In 1952, when Charlie Chaplin and his family were mid-Atlantic, en route to England for his movie première of Limelight, his U.S. visa was suddenly revoked. After 40 years of living and working in Hollywood as one of the greatest cinematic artists of all time, he was being labelled a suspected communist and told he could not return to U.S. soil.
The man who’d created the beloved “Little Tramp,” was suddenly homeless. Where would he live?
Chaplin chose a large 19th-century mansion, called Manoir de Ban, on a pretty hillside outside Vevey, Switzerland, overlooking Lake Geneva and the Alps. There, he and his fourth wife Oona raised eight children as he lived out the last 25 years of his life, dying at age 88 in 1977.
Now, after more than 15 years in planning and development, that 14-hectare estate on the Swiss Riviera has opened this year as Chaplin’s World, an immersive, interactive museum devoted to his extraordinary life and work.
I’d always loved Chaplin, growing up watching his films, appreciating his acrobatic grace, his impeccable comic timing, and his humanistic stories in classics such as The Kid, City Lights, The Gold Rush, and Modern Times. But I knew nothing of the man and his life.
So on a recent trip to Switzerland, I detoured to take in the brand-new museum, which opened April 17, the day after what would have been Chaplin’s 127th birthday. The museum is located between Lausanne and Montreux in Switzerland’s Vaud region, noted for its vineyards, temperate weather and scenic landscape.
I thought I would spend a few hours at most poking around the grounds and manor. After all, how engrossing could a museum devoted to a silent film star be?
Very engrossing, I discovered. I spent six hours there and could have spent more. Chaplin, I learned, was much more than a talented Hollywood star. He was one of the 20th century’s greatest rags-to-riches stories, a controversial figure on whom the FBI kept a file for more than 40 years, and a bona fide genius who not only wrote, produced, acted and directed all his own films, but taught himself piano, cello and violin, composed popular songs, scored all his own movies, and even conducted the orchestra.
With the full co-operation of Chaplin’s children, the new museum is the brainchild of Canadian curator Yves Durand and Swiss architect Phillippe Meylan. Along with a restaurant, event space and gift shop, it consists of three main parts: the renovated manor, the extensive grounds and a newly-built Hollywood-style studio. Rather than interpret Chaplin for viewers, the creators let Chaplin’s own words, films and documents tell his story. It is as if Chaplin himself is the guide through his life and creations. Adding to the experience are more than 30 life-like wax figures of Chaplin, Oona (daughter of playwright Eugene O’Neill) and other contemporary figures such as Albert Einstein and Sophia Loren.
“The museum is very lively and well done, making his films and life relevant to a modern generation,” said visitor Evelyne Cazagnan, who lives across the lake in the French town of Evian. She had come over by ferry that day to explore the region’s newest attraction, one of hundreds of people of all ages who visited the day I was there.
One of the reasons the museum took so long to come to fruition after Chaplin’s heirs gave their permission in 2000 was that locals had tried at first to block it, fearing a Disneyland-like zoo. They needn’t have feared. Tasteful, artistic, well-conceived and executed, the museum will likely prove a tourist boon to the region for years to come.
First is its lovely setting. The expansive grounds are halfway up a hill, looking down over vineyards and the scenic town of Vevey to Lake Geneva and the blue snowcapped-Alps beyond. To me, the site looked remarkably like standing on the rise of Vancouver’s Point Grey, looking down over the waters of English Bay to the North Shore Mountains. I started my visit by walking the garden paths of grounds, enjoying the views and the layout of the estate.
Next, I explored the renovated manor. Some of the rooms have been converted to thematic displays: Chaplin and the press, Chaplin and Einstein, Chaplin and the luminaries he worked with and inspired. Other rooms have been staged as if we are transported via a time machine into the family’s life in the 1950s and 60s, experiencing Chaplin’s study, where he wrote and composed, the family dining room set for dinner, his bedroom and bathroom, the library where he watched family films with Oona.
I particularly liked the way the rooms incorporated the period furniture, but also showed details of the family’s lives through documents, photographs, film clips and displays.
The studio portion of the museum starts with a short film that runs every 10 minutes or so. Then the screen rises and each viewing group is ushered first into a set depicting 1890s south London, where we learn of Chaplin’s poverty-stricken upbringing: his music-hall parents, the desertion by his alcoholic father and his mother’s mental illness and institutionalization.
At age seven, Chaplin and his older brother were sent to a workhouse as virtual orphans. By age 12, he was living on the streets by his wits. His tragic early years are heartbreaking. It made his meteoric rise on his mimicry and acrobatics all the more remarkable. By his early 20s, he was the world’s most famous and wealthy silent-film star. Before age 30, he had made 61 of his 87 films.
The studio includes a rendition of the famous teetering house in Gold Rush, the mechanical gears that gobble him up in Modern Times, his editing studio and the barbershop set from The Great Dictator.
In all the sets, clips of the associated films run in a constant loop. But for me, perhaps the most moving clip was Chaplin in 1972, a few years from his death, finally welcomed back to the U.S., to accept an honorary Oscar. Visibly moved, he gets a 12-minute standing ovation, the longest in the award’s history, for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century.”
Anne Mullens is a Victoria freelance writer.
If you go
Chaplin’s World is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Christmas and New Year’s. Admission is 23 CHF ($30) for adults and 17 ($22) CHF for children. Located at Route de Fenil 2-6, 1804 Corsier sur Vevey, the museum has 230 parking spaces. By car, the museum is 60 minutes from Geneva or Bern, 25 minutes from Lausanne, and 15 minutes from Montreux; take highway A9, exit at Vevey. The excellent Swiss train system has regular stops at Vevey; take bus 212 from the station to the Chaplin stop. See chaplinsworld.com
Accommodation: The new four-star Modern Times Hotel, a few minutes away by car or shuttle off the A9, is a Chaplin-themed hotel. Its 138 rooms are bright, contemporary and well-appointed. It has an excellent restaurant, popular with business travellers as well as tourists. In high season, rooms start at 220 CHF ($290) a night. See moderntimeshotel.ch
