FILM CHRONICLE
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internal struggle, full of ambiguities and contradictions; it is man himself
who is corrupt, both as individual and as society, and Verdoux's problem
is to make some working order out of the conflicting needs of his own
personality. When he makes his decision, it is as much a decision about
his own nature as about the nature of society.
Indeed, we do not see the society at all, except in Verdoux and
through Verdoux's eyes. There is no background. There is only Verdoux
and his family and his victims, and a few supernumeraries-a friend, a
girl in a flower shop, a detective, some reporters (the detective and the
reporters are not society, they are only making a living in
their
way),
a court of justice, a priest (these are not society either, but only the
necessary instruments for Verdoux's triumphal progress to the guillotine;
he makes use of them). There is also, at one point, someJ political docu–
mentation-shots of Hitler and Mussolini, marching soldiers, newspaper
headlines, ruined business men committing suicide, etc.-but this is really
Verdoux's own documentation, the evidence in his defense. Verdoux
remains an isolated figure without a context--'Or, rather, the context is
a projection of his mind, and all we are told of it is what he tells us.
Thus there is no solid point of reference; everything is open to ques–
tion. The meanings shift and tum and spread until the whole movie, and
ultimately the whole world, is enveloped in ambiguity and irony, and it
is no longer certain whom the joke is on. Not only is Verdoux caught in
his own irony; sometimes it is we in the audience who are caught, and
sometimes Chaplin himself-it is significant of the character of this
movie, and to some extent, perhaps, of Chaplin's personal character,
that one should feel that he does not always understand the implications
of his work.
Complex and sustained irony is a rare thing in literature and rarer
still in the movies, if indeed it has ever before appeared in the movies
at all. Probably the closest analogy to
M qnsieur Verdoux
is Swift's
M,odest Proposal,
where, despite the simplicity of the basic idea, one
can never quite get to the bottom of the irony. Just as there have been
people who could see nothing funny about eating babies, so there are
people who can see nothing funny about the mass murder of women.
And there is in both cases a certain difficulty in critical discussion. I can
do best here by paraphrasing what George Saintsbury wrote of the
Modest Proposal:
"That Chaplin does not really mean to recommend
mass murder, though perfectly true, could hardly be urged by anybody
capable of enjoying
Monsieur V erdoux,
and would not
be
listened to
by anyone whom it horrifies." But even this is too simple. While it
is
perfectly true that Chaplin does not mean to recommend mass murder,
it is also true that he makes out the best possible case for it: the spectator
is likely to find himself following Verdoux's activities with eagerness and
sharing Verdoux's irritation when his plans are frustrated.
