Charlie Chaplin and the Roles of Everyday Life

After reading Henri Lefebvre’s Critique of Everyday Life, one of the connections I made was the dichotomy between real life and film or the theatre. His chapter about Charlie Chaplin and his commentary of the theatre reminded me of the movie Chaplin, which I saw recently and gave me a new perspective. Lefebvre observes, “In his first films Chaplin takes up battle—a duel which is always different and yet always the same—with objects, everyday objects: an umbrella, a deckchair, a motorbike, a banana skin…” (11). When I watched the film, several of these interactions with everyday objects took place; there were two in particular that stood out for me, not only because of the clever use of the objects but that one was taking place in his film and the other in his everyday life. In the scene from his movie, Charlie is running away from the cops, and he hides under a lamp shade. This is extremely funny because, in addition to his creative use of this common object, we see the policemen, who we consider to be intelligent, running past him unable to detect his whereabouts. Chaplin crafts a marvelous moment by using an ordinary lamp to produce a different outcome of a familiar scene. In his real life, when a tense moment occurs at a fancy dinner, Charlie relieves the tension by creating a dance with two dinner forks; the people become engaged in this childlike expression and forget about their argument. These two scenarios represent, as Lefebvre says, “human unity of its two faces, the negative and the positive” (11). He is correct when he writes, “Chaplin captures our own attitude towards trivial these things, and before our very eyes. He makes it appear suddenly amazing, dramatic, joyful” (11). Just like a child who creates scenes and toys from everyday objects by using his/her imagination, Charlie can fashion a reality that is at the same time familiar and strange.
On page 136, Lefebvre discusses the theatre and the roles that actors play. He writes, “They [actors’ parts] extend reality, and are equally as real; acting explores what is possible.” This made me think of what roles we play in our everyday lives and how we distinguish between what is real and sincere and what is not. Are we conscious of the times when we are not being ourselves? I think that sometimes we are when we have calculated or rehearsed a particular scene in order to attain a desire, but I think at other times, situations surprise us and we react unconsciously, we may even relive that moment later and think about why we acted the way we did. I always think of Shakespeare’s famous line from As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”; perhaps he knew that people would be acting a part at various times in their everyday lives, and Lefebvre adds another layer to this by examining the sincerity and reality of these roles. It is interesting for me to think about this dichotomy between what roles we play, and when, or if, we think we are playing a role. Kristin