How did Chaplin develop his comedic style?
It was observation, pure and simple. Watching the streets, the people, their little habits, their struggles. The way a man tries to maintain dignity when his trousers are falling down, the desperate chase after a loaf of bread, the awkward courtship. These are the kernels of comedy. 'All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman, and a pretty girl,' I once said. It’s about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, the universal in the specific. My Tramp character, he was a distillation of all those observations, a way to express pathos through slapstick, to make you laugh through your tears. It was about empathy, feeling the world.
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