At one time, Chaplin was probably the most recognised figure, worldwide (or close to it), helped by that era of films being both pre-sound[1] and relatively short-format. And physical comedy is near-universal, although perhaps some places wouldn't look kindly upon "the little man, battling against authority" and couldn't tolerate it.
Unlike some other silent movie stars, he also perhaps made a decent foray into the time of talkies. His main problem, I suspect, were his politics, falling foul of the right-wing juggernaut that swept the US (McCarthyism, etc) which he attacked in film just as he had (before it was fashionable!) railed against Naziism itself.
Effectively banished from the US (being an immigrant, which didn't help), he effectively was barred from the major locus of the film industry for the English-speaking world, and the non-English world now had available the whole talking-movie technology so that 'local Hollywoods' would now move on and develop their own character (and characters, i.e. major new and fresh stars and starlets) leaving nowhere much to go except for 'retiremement'. He didn't get as lucky as Disney, say, bumbling along just well enough to create a legacy and then a vast coorporation to sustain and develop it well beyond his era.
(Also he had some questionable choices of personal relationships, which was just grist to the mill for those already politically misaligned to his 'messages'. Not that he was the only one, or the worst, but it didn't combine well.)
I don't know if I'd say that without Chaplin we wouldn't have had the same development of the industry... If not him, then any one of a number of others could have been the equivalent (Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd were potentials, and who knows how many others could have taken his place; even fellow immigrant Stan 'Laurel' Jefferson, give or take a few years to get settled). But his transcience was probably inevitable anyway, as time wore on, film stock wore out and fancy new movie-making techniques (sound, colour, 3D, CGI, motion-capture, etc) created and fed different tastes that were far away from his slapstick comedy speciality (and weaving in and out of his 'social conscience' auxilliary theme).
Still, the "against overwhelming authority" theme aside, I'm surprised that they aren't somewhat more well-known in China than our friend thinks. And they could be spun (by creatively 'translated' cue-cards/editing) to support even an authoritarian viewpoint. c.f. Norman Wisdom (who Chaplin himself called his "favourite clown") who was explicitly permitted/encouraged to be shown in Albania, Iran and other countries around the world, where most most 'western' output was outright banned.
But, of course, cross-cultural blockbusting is a fairly new thing. Inbetween the time when previous few feet of celluloid were shown, so of course you'd have to be entertained by whatever films were made available, and the current time of just about every film with giant sentient robots having to shoe-horn at least a CGI-enhanced visit to one or other east-Asian location (to try to get it to sell in the appropriate market), there was little room for what remained of The Little Tramp, and his variations.
Mel Brooks is indeed a good example of who might have earned the clown-crown, in the interim (I'd suggest Leslie Nielsen as another example, though he started as a serious actor), having been both front-of-screen and behind-the-scenes creator of many classic (more-)modern era pieces that aren't yet necesarily as irrelevent or anachronistic to modern eyes.
I regret to say that I've probably not seen any Chaplin for many a year, though probably more because nobody has been showing it than because I've been only seeking out other things. Availability and (perceived?) popularity, vs. any given network already having access to most of the James Bond, Harry Potter and/or Marvel franchises ready to show, if they want to fill a particular scheduling slot with film (and, if they can't do that, some cheapo online-marketting slot pandering to the graveyard-slot viewers). And I'm not enough of an afficionado to already have every last remastered Blu-Ray compilation they've ever released of his films (or of anything).
Notwithstanding that his output is notably dated and diluted by the sheer mass of the greater part of a century of other possible things to see, though, I think that I would view something of his, in a heartbeat, if the option to do so came up at the right moment. Modern Times/Great Dictator 'full fat' or any number of shorts. Who doesn't like an overly officious policeman being kicked in the fundement after a 'slight misunderstanding' arising from an issue of vagrancy and an unpaid bill in a frankly unhygenic pot-shop? (But also when you know that The Kid was once him, and what the real-world analogues of Hynkel would inflict upon the real-world likes of the Barber, there's still social mileage in the tales as well.) I only regret that I'm not going to right away poke around to seek something out. By the time there's opportunity, I'm probably going to be distracted by the latest (or earliest that I still need to see) Jason Reacher/Jack Wick/John Bond/James Bourne/whatever.
[1] Not needing dubbing/subtitles. Any actual dialogue-'cards' replacable by whatever suited the locals. And for those not (correctly-)literate, the visual acting did most of the heavy lifting anyway.
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Topic: The Movie Discussion Thread! (Read 132293 times)