PANTOMIME AS A COMMUNICATIVE STRATEGY IN CHARLIE CHAPLIN’S SOUND FILMS AND TALKIES
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Date
2026
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Plovdiv University Press
Abstract
The present research paper focuses on Charlie Chaplin’s sound films and talkies, emphasizing the role of pantomime as a communicative strategy in the context of the transition from silent to talking cinema and the subsequent sound-visual synthesis. Based on a number of research studies and the autorsown observations, the text offers a structural and comparative analysis of the following films: “City Lights”, “Modern Times”, “The Great Dictator”, “Monsieur Verdoux”, “Limelight” and “A King in New York”. It represents an original interpretation on how pantomime predominates or is combined in balance with speech, musical theme and sound effects. Attention is paid on Chaplin's desire to preserve the identity of his main character, the Tramp, through a dominant visual expression, despite the emergence of dialog and sound in film. The text traces Chaplin’s subsequent introduction of an innovative model – one displaying an effective combination between pantomime and speech and sound in the film, which confirms the unique communicative style of his films. Up to the present, this approach has attracted not only the interest of various theorists, critics and researchers, but it has also had broad practical significance for the development of film art.
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Charlie Chaplin, pantomime, sound cinema, talkies