Monsieur Verdoux : Charlie Chaplin

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One of the best philosophical conversations on love, woman & life in reference to Schopenhauer I heard in Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux [1947]. Verdoux changed the poisoned wine hearing that the girl [Marilyn Nash] had done something wrong for the love of his invalid husband which had echoed with Verdoux's own private life. These shared feelings and experiences grow a long-term mutual affection between them. The kindness and compassion in the crisis phase in life that results in a mutual trust, understanding and friendship

After playing both antagonist and protagonist at a time in The Great Dictator [1940], Chaplin had played the same character in the guise of four names as Verdoux, Varnay, Bonheur and Floray respectively. I have found it quite a close resemblance with Vishal Bhardwaj’s 7 Khoon Maaf [Seven Sins Forgiven] where Priyanka Chopra Jonas played as Susanna, Saheb, Suzi, Sultana, Anna and Sunaina. The picture is also analogous with their narrative genre and thematic aspects in general.

Monsieur Verdoux is a paradigm shift for Charlie’s private, political and professional life. What he had demonstrated in Modern Times [1936] as economic transformation, in The Great Dictator [1940] as political mayhem and in Monsieur Verdoux [1947] as the detrimental consequences of the prior ones in individual life. Questioning the ultimate failure of capitalism in the tumultuous economic depression and searching for the new economic system that had taken Charles Chaplin for granted as a core communist and anti-social in the USA. Finally, the communist accusation banned him from the USA.

 

On the day of Verdoux’s execution, he uttered one of the greatest dialogue men heard on screen is that "Wars, conflict - it's all business. One murder makes a villain; millions, a hero”. Any one can still find the relevancy of this statement with the present world. This thing doesn’t change overtime but repeats itself from time to time, place to place. What an incident [not a coincidence].

 

It was a surprise when I came to know that Monsieur Verdoux [1947] had been one of the great cinematic collaborations of Charles Chaplin and Orson Welles.

 

Monsieur Verdoux [1947]

Charlie Chaplin

English, USA.

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