The passage Charlie Chaplin and Dreams chronicles
Charlie Chaplin's use of dreams in his film to not only entertain the members
of the audience but also to gain their sympathy for his characters. He would
use his movies to invoke a feeling in the audience that makes them feel sorry
for his character, and he would do this by developing the character as roundly
as possible through the use of a plot that made the rather rare combination of
comedy and tragedy. For instance, in his film The Bank, Charlie
is first found walking down a wealthy area in a pleasant and gentleman-like
manner, wearing nice clothes that fit the setting and allow him to appear as
the gentleman the audience sees in him (Le Master 2).
However, when he reaches
the office, the audience sees his take his fancier clothes off to reveal that
he is actually a janitor (Le Master 2). Him being gentleman was nothing more
than a fantasy. According to the article, such a twist "establishes
sympathy with Charlie because we understand the vast difference between who the
character is and who he wants to be" (Le Master 2). By seeing how far
Charlie is from what he wants to be, the audience is able to see the tragedy in
him and feel incredibly sorry for him.
The next part of the film
further supports the notion that Charlie uses dreams to gain character sympathy
from the audience. In the office, Charlie has a crush on Edna who does not
return the love, but late in the film, a bank robbery ensues and Charlie saves
Edna and shares a kiss with her only to wake up with his lips on a mop and find
out it was all a dream (Le Master 3). In response, the members of the audience
transition from excitement in humor (found in the robbery scene) and have a lot
of sympathy for Charlie. They pity him enormously because they see the enormous
contrast between who he is (janitor) and who he wants to be(heroic lover of
Edna).
Such pity that the audience
has on him shows how powerful the story's impact is on them as Chaplin’s
success in getting them to emotionally connect with the character.
This dream technique used
by Chaplin can be applied to Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream,
particularly the final scene. The movie is about four drug-addicts who have
major aspirations, and it shows these aspirations being destroyed by their drug
problems.
Harry starts the scene when he has a dream where he sees his lover Marion on a pier, but as he runs towards her, he falls and awakens back in reality where he is in a jail hospital with his arm sliced off due to the amount of dope in it. He lies there crying and reminiscing about his real situation being different from the situation he wanted.
Other characters go through the same scenario. Tyrone, locked in prison for skipping bail on a drug charge, curls into fetal position to have a dream about being hugged by his mother who he wanted to make proud all his life, dreaming about the life desired that is so contrasting to his reality. The same goes for Marion and Harry’s mother who dreams of looking great on a television show she with her son Harry only for her reality to be completely different.
Such differences in these four characters’ lives make the audience feel so much pity for them because the lives of these four are helplessly opposite of the lives they all dreamed of. The audience seeing Darren Aronofsky’s transition from the characters’ tranquil dreams to their horrifying realities are psychologically impacted in the most emotional and sympathetic way.
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