Walking by the shores of Lac Léman at Vevey, I can’t help
but notice a diminutive bronze statue that stands on its banks ………..of a tramp
like figure in too small a bowler hat, baggy pants, bow legs, ill-fitting boots,
a crooked cane in one hand and clutching a rose in the other; an endearingly
quizzical look on his mustached face …………yes its Charlie Chaplin born this
month (April 16th) 124 years ago.
Vevey or rather Corsier-sur-Vevey (this 3,000 people hamlet
is technically a municipality in its own right) is where Charlie Chaplin spent
the last 25 years of his life in exile from America where he was denied a re-entry
permit following the negative reactions to his movie Limelight. He died and is buried in this town ..at least
I think he is. His tombstone is here in the local cemetery but there is
a story that his body was stolen soon after it was buried there and his widowed
wife was hounded for a hefty ransom. Apparently the thieves were caught and the
body reburied. Sounds like Chaplin was directing events from the other world as
well ……….
While the Swiss Riviera is no stranger to celebrity residents
(think Audrey Hepburn, Freddy Mercury), Vevey does take its love for the Little
Tramp seriously. The statue on the promenade, entire buildings that have
Charlie Chaplin frescoes on their walls and a local artisan chocolatier who handcrafts
chocolates made in the likeness of Charlie Chaplin’s shoes. The Manoir de Ban where he lived is being transformed
into ‘The Modern Times’ museum dedicated to his life and works, it will
open in 2015.
Nothing that Vevey does though can quite match the reverence
paid to Chaplin in the far away little town of Adipur in Gujarat, India. This
little town close to the border with Pakistan, probably unheard of Chaplin in
his lifetime, is home to a Chaplin fan club called Charlie’s Circle with over
300 members. Every year for the last 40 years without fail, on April 16th
dozens of boys and men dress up like the little Tramp, bowler hat and all and parade
through the town accompanied by camel carts and Indian folk dancers and
musicians. The parade is followed by cutting a cake …shaped like Charlie’s
shoes of course and a screening of his films.
My thoughts wander back to the bronze statue by the lake and
to the Chaplinesque juxtaposition. Just some 100 meters away in the shallow
waters of the lake is a large stainless steel fork all of 8 meters tall. How
this piece of modern art came to be in the lake is another story and unrelated to
Chaplin but I can just imagine the hint of a smile forming on the Tramps face
at this incongruity and I can just picture him taking up this giant fork and
turning it into a dance à la the unforgettable fork legs and bread shoes dance in ‘The Gold Rush’.
As perhaps he himself would say ‘ Life is a tragedy when
seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot’.
