Brussels Philharmonic: City Lights (concert film)

Film Music Concert at Flagey: Watch the movie on big screen, live accompanied by Brussels Philharmonic under the baton of Dirk Brossé.

Simply irresistible: The mix of burlesque, melodrama, grace and pantomime turns Chaplin’s last film City Lights(1931) into a masterpiece, not only because of Chaplin’s cinematographic genius, but also because of his musical talent.

Charlie Chaplin: “I tried to compose elegant and romantic music to frame my comedies in contrast to the tramp character, for elegant music gave my comedies an emotional dimension.  Musical arrangers rarely understood this. They wanted the music to be funny.  But I would explain that I wanted no competition, I wanted the music to be a counterpoint of grave and charm, to express sentiment, without which, as Hazlitt says, a work of art is incomplete. Nothing is more adventurous and exciting than to hear the tunes one has composed played for the first time by a fifty piece orchestra."

A must-see movie in black and white, inventive and deeply human, with one of the greatest final scenes in the history of film. 

Flagey, Brussels Philharmonic, Cinematek