The Essence of Chaplin

A summary analysis of Charlie Chaplin's films that star his alter-ego, Charlie, which is to say, for the most part, Chaplin's silent films and not his sound films. In the book I stress Chaplin's often underrated skills as a film-director as well as his work as a mimetic satirist. And I structure the book according to the key ideas and ingredients of Chaplin's art, rather than by the chronological, film-by-film, structure that has characterized the vast majority of critical works on Chaplin. My goal is not to summarize the arc of Chaplin's career but to carve out the essence of his art, to offer a lexicon of his filmic nature. I mean the book for Chaplin scholars but, just as much, for the general reader who is looking for a cogent, but thorough, introduction to Chaplin, who would like to know why it is that critics take Chaplin as seriously as they do.