Why Chaplin's "City Lights" is the Perfect Date Movie

It wasn’t even five when the sun began to set. As they watched it go down, David realized this was the first time in California that he had been aware of a day coming to an end.

“Let’s get some coffee,” Cecilia said, as the last of the sun disappeared beneath the horizon. They gathered up their stuff and found a café a few blocks from the beach. Cecilia rummaged through some newspapers while David got their coffees. “Hey,” she said when he returned to the table, “Do you like mute movies?”

“What kind of movies?”

“Mute movies. Look, I found a theater that shows them with a live organ accompaniment. They’ve got Charlie Chaplin’s ‘City Lights.’ I’ve never seen that one. Can we go?”

“Let me see.” David took the newspaper and saw the theater was on Fairfax, not too far from where he lived. “I didn’t know there was a silent movie theater in my neighborhood. It’s six now and the movie starts at eight. That gives us enough time to get there. We’d better take our coffees with us though, because I don’t know how long we’ll have to wait for the bus.”

Cecilia laughed like a child through the first half of the movie. Then, beginning with the scene in which the blind girl was threatened with eviction, she started to cry. And when Chaplin did his funny bits in the second half of the movie, Cecilia didn’t laugh, but she did stop crying. David wondered if it were Chaplin’s intention to use comedy to alleviate tears rather than stimulate laughter during these scenes. His routine with the spaghetti was as funny as anything in the first half, yet Cecilia didn’t even smile once through the whole scene. She spent it recovering from the emotions expended in empathy for the blind girl.

advertisement

Self-serve advertising

Add our easy-to-use advertising system to any Web site. Free!

InstiAds.com

The final shot of “City Lights” seemed to last forever. Both David and Cecilia were helplessly sobbing, trembling, and grasping each other for support. The face on the screen, the face that said yes this is me I am the one you love, would not go away. The more hopeless the expression, the more insistent it became, and it wouldn’t stop flickering, this moment of anguish and truth, this final question of love.

They waited for the theater to empty before leaving their seats, and Cecilia went to the women’s room to wash her face. David fidgeted outside the door until she emerged, her face gleaming with an exhausted joy. Instead of walking home on the bright and busy Fairfax Avenue, they crossed over a block to take a residential route. Palm trees lined the street, and Cecilia touched each one in passing, then pulled David  to her as she leaned her back against the last tree of the line. As he kissed her, she looked up through the palms at the sky, running her hands up and down his back, and giving all of herself to him in each kiss until she was overcome by the illimitable joy of being in love.

"City Lights" screens one day only on  Wednesday, Nov. 18. at Landmark's Metro Theater.

The PostGlobe relies on your donations. Please support this writer's work by going to our donate page and let us know where you'd like your donation to go.