King of Kennington?

My favourite film of all time is City Lights by Charles Chaplin. I have seen it dozens of times and still dissolve in floods of tears when the Flower Girl realises that the Tramp.... well, this isn't a spoiler site, so see it for yourself.

When Jean-Luc Godard - a film director I won't call accessible - said "film is a footnote to Chaplin" it was City Lights he was talking about. Chaplin did it all; wrote it, directed it, acted, designed the gags, and bedded most of his leading ladies. In doing so he invented much of the cinematic grammar that still applies today, like lap-fading, establishing shots, and crossing the line. And all before tea-time.

I read Chaplins autobiography many years ago, and didn't really like it. But now, living in Camberwell, and having a bit more experience of mortal and financial highs and lows, I'm profoundly moved by the opening chapters. The constant grinding poverty that Chaplin, his brother, and their mother suffer is horrifying, and not all three of them survive it.

Unfortunatley, at the point where Chaplin goes to America and starts to make some money, he gives up on the abuse-lit horrors [and who can blame him] and therafter delivers a blow-by-blow account of how charming everyone he meets is, how well his films sell, and how much money he is earning.

This weekend I think I might go out and about to see if I can find the garrets, workhouses, and factories in which the fons et origo of cinema grew up; pictures to follow if I can find them.

Vincent van Gogh lived a couple of hundred yards from our garret too, and I might well make a similar pilgrimage of his sites next - springtime trip to Arles anyone?

Andrew Mishmash