Is the Light of the City different from Chaplin's other works?

City Lights is movie master Chaplin's last silent film. The biggest difference between it and Chaplin's other works is that "City Lights" gives the audience a happy ending. Most of Chaplin's other silent films have open endings, but this "City Lights" subverts this rule and achieves a happy ending.

The characteristics of Chaplin's films are mostly the reflection of society. Although the protagonist Charlot is an interesting person, the audience can see the sadness and helplessness of the characters to the society from the jokes.

Chaplin's City Lights tells the story of a tramp and a blind girl who sells flowers. The blind girl mistakenly thinks that the tramp is rich. In order to help the blind girl, the tramp pretends to be rich and tries his best to help her and make the blind girl live better. It is this simple and humble feeling that touched countless people. Finally, the blind girl saw the light again under the care of the tramp and saw the world for the first time. At the end of the film, the tramp meets the flower girl, and the tramp's smile simply warms everyone. In the movie "City Lights", such a happy ending made many viewers applaud.

In fact, Chaplin wrote a happy ending for the silent film City Lights for a reason. First, because the market of silent films was further squeezed under the impact of sound films, Chaplin chose such a happy ending because he knew that it could be welcomed by more audiences and win more markets. The second reason is that Chaplin prefers this happy ending in the later stage of his film production, such as Modern Times and The Great Dictator, which are both open and positive.

Generally speaking, City Lights can be regarded as one of Chaplin's representative works in his peak period. Different from the current stream film, this silent black-and-white film became an immortal work of that era through master Chaplin's superb acting skills and compact plot. Although it is a happy ending, it still contains a social atmosphere worth pondering.