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This is a biography of a true genius, Charles Chaplin, written by a psychoanalyst who has spent many years exploring the life and works of his subject. It is a fascinating, although not a full, biography—rather an attempt at psychobiography that should prove satisfying to the general public as well as to psychoanalysts.
Many have questioned the general value of psychobiography—some even regarding ‘good psychobiography’ as an oxymoron, as biography that inherently oversimplifies. But this book has modest pretensions and provides both pleasure and insight. Weissman has done extensive research and presents impressive scholarly documentation. He himself refers to a more comprehensive ‘Life’ of his subject (that of David Robinson [1985]).
Weissman uses Freud's ideas and assumptions convincingly and he also, happily, delivers his ideas using very little psychoanalytic jargon. He deals in detail mainly with the early life and career of this precocious genius, connecting it to his later work, but we do not hear that much about the years of Chaplin's later life and final successful marriage, although these are sketched out. The author refers to but does not examine or interpret in detail Chaplin's sexual life, marital and extramarital. Chaplin's wives and lovers are not evoked as individuals.
Alongside its psychoanalytic data and comments, the book has a valuable sociological point of view, bringing to life the atmosphere of, and personalities from, the theater, vaudeville, and early filmmaking that surrounded and fostered Chaplin's miraculously successful and creative career. There are many insights about specific marvelous ‘bits’ from Chaplin's movies.
What I find most valuable is Weissman's detailed study of the character and influence of Chaplin's parents, and to a lesser extent his older brother, Sydney, and other parental figures, on Charlie's character and motivations how Charlie's past connected with, and in some measure determined, his then current and future life. T