The Real Charlie Chaplin

Without a doubt, Charlie Chaplin was once the most famous man in the world. But who, exactly was he? Award-winning documentary filmmakers Peter Middelton and James Spinney (‘Notes On Blindness’, 2016) use staged footage with actors synched with newly discovered, authentic audio recordings including Chaplin's 1966 interview with Life Magazine and Chaplin's own personal archive footage. Chaplin's meteoric rise from the slums of Victorian London to the heights of Hollywood superstardom is ‘constructed to uncanny effect.

‘From childhood poverty to adult stardom, obscurity to fame and then infamy, Chaplin’s story was always the stuff of legend. Yet unlike Richard Attenborough’s stodgy 1992 biographical drama, “Chaplin”, this documentary provides a gripping, clear-eyed overview of his life and works. When comparisons are made between real life and fiction (the attic room of Chaplin’s boyhood is juxtaposed with scenes from “The Kid”), such connections seem organic rather than contrived…’—Mark Kermode, The Observer