Introduction
My Autobiography by Charles Spencer Chaplin, better known as Charlie Chaplin, is an intriguing read that details Chaplin’s successful career as well as his personal life. Through his words the reader is able to truly delve into the mind of Charlie Chaplin and find out information that would never have been known otherwise. His autobiography starts off with quite a lengthy section on his childhood, which I did not understand why it was so important and relevant to his personality at the time, as you read further into the book you discover that Chaplin’s childhood was full of experiences that shaped him into the famous silent film director that most people know him to be. Through a childhood full of tragedy he persevered and learned to fend for himself, and developed a love for theatre and acting at the same time. Chaplin also transitions smoothly into his first experiences in acting and finally to the start of his actual career. In this section of the book the reader gains insightful knowledge into the mind of Chaplin and why he chose to do things the way he did. As I’ve learned, the “Why?” questions were always very important to Chaplin and he learned to question everything in his life to gain a better understanding of it. The political motivations and his personal views on many matters are reflected by his motion pictures, and through his explanations and reflections he creates an unique portrait of himself in the reader’s mind. Not only did he come up with the idea for the famous Tramp, but that character was a portrayal of all his different traits combined. His personal qualms and controversies are presented matter-of-factly in this book. Chaplin presents himself as a man who has nothing to hide, and is willing to share his life experience with all those who ask. He is never apologetic for his actions and never wishes he could do something differently or become someone else, which I truly admire. Chaplin does not shy away from his relationships throughout his life either. All of them are contained within his autobiography and that aspect of Chaplin is revealed as well. All of these elements throughout the book come together to show the reader that Charlie Chaplin is a human himself. Most people elevate celebrities almost to the level of God, but here he adds his personal human touch with an account of all his mistakes through the year. He leaves very little for the reader to desire after he or she has finished with this book.
The periodicals and Internet resources I used were mainly to gain specifics on certain parts of Chaplin’s life. They were nowhere near as personal as his own autobiography, but they were useful in gaining a third-person perspective on Chaplin’s life. The periodicals from The San Francisco Chronicle were actually published when Chaplin alive, so they provided information on society’s view on Chaplin at the time. Of course, this was not always positive so they enlightened me on the controversies that went on about Chaplin’s films and the reasons why the American press hated him. It was interesting to gain a different perspective of an event that Chaplin talked about in his autobiography as well. The websites were especially helpful on some of the genres because they provided background information on places Chaplin talked about and a lot of other information that was relevant to what I was writing.
Charlie Chaplin is a silent film director. That’s the one thing almost everyone knows about him, and coincidentally that’s the same fact that drew me to picking Chaplin as my person for the Multi-Genre Project. At first I was looking at people that were famous in areas that I was familiar with. I’m a tennis player, so I looked at all the favorites like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova, etc. I realized that those people would bore me; I already knew too much about tennis. Of course, nobody wants to read about the same styles of tennis playing and going to the ATP World Tour every year or the Wimbledon Tournament over and over, so I figured that it would be repetitive. My other interest would be technology, so naturally I turned to that next. I looked at Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the most famous faces in modern technology. I was still unsure, however, of who I wanted to do. So I strayed off into topics I wasn’t as familiar with. Chaplin was one of these people that I looked into, and after reading portions of the article on him on Wikipedia I was determined to have him as my MGP person. Even without reading his autobiography or knowing much on him at all, he just seemed so interesting. As I learned more and more about him through reading his autobiography for MGP, I was not disappointed by my choice.
There are so many fascinating things about Charles Chaplin that’s it’s extremely difficult to just pick out a few. Through Chaplin’s autobiography I have learned of many of the controversies he had to live through in his lifetime, and I didn’t know that about him before either. Everyone knows that his films were immensely popular, but only those that have watched them know of the deep political impact and personal strife represented in those films. His beliefs also attracted a lot of trouble with the United States government. On multiple occasions he was accused of being a communist and having his political sympathies lie with them, which eventually led to his expulsion from the United States. Personally, I found this revolting because of the great impact Chaplin had on not just the Unites States, but the world. Although he represents himself humbly, I formed a more heroic portrait of him in my mind. Through a time where the world was at crisis with World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, Chaplin brought the greatest gift of all. He gave the people laughter, and in return he was given distrust and was antagonized by the United States. An appalling mistake on their part. Besides that, Chaplin is famous for many other things. For example, he was actually the first actor to be featured on the cover of Time magazine on July 6, 1925. He also once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-a-like contest and surprisingly finished third. He was very different looking in person, rather than on screen.
