Charlie Chaplin and The Modern Dramedy Part 2

Sad Comedies

The Art of the Flashback

Charlie Chaplin and The Modern Dramedy Part 1

One of my forthcoming videos credits Charlie Chaplin with being the grandfather of the modern Hollywood dramedy.  I found myself wondering how Chaplin would have fared mixing comedy and drama in films like About Schmidt, Punch-Drunk Love, Sideways and The Truman Show.  It occurred to me that it might be interesting to illustrate this idea with AI-generated images.  But I ran into a problem.  My AI image generator, Midjourney, recently stopped generating images of famous actors for fear of getting sued. I discussed this matter at length in my last article.  Midjourney will produce a generic Chaplin-like silent film comedian, but it positively will not produce the actual iconic Chaplin.  Here is what the program is able to give me.

Pretty terrible.

I was able to use Midjourney to doctor a portrait of Chaplin to make it serve the interests of my article.  No, sorry, this doesn't work for me.

About Schmidt (2002) 

Lost in Translation (2003)   

Sideways (2004)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) 

The Truman Show (1998)

The Apartment (1960) 

Most of Midjourney's competitors have taken a similar position on the deepfake issue.  Except for one.  Grok.  So, I went to Grok for assistance.  I was happy with the results.  Though the results weren't perfect, the program surpassed my expectations.  

Of course, there were errors.  Grok got Chaplin confused with Buster Keaton in one image.  

I got an even stranger image when I tried to put Chaplin in a scene from Groundhog Day.  The program fused Chaplin with Groundhog Day's actual star, Bill Murray.

These images were better, but they weren't good enough to make it into the video. 

I was intrigued by the Midjourney and Grok rejects on this project.  Let me show you these images.

Midjourney was especially creative when it came to producing images for Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.  

The program insisted that a scene in the film features Jim Carrey sitting on a beach with his boots lying loose in his lap.  I'm sure that this scene doesn't exist.

Click (2006)

 

About Schmidt (2002) 

I don't know where this dachshund came from.

I tried to reimagine About Schmidt's poster.

Groundhog Day (1993)

Harold and Maude (1971)

Punch-Drunk Love (2002) 

I tried to reimagine Punch-Drunk Love's poster.

The Apartment (1960) 

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

The Truman Show (1998)

I worked especially hard to imagine how Sideways would have turned out with Chaplin in charge.  The plot involves a recently divorced English teacher, Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti).  Miles has lost faith in himself because of the divorce.  He has been spending years writing a novel, but he has come to doubt that the novel will ever be published.  

Miles is relieved to be able to accompany his friend, Jack (Thomas Haden Church), on a week-long road trip through California’s wine country. The trip serves as Jack’s bachelor party before his upcoming wedding.  Miles hopes to indulge in fine wine and quiet reflection.  But the carefree Jack is determined to have one last fling before settling down.  Jack's antics create many problems for Miles.  When not coping with his incorrigible friend, Miles desperately searches for meaning and redemption in his unfulfilling life.  

Chaplin would have likely amplified the film's themes of loneliness and lost dreams, presenting them through poetic visuals and tender moments.  His character would have certainly been more optimistic than the sad sack that Giamatti portrays in the film.  Giamatti is relentlessly anxious, unsure and depressed in the role.  I can't see Chaplin behaving that way.  His Tramp character was a resilient little fellow.  With Chaplin at the center of Sideways, the film would have likely been poignant yet whimsical.

Without question, Chaplin would have focused on physical comedy.  How do I imagine this new emphasis would have played out?  Chaplin swirls wine in his mouth to an absurd extreme during a wine tasting scene.

He fumbles with a corkscrew while trying to open a bottle of wine.  

He gets into a chase at a winery and slips on wine that he spills during the commotion.  

In the film, Miles becomes distressed while visiting a winery and desperately wants a drink to calm himself down.  He approaches a staff member who is providing wine samples and asks him to sell him a full bottle of wine.  The staff member indignantly informs Miles, "I am not a bar."  Miles loses his temper and makes a scene.  He defiantly guzzles wine out of a large clay spit bucket.  Chaplin could have made a lot of this scene.

It would have been in line with Chaplin's past films to end Sideways with Miles walking alone down a winding road, carrying a half-empty bottle of Cheval Blanc and the tattered pages of his unfinished manuscript.  

But the film's actual ending is much better than that and is perfectly compatible with Chaplin's work.  Miles grew close to Maya (Virginia Madsen), a waitress, during his trip.  But then Jack had sex with Maya's friend without telling her he is getting married.  Maya is enraged with Miles, who she sees as an accomplice in this awful ruse.  But Maya has second thoughts on the matter and leaves a friendly message on Miles' answering machine.  The film concludes with Miles knocking on Maya's door. The scene fades to black before the audience sees her response, leaving their future open-ended.  This moment shows that Miles is ready to move beyond his insecurities and past failures and take action to improve his life.  This is the hopefulness that Chaplin always promoted.

Here are a few Grok images that didn't make it into the Sideways portion of my video.

I also used Grok to create several general images of Chaplin.

Postscript

I also tried to recast Buster Keaton in The Apartment.  The Midjourney images are interesting, but they did not serve my purposes.

The Grok images were far better.