Like Snow White in her Disneyland forest. Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid is a tale whose underlying① archetype has attracted audiences of all ages—the abandoned child found in the wilderness. But unlike his more privileged② mythological predecessors， who at least had the good fortune to be deposited in lush， natural surroundings， Chaplin’s castoff child is discovered among the shabby detritus of modern society. A garbage-strewn alley in the dirty Red Light District in Los Angeles’ Chinatown of the 1920s serves as the shooting location， re-creating a mean street from Chaplin’s feral boyhood in the slums of South London.
Ambling down the alley， taking his daily constitutional while swiftly ducking the flying garbage③ swiftly ducking the flying garbage pushed by householders from the building windows above， the Little Tramp appears. With too gentle manners， he slips off his gloves before selecting a cigarette butt from his smoking case， an old sardine can， just as he is about to surrender himself to the joys of his first smoke of the day， his tranquility is shattered by the squalling infant who has been abandoned on the garbage heap. Plaintively demanding to be heard by someone anyone.
Taking one glance at that miserable④ child， streetwise Charlie instinctively looks up as if to quiz both the refuse-throwing householders and the heavens above as to just exactly where this baby has come from. But before he can even begin to explore that question， a rapid-fire series of comic interactions with a neighborhood cop firmly establishes Charlie’s embarrassment of mistaken paternal identity： like it or not， once he demonstrates his better nature by resisting his impulse to toss the unwanted baby down the nearest sewer， the kid is his for life. What follows is a series of wandering father-son adventures for this castoff life from the Industrial Revolution in this comedy that Chaplin introduces in his opening title card as “a picture with a smile—perhaps a tear.”
Perhaps！ As the lights go up， audience reveals⑤ that there hasn’t been a dry eye in the house. But what is so startling about Chaplin’s comedy of fathering a lost baby is the fact that be first conceived and immediately began to shoot this film barely two weeks after the death of his own three-day-old， firstborn infant son. Having turned his personal pain to such a creative purpose， he gets us to break bread with him and take communion with his grief and loss.
By chancing upon a universal form—the myth of the lost child—to express his own loss， Chaplin succeeds in inviting the whole gang in， European intellectuals， London tradesmen， and all the “kids” of the world can and do receive Charlie’s pantomime tale with empathy.
But to say that grief-stricken Chaplin accidentally stumbled⑥ on the lost kid myth happens to suggest an effect of the Little Tramp’s nimblest pratfalls. If ballet is in Charlie’s bones， the sorrowful nostalgia of bittersweet loss already was in Chaplin’s soul—long before his loss over his firstborn child. Periodically left to care for himself by his own alcoholic father and psychotic mother， Charlie already knew what being an abandoned kid was all about—living on the streets， dodging the cops and orphanage authorities， scavenging to survive.
While losing his son undoubtedly reawakened those old boyhood memories. Their artistic treatment took place with Charlie’s heart， not his head， And the idea probably succeeds because it is largely unconscious rather than self-conscious autobiography⑦.
A few days after his personal tragedy， tough-minded Charlie， the professional actor who had clawed his way out of the slums， zipped up his pain and got on with it. Taking the slapstick route， he quarried for bits and shticks， not archetypes and myths. Father and son—practically encounter each other by chance at one of life’s crossroads， so Charlie’s fatherless kid and Chaplin the childless father accidentally meet in a London lane. Unlike their ancient predecessors， whose hearts are filled with mistrust and hate， Charlie Chaplin and the lost child are filled with yearning⑧ and affection. And so their tale is a bittersweet ballad of love and hate.
① underlyingadj. 含蓄的，潜在的，基本的，根本的
② privilegedadj. 享有特权的，特许的，幸运的
③ garbagen. 【主美】垃圾，剩菜，废物
④ miserableadj. 痛苦的，不幸的
⑤ revealv. 展现，显露出
⑥ stumblev. 绊脚，绊倒
⑦ autobiographyn. 自传
⑧ yearningn. 思念，渴望
查理·卓别林
如同迪斯尼乐园森林中的“白雪公主”，查理·卓别林的“寻子遇仙记”也是一部童话故事，其隐含的原形——那个在荒野中所找到的被遗弃的孩子——吸引了男女老少的观众。以前那些受到厚爱的神话人物至少有幸被搁置在葱翠、自然的环境中，但卓别林的这个被遗弃的孩子却是被置于现代社会里的破砖碎瓦中。拍摄地点是在二十年代洛杉矶唐人街里肮脏的红灯区，一条遍布垃圾的小巷，这再现了卓别林桀骜不驯的童年所生活的伦敦南部一条简陋街道的情景。
瘦小的流浪汉出现了，他沿着这条小巷缓步而行，做着每天的健身散步，轻巧地躲避楼上窗子里房主扔出的垃圾。他过分文雅地脱掉手套，从当作烟盒的沙丁鱼罐里找出一只烟蒂。就在他要陶醉于这天第一口烟的欢乐时，那个被遗弃在垃圾堆里的似乎故意要让别人听见的哀嚎婴儿撕碎了他的安宁。
看了一眼这个痛苦的孩子，熟悉都市生活的卓别林本能地仰起头，似乎要向扔垃圾的房主和上苍打听孩子到底是从哪儿来的。可他还没来得及去考虑那个问题，与附近一个警察一连串的喜剧过场就注定查理要陷入错为人父的尴尬境地：不管喜欢与否，他抑制住了要把这个遗弃的孩子丢入附近污水沟的冲动，这种更为善良的天性刚一显露，此生此世孩子便属于他了。接下来是这对流浪父子在这个工业革命所造就的流浪生活中历险的喜剧故事，卓别林在片头字幕上写道：“一部既使人发笑又可能使人一掬同情之泪的影片。”
可能！当剧院灯光亮时，观众的眼睛都是潮湿的。但卓别林的这部抚养一个被丢弃孩子的喜剧，令人称奇的是从他失去自己第一个出生仅三天的亲生孩子到构思并立即投入拍摄，前后只用了两星期。他将自身的苦痛转化成如此创意，使我们能与他一同品味其间的痛苦与损失。
卓别林以一种常见的形式——被丢弃孩子的故事，恰好表达了他失去亲人的哀愁，他成功地引入了三教九流的角色。中国农民，班图部落人，欧洲的知识分子，伦敦商人，以及全世界的“孩子”能而且的确对查理的哑剧故事表露同情。
说到受痛苦打击的卓别林碰巧被那个丢弃的孩子绊倒的故事，这正好引出他瘦小流浪汉轻巧地跌坐在地的效果。如果说说查理有跳芭蕾的天赋，那么他心灵上早已有了这种伤感怀旧的苦与乐——早在他失去头一个孩子之前，曾几何时，他被酗酒的父亲和精神错乱的母亲所抛弃，不得不自己照顾自己，查理早已深谙一个被抛弃孩子的全部生活——露宿街头，闪躲着警察和孤儿院官员，靠拣食维持生命。
失去骨肉无疑又唤醒了他对旧时童年的记忆，对往事的艺术加工在查理心里进行着，而非在头脑之中。查理的创意取得了成功，因为它完全是无意识的，而不是自我意识的自传。
在查理个人悲剧的几天后，意志坚强的他，一个从贫民窟里摸爬滚打出来的专业演员，重整旗鼓继续他的事业。本着打闹剧的戏路，他挖掘小角色与滑稽场面，而不是主题与神话。父与子——本是偶然相遇在人生的十字路上，因而查理的这个失去父亲的孩子和卓别林这个失去孩子的父亲邂逅在伦敦的街道上。与以往他们的原型不同，那些人的心中充满了猜疑与憎恨，而查理·卓别林与这个丢弃的孩子之间充满了渴望与慈爱。因此他们的故事就如同一首爱恨交织、苦中有甜的抒情诗。