Buffronioc One of the wrost movies I have ever seen

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Manthast Absolutely amazing

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Christopher Reid Chaplin plays Calvero, a retired clown. Well, a clown who is no longer desired by the public. He saves a young ballerina from suicide and nurses her back to health. Shouldn't this old, obsolete entertainer be bitter and selfish? For whatever reason, he is kind and caring even though the world has thrown him away. Perhaps he is inspired by her beauty or innocence or moved by her hopelessness. He encourages her at every step. He listens to her detailed life story, asking "then what happened" a number of times. He is full of passionate, beautiful sayings about life. That desire is more important than meaning for example.The tone of Limelight is quite sad and contemplative. I felt very comfortable with it. We seem to often suppress sadness rather than try to understand it. But there are also funny moments and the movie never feels too dark or desperate. The music is very nice and I started to get used to it by the end. I think the script is also really good with so many interesting, meaningful lines.Calvero is so isolated and so selfless. I was moved to tears more than once. Chaplin is such a great entertainer, able to effortlessly make you laugh. So to see him performing in his mind to empty audiences, or having people casually walk out of a real performance is hard to take. You don't expect to see one of your heroes lose hope and cry because he is no longer wanted or can't be funny anymore. It makes me feel better to realise that even film legends might feel worthless from time to time and furthermore have the guts to share that fact.Claire Bloom has such lovely eyes. She seems so innocent and yet her character has already has lost the lust for life. Later, she falls in love with Calvero but maybe partially because she subconsciously feels she owes him or should pay him back. She depends on him as her inspiration. But he wants her to go out and flourish and marry the nice young composer she met. It's similar to Monsieur Verdoux where there was also a young woman that liked Chaplin but who he tried to avoid so he wouldn't drag her down.It was incredible seeing Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin in a film together. Buster only appears in the last 15 minutes or so but it's very enjoyable. He is as understated as ever, barely raising an eyebrow to the things that happen. And yet, you can tell he is constantly thinking, feeling, reacting. It's just very subtle.Few films have affected me the way Limelight did. The themes resonated with me very strongly. We're free to laugh or cry wherever we like, depending on how we look at what's happening. It's quite amazing that a silent film comedian went on to make such a great dramatic movie later on. There are numerous references to his old tramp character but the articulate, impassioned and kind older man is new.

Kirpianuscus Calvero remands me the Chaplin taking the honorary Oscar in 1972. his words. his emotion. his presence as gallery of so many characters. not only for the links between the clown and its interpreter. but for the bitter delicacy who reflects the fight and passion and sacrifices of an entire career. Limelight could be perceived as artificial and prisoner of clichés. the comedy has not the force from another Chaplin's works. the speeches of the artist are more didacticism. but that is the purpose. to open a door who seems a wall. to present love in a different light and angle. to show the artist out of its art-cocoon. the virtue of Limelight is to be a precious naked honest confession. about life not about art. about force of decision. about joy and success and truth. about the other as part from you. the presence of Buster Keaton. the performance of Claire Bloom. the large slices of mannerism. each as piece not for a masterpiece because nothing need demonstrated. but as a precise look in heart of small things who defines each existence. it is not a film for applause or for great eulogies. it is bitter film using almost well known theme. but it has the force to imagine a way to remind the man and not the brilliant actor. Calvero has not exactly a character. it is a fragile confession from a great man about himself and about his vision about the existence.

Anssi Vartiainen Charlie Chaplin is one of those figures that are so legendary in cinema nowadays that you're pretty much expected to know them. And also to love them. So is it wrong for me to say that I found this movie to be meandering and overly simplistic and long?I can still safely say that I liked it and I don't regret seeing it, but a lot of its running time is spent simply looking at Chaplin's clown routines on stage. Some of them are funny, most got me to smile, but none of them made me laugh. And I guess that's the problem. Humour is often heavily subjective and tied to culture, and thus to time. Some jokes and gags remain timeless, most do not.But luckily for me this is more than a comedy, though it is about comedy. It tells the story of one Calvero (Chaplin), a famous clown back in his glory days, who has now been reduced to a miserable drunk, reminiscing the days when a mere twitch of his eyebrow caused people to fall off their chairs. Enter Terry (Claire Bloom), a young dancer-to-be, who eventually, through miscellaneous happenstances, becomes something of a protégé for Calvero. It's a sweet little story, though it offers no surprises for a savvy viewer. Though that's not really the point. Its purpose is more reflective. Chaplin's own career was largely over at this point and it'd be hard not to draw comparisons, though the man himself claims it's not about him.In the end I'm in something of a bind. I like the reflective mood of the film, I like its thematics and I do like Bloom and Chaplin's chemistry together. But the overly long clown routines, the meandering dialogue scenes and the haphazard pacing mean that I can't call this a great movie. Still worth a watch though if you're into Chaplin.

Hot 888 Mama . . . as the American Legion watched some old footage of Hitler's pep rallies, and launched a nationwide boycott of LIMELIGHT. Apparently these legionnaires were not bright enough to realize that Charles Chaplin was SPOOFING Hitler when he made his GREAT DICTATOR flick, and they believed Chaplin WAS Hitler! If it wasn't for the war profiteer types (mostly the father\grandpa of two later U.S. presidents--who said crime doesn't pay?) who made a bundle selling Hitler the diesel fuel additive necessary for the Blitzkrieg to work, there would have been millions fewer legionnaires around in the 1950s, as WWII most likely would not have occurred, and the six million Jews gassed would have thrived to the point of quadrupling today's population level for their group. Charles Chaplin was a lonely voice in a wilderness of war profiteers gunning for battle when he spoofed Hitler before the war. The brave young boys--America's best and brightest--got slaughtered off during the subsequent conflict, and the worst and the dullest who survived became easily manipulated legionnaires goaded by the goons Ike christened the "Military\Industrial Complex" into persecuting the man who could have saved their comrades with his timely warning. But what else could you expect, from the sort of righteous folks who did in Jesus, too!