A Film Canon

This is a more elegant combination of comedy and pathos than The Kid, largely as a result of Chaplin's decision to locate the action in the Alaskan gold fields. Not only does this throw social and economic marginality into greater relief, thereby clarifying the peculiarities of the Tramp's own personal take on marginality, but it presents a series of claustrophobic, highly circumscribed spaces - generally small cabins - which necessitate an even greater reinterpretation of objects on his part, most famously in his preparation of a boot as a meal, as well as the iconic 'Dance Of The Rolls'. For the first time, it feels as if this reinterpretation is primarily unintentional - a more extensive, disruptive version of the hiccups that jerk and fragment his body, explaining his cabinmate's hallucinatory visualisation of him as a giant, clucking chicken. In keeping with this zoomorphism, there is little distinction between the Tramp's characteristically massive antagonist and the bears that roam around the cabin, while his love interest suggests nothing so much as a sly, manipulative cat, to the extent that her capitulation has a distinct ring of untruth. If anything, the Tramp humanises her, converting her bitchy sadism into something more like sympathy - a one-way exchange that prevents him attaining the sublime self-recognition of his later films, while ensuring that the narrative ends on a more conventionally comic note.