The Kid (1921)

 Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid”

Thematic Elements: 

To understand Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid”, first you must understand Charlie Chaplin’s childhood. Chaplin and his brother Sydney had to endure a very difficult childhood with an absconding father and a mentally ill mother, leading Charlie and Sydney to frequently be in and out of varying institutions. This aspect of Chaplin’s life plays into the themes present in The Kid, in which Chaplin presents a story set firmly in poverty-stricken streets with its characters facing real hardships. However, it is Chaplin’s embracing of these hardships and offering the antidote of emotional bonding that overcome this. The horrors of the world and the abandonment felt by the characters create a need for both sentiment and humor.

The Kid begins when a woman is released from a charity hospital and abandons her baby soon after. She feels she cannot provide for the baby and places him in someone’s car with a note asking whoever finds him to take care of him. Two men arrive back to the car and drive the car to the poverty-stricken side of town and realize the baby is in the back seat, which they then decide to abandon the baby in the street. The child’s life has already begun in a state of abandonment, left to a harsh and uncaring world. 

The Tramp finds the child and seeks to find its rightful place, as he tries to hand him over to someone he believes to be his mother, until the woman negates this notion. The Tramp then tries to dispose of the baby by trying to leave it back on the street and tempting to throw it down the sewer drain. The scenes play for laughs – introducing us to the dark nature of Chaplin’s signature comedy styles. Chaplin creates a scenario in which we are laughing at the horrors and cruelty of life – embracing its cruelty. Chaplin does not stop there however as he creates a need for emotionality out of this cruelty. After reading the note left by the mother, the Tramp takes it upon himself to care for the child. 

We are told it is five years later and the Tramp is now a full-blown father taking care of his five-year-old child. Due to their hardships, the Tramp and his son scam people by going around and breaking windows only to charge for replacement of those windows. Chaplin again uses comedy to embrace difficulty. The Tramp and his son cannot get by on their own without needing to con and scam people, a depressing situation. However, this depressing situation is performed with slapstick humor by having a police officer try to catch them in their act and comedically chase them throughout the streets. Chaplin transforms the hardships of life with laughter and gags.

The Tramp is eventually confronted by the authorities regarding the parenthood of the child, for which they take him away. The scene is the most tearful in the film as the child cries out for his father as he is being taken away. The gags are over, and replaced with emotion and sentiment. Chaplin seems to embrace the hardships of life with laughter but has a reverence for the emotional bonds between family, albeit an improvised family. These emotional bonds seem to be the formula for surviving in this harsh world as Chaplin illustrates.

After getting the child back and having him stolen from him a second time, the Tramp franticly searches for him until heading back to his stoop and falling asleep. The Tramp dreams of heaven, rather the same tenement alleyway decorated with flowering vines and all the characters from the film in angel wings. The Tramp is reunited with his child in this dream until demonic tempters invade sowing sexual desires, jealousy, and violence. Even the Tramp’s dreamworld is not safe from the hardships of life that undermine this fantasy. 

Thankfully, the child is eventually reunited with his real mother, who is now a theater star and can afford to provide for her son. However, the world itself is not fixed altogether. Chaplin paints our world as being very cruel and dark but shows us the antidote to this malady: the emotional bonds that bind us that create love and the ability to laugh at the things that make us suffer. In the end, we are all ‘The Kid’, abandoned by God into an unforgiving landscape, forced to find love and laughter to remedy our suffering. 

Camerawork: 

Production Design and Imagery: Chaplin informs the theme of the film by providing its landscape. The film begins at a couple different locals, namely a charity hospital, a park, and suburban roadside. All these settings seem bright and clean. We are then introduced to the slums where the baby is abandoned. The slums are produced using dirt, grime, and decay to illustrate the immense poverty and hardships of the people living in this area. This locality and visual settings are important to understanding the theme presented in the film.

Character Introduction: The character of the Tramp is meant to be a character of the lowest societal significance – one that society deems as trash. To introduce the understanding of the character of the Tramp, Chaplin first introduces him by having him walk through the decrepit alleyway as people in their homes pour garbage out their window onto him. Having this man walk through decay having thrash thrown on him was a brilliant way to set the foundational context for the character of the Tramp.

Close-Up: Right after showing the Tramp introduce himself by walking through the alleyway, Chaplin then provides additional context to the character (in case you didn’t understand already) by showing a close up of the characters hands as he reaches in his pocket for something. The close-up shows the Tramp’s fingerless gloves and the dirt and grime that resides on his fingers. This provides even more understanding of the lowly and poor Tramp.

Best Shot: 

The best shot of the film comes at it’s most sentimental and emotional. It is the bright spark amidst the slapstick comedy of the film. It is the image of the child screaming for his father as he is being taken away. The emotional sting resonates more becomes the entire film is surrounded by this comedy, providing this emotive scene with more resonance. This signified resonance provides the key to understanding The Kid’s theme of creating love and bonds in the face of difficulty. Chaplin uses this scene to infuse common understanding of what is important in both the film and in life.