'The Kid', the film in which Charlot found emotion

There are two motives, but only one reason, for The Kid, the first feature film made by Charles Chaplin and therefore by Charlot, to return to the big screen now. The two motives or impulses are that movie theaters, the few that operate with some "normality," suffer from the lack of those big premieres that mobilize viewers, and that The Kid is celebrating its centenary right now, having first premiered on February 6, 1921, in New York. The reason, or main argument, is that The Kid is also a masterpiece of cinematic art, imperishable and fresh in its language, and it retains all its virtues intact, both to make audiences laugh and to move viewers of any era.

A baby is abandoned by his mother in a car next to a rich mansion and, subsequently, by two petty thieves who steal that car; the tramp Charlot finds him and some caricaturesque circumstances force him to take care of him, in a perfect combination of tragicomedy. Years later, the paternal-filial fusion between the tramp and his now child son is absolute, almost genetic in form, spark, and substance, and a series of adventures ensue that are the soul of the story: moments of great comedy, such as when Charlot carries glass to repair, in exchange for a few coins, the windows that the child previously and calculatedly breaks (with a watchful policeman, naturally), or like the fight between neighborhood children and his son in the middle, which forces him to fight with the strong brother of one of them; and moments, also, of enormous emotion, such as when social services want to take his son away and the screen is flooded with silent and moist feelings.

Not even Chaplin could suspect that someone could dispute the best of the shot with his Charlot, but the child Jackie Coogan, a prodigy of expressiveness and grace, rose to the genius's level and managed to give the story an unparalleled depth and emotional stature (in fact, the child Coogan later did not maintain a professional acting career worthy of his beginning, although he can be remembered as Uncle Fester from The Addams Family).

The 4K restored version that can now be seen on screen corresponds to the cut that Chaplin made in 1971 of the filmed material, in which he suppressed some scenes of the baby's mother (Edna Purviance). Chaplin made the first cut by hand in a hotel room, as he fled with the film reels after the film's embargo and a disagreement with the producers. In a way, The Kid, which is already among Chaplin's dozen masterpieces, configured the first great change of the Tramp, a character who highlighted all the scars and virtues of the individual and society of the last century (it would not be difficult to extend them to this one), and who delved into the nooks and crannies of the human soul in all his subsequent work and in titles such as The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux or Limelight.