A favorite photo of mine. I don’t know who took it or if there’s more in the set, but if someone knows, please let me know.
Clara Bow
Uh-oh.
“And the genius of Chaplin is attested by the fact that he decided to end the movie in such a brusque, unexpected way, at the very moment of the tramp’s exposure the film does not answer the question “Will the girl accept him or not?” - The idea that she will and that the two of them will live happily ever after has no foundation whatsoever in the film … it is over at the moment of absolute uncertainty and openness when the girl - and, together with her, we the spectators - is confronted directly with the question of the “love for her neighbor”. Is this ridiculous, clumsy creature whose massive presence strikes us all of a sudden with an almost unbearable proximity really worthy of her love?”
-Žižek, Enjoy Your Symptom! (1992). On the ending of Chaplin’s film City Lights.
When … Lacan emphasizes Freud’s restraint towards the Christian “love for one’s neighbor,” he has in mind precisely such embarrassing dilemmas: it is easy to love the idealized figure of a poor, helpless neighbor, the starving African or Indian, for example; in other words, it is easy to love one’s neighbor as long as he stays far enough away from us, as long as there is a proper distance separating us. The problem arises the moment when he comes too near us, when we start to feel his suffocating proximity - at this moment when the neighbor exposes himself to us too much, love can suddenly turn to hatred.
Ryan Gosling of Dead Man’s Bones.