April 7, 1931 [City Lights]

Charlie Chaplin has no shame--thank God. He is convinced of the virtues of silence, blind girls, and spifflicated millionaires--not to mention the enduring value of some of his oldest routines--and the film built from these convictions rises like New York skyscrapers, a monument to heedless devotion.

And happy the viewer who shares his blind love. Chaplin understands the beauty of unembarrassed sentimentality: It glows in silence and laughter, ironic only in its disdain for all irony. And while the movie could be accused of cynicism toward its audience--giving us a knowing wink, indulging our desire to laugh and cry--and sigh and laugh and cry some more; but Chaplin does not sneer at us: He is too in love with his creation to allow it to slip into Narcissus' pool.

City Lights shines like a strange beacon: After all these decades, is cinema to be lit only by the Little Tramp? Is he enough? A part of me hopes so--the part that's weary and looking for somewhere to lay my head--and waits for the Tramp to arrive, suddenly and without a word, to skid around corners almost too sharp for comedy--but smiling at me, like the music he makes, realizing that tragedy can tell its own lonely story, while comedy demands someone alongside, singing.