Charlie Chaplin, the genius actor, composer, and filmmaker, remains one of the most legendary and influential figures in the history of cinema. He was brilliantly adept at portraying both comedy and pathos, but at the time his second feature, 1923’s A Woman in Paris, was released, he caught audiences off guard by not being in it and also by making a feminist drama.
Buy A Woman of Paris (Criterion Collection) Blu-rayStarring his longtime screen-partner Edna Purviance (in a beguiling performance) as Marie St. Claire, the film traces her character’s transformation from ordinary and desperate young woman who is suddenly stood up by her flighty fiancé Jean (Carl Miller) to the “belle of Paris” as she moves there alone and gets swept up in the sheer decadence, romance, and swank parties after becoming the mistress of wealthy and insolent playboy Pierre Revel (a star-making role for Adolphe Menjou). But she then becomes a “belle of fate” after she encounters Jean and finds herself torn between love and the newfound independence she’s so longed for.
Despite the premise of the film not being particularly groundbreaking now, it still has a modern approach to a woman’s search for fulfillment. Purviance, in particular, had enough screen presence and charisma to captivate you into forgetting the cliches of the overall film. Chaplin isn’t in A Woman of Paris, as mentioned before, but he does have a cameo as a porter in a train depot. It wasn’t very popular with fans, but it was with critics, for its adult understanding that doesn’t demoralize anyone, where flawed people fall in and out of love, and sometimes simply move on. That’s what humans do, and Chaplin understood that, even though he never revisited this theme ever again with his later films.
Always very generous with Chaplin’s films, the folks at Criterion outdid themselves yet again with this new release by providing a stellar 4K restoration of the 1976 re-release of the film with Chaplin’s preferred score. The stacked supplements include an alternate score composed by conductor Timothy Block, based on Chaplin’s music; introduction by Chaplin scholar David Robinson; new video essay by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance; Chaplin Today: “A Woman of Paris”, featuring interviews with actress Liv Ullmann and filmmaker Michael Powell; Archive Commentary: About “A Woman of Paris”, documentary by Arnold Lozano; excerpts from an audio interview with cinematographer Roland Totheroh; deleted shots from the original 1923 version; archival footage; and trailers. There is also a great new essay by critic Pamela Hutchinson and notes by Brock on the 2005 score.
A Woman of Paris isn’t top-tier Chaplin, but I like it enough to recommend it to fans of his work. It has a decent amount of mature drama to make it worth watching, even if only once.
