I remember starting 2022 off by watching a movie that was to turn 100 that year: the 1922 horror/drama/sort-of-documentary, Haxan. It seemed like a nice tradition to start: watching a 100-year-old movie at the start of every New Year, but I ran into a bit of a stumbling block when it came to what to watch at the beginning of 2023. Hopefully, this won't offend too many people, but 2023 was a bit of a shrug of a year for cinema. I'd already seen the two most well-known 2023 movies, too (a Buster Keaton movie called Our Hospitality, and Harold Lloyd's most famous movie, Safety Last).
I dug a little deeper and found a Lon Chaney-starring Hunchback of Notre Dame as an option, but ended up settling on A Woman of Paris, which is one of the few feature films directed by Charlie Chaplin I hadn't seen (I do need to catch up on all his pre-1920 short films one day). I've liked most of what I've seen from the actor/director/writer/composer, and even though A Woman of Paris is easy to get mixed up with his similarly-named movies A King in New York and A Countess From Hong Kong, hopefully, it'll stand apart in my memory (haven't seen the former, but it's better than the latter).
This explicitly differentiates itself from Chaplin's usual type of movie with a pre-movie title card that tells audiences A Woman of Paris is not a comedy, and that it won't feature Chaplin in the lead role. Instead, his duties were behind the camera, and the movie ends up being a melodrama about a woman being torn between two different lifestyles. The background of the movie, the way it stands out among Chaplin movies, and the reason I chose to watch it are all more interesting than the film itself, which is just fine by silent movie standards. Not the worst film of Chaplin's I've seen, but leagues from his best.
Also, while I respect he tried something different here, his brand of drama and emotional scenes often work so well when paired with his comedy (like how City Lights is hilarious but also a tragic love story, Modern Times is inventive and clever while also shedding light on The Great Depression, and The Great Dictator is silly and satirical with less humor as it goes on, ending with a powerful final speech/plea to the world). There are brief humorous moments here, but it's mostly serious and melodramatic throughout, meaning it doesn't have that great sense of contrasting emotions Chaplin's best films have.
I dug a little deeper and found a Lon Chaney-starring Hunchback of Notre Dame as an option, but ended up settling on A Woman of Paris, which is one of the few feature films directed by Charlie Chaplin I hadn't seen (I do need to catch up on all his pre-1920 short films one day). I've liked most of what I've seen from the actor/director/writer/composer, and even though A Woman of Paris is easy to get mixed up with his similarly-named movies A King in New York and A Countess From Hong Kong, hopefully, it'll stand apart in my memory (haven't seen the former, but it's better than the latter).
This explicitly differentiates itself from Chaplin's usual type of movie with a pre-movie title card that tells audiences A Woman of Paris is not a comedy, and that it won't feature Chaplin in the lead role. Instead, his duties were behind the camera, and the movie ends up being a melodrama about a woman being torn between two different lifestyles. The background of the movie, the way it stands out among Chaplin movies, and the reason I chose to watch it are all more interesting than the film itself, which is just fine by silent movie standards. Not the worst film of Chaplin's I've seen, but leagues from his best.
Also, while I respect he tried something different here, his brand of drama and emotional scenes often work so well when paired with his comedy (like how City Lights is hilarious but also a tragic love story, Modern Times is inventive and clever while also shedding light on The Great Depression, and The Great Dictator is silly and satirical with less humor as it goes on, ending with a powerful final speech/plea to the world). There are brief humorous moments here, but it's mostly serious and melodramatic throughout, meaning it doesn't have that great sense of contrasting emotions Chaplin's best films have.