive and sloppy, the precision of the film and the filmmaking have earned the podium, and Chaplin doesn't back down from it. Monsieur Verdoux is a tragedy born in the Great Depression and raised in the bloodshed of world war. Sixty years later, as we are on the verge of economic collapse and stuck in a global so-called war on terror, Verdoux deserves another stand at the podium.
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A266953