For the Look, Listen Analyze assignment of this unit, I chose to examine the ending scene of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, a romantic comedy about a poor man falling in love with a blind woman. First, I will talk about the visual and auditory aspects separately and then explain how they work as a whole in what is considered to be one of the most sentimental scenes in the history of cinema.

Camera Work

We begin the scene with the camera basically dragging itself to Chaplin’s character, the Tramp. The camera follows the Tramp in a fluid motion, adjusting its position as the Tramp walks down the street. When the Tramp gets harassed by the two boys selling newspapers, the camera cuts back and forth between the focus on the two boys taunting him and the Tramp responding. The camera continues to follow the Tramp before reaching a halt as he notices a flower on the side of the road. The camera is still. He picks up the flower, and the two boys tug at him in the process, while the camera follows the movement. The camera’s movement gets slower and slower until the Tramp comes face to face with the woman he loves, who can now see him for the first time. The camera is again still, and we feel alongside the Tramp that all time has stopped. It’s just him and the woman he fell in love with. The camera cuts back and forth between the two characters, but remains in the same position throughout, maintaining the stillness of the moment as the movie fades to black in this visual crescendo.

Music

The scene begins with a musical accompaniment that resembles that of a leisurely stroll. This is the music paired with the Tramp getting harassed by the two boys, something that he experiences often, and therefore nothing out of the ordinary. The music reaches its first stop when the Tramp sees the flower but resumes a different song (a more bittersweet melody) after a short moment. It’s when the Tramp finally sets eyes on the woman that the music stops completely. We are left in seconds of the loudest silence, filled with anxiety and hope and tenderness. When the music begins again, it’s a sweet duet between a violin and piano, pulling at our heartstrings (pun very much intended). The movie ends with this music as the two characters reconnect to this beautiful melody.

A Sentimental Symphony

The product of these two components is a scene that guides you through the emotions of the Tramp. The way he and the camera wander around in the beginning of the scene contrast the stillness that ends it, as if to show that what was lost has been found. Both the camerawork and the music illustrate the feeling of time standing still, a feeling that many people may have experienced in their own personal love stories. The gradual stop of movement concludes the movie concludes the story of the Tramp’s search for love and acceptance, as the shot of the Tramp’s enamored smile fades into the movie’s ending.