Jean Narboni's New Essay on Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator'
Jean Narboni's essay 'Pourquoi les coiffeurs' (Why the Barbers), published by Éditions Capricci, offers a fresh analysis of Charlie Chaplin's 1940 film 'The Great Dictator'. The subtitle is 'Notes actuelles sur le Dictateur' (Current Notes on the Dictator), and the cover features Chaplin as the 'little Jewish barber'. Narboni, a former Cahiers du Cinéma critic, addresses questions previous commentators—including André Bazin—failed to answer: why the proper names Hynkel, Herring, Napaloni; why 'Jewish barber' rather than 'hairdresser'; the purpose of the long WWI prologue and the final speech; the significance of the famous mustache; the resemblance between Hitler and Chaplin; and the film's music. He also explores dialogues with Jean Genet's 'Pompes funèbres', Bertolt Brecht, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Lanzmann, Napoleon, and Christ. Jacques Henric praises Narboni's literary culture for revealing the bricolage—in Claude Lévi-Strauss's noble sense—behind a great imaginative work engaged with its era's tragicomedies.
Key facts
- Jean Narboni wrote 'Pourquoi les coiffeurs' about Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator'
- Published by Éditions Capricci
- Subtitle: 'Notes actuelles sur le Dictateur'
- Cover image: Chaplin as the 'little Jewish barber'
- Narboni addresses unanswered questions from previous critics like Bazin
- Discusses names Hynkel, Herring, Napaloni
- Compares Chaplin with Genet, Brecht, Nietzsche, Arendt, Adorno, Godard, Lanzmann, Napoleon, Christ
- Jacques Henric wrote the introduction
Entities
Artists
- Jean Narboni
- Charlie Chaplin
- André Bazin
- Jean Genet
- Bertolt Brecht
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Hannah Arendt
- Theodor Adorno
- Jean-Luc Godard
- Claude Lanzmann
- Napoleon
- Christ
- Jacques Henric
- Claude Lévi-Strauss
Institutions
- Éditions Capricci
- Cahiers du Cinéma
Sources
- artpress —