you. When Robert Payne wrote „The Great
Charlie" he tought of the fleet-footed god Pan
- a Greek name which means „Everything".
Pan, son of Hermes, delighted in everything,
just like Charlie, who couid even meet strokes
of adversity with light-footed, poetic humour.
Had I been a poet or a philosopher I
couid have gone into the origin of your art,
into Greek mythology, where we can tracé so
many of the eternal values of our civilisation,
even of the most modern of its expressions:
the art of cinematography. Now, I should like
to confine myself to quoting a few lines from
Robert Payne's book:
„The great god Pan" he says „is the
high and presiding genius of sensuality who
is also the mocker of sensuality, the laughter
amoung the ieaves, the solemn rogue who
sits at the pit of every man's stomach, the
eternal wanderer on the high cliffs of the
mind take everthing away, and he remains.
In his purest form he appeared on the screen
for the first time in February 1914. He came
jauntily, swinging his cane symbol of the
goatherd Pan's flowering staff wearing a
seedy cutaway, a dilapidated derby hat, enor-
mous out-turned boots, baggy pants and an
absurd toothbrush moustache. Though he was
hungry and down-at-heel, he looked as if he
owned the place and there was something of
a prince about him".
Mr. Chaplin, had I been a poet, these might
have been my words. Not being a poet, though,
who couid sing of the poetical character cre-
ated by you, in order to perform my task well,
l should at least have been a psychologist
who couid have analysed why and by what
means Charlie the tramp, Charlie the defender
of the right-to-live of the humble, the poor,
the oppressed, Charlie with the generous heart,
has been able to charm millions of people,
of all ages, of all colours, of all social con-
ditions, or all intellectual levels. Had I been
a psychologist I would have wanted to ana
lyse why this shabby little man has such an
immense sence of human dignity, why in the
humblest of circumstances he couid still live
and behave with decorum, why his and our
conscience were clear in spite of his little lies,
his petty larcenies, why the little flower he
would clumsily offer to a girl, moved us more
than the most passionate of love scènes be-
autifully performed on the stage or the screen.
Here is material for a psychologist - which I
am not. I am just one of the millions who
have been moved by the man you created,
whom you made laugh, who lived through
your adventures, you set backs, your little joys
I am just one of the millions who had this
feeling of being very close to you.
It is in that spirit I want to talk to you now
as one of those who are grateful that your
great talent has enabled them to step out of
the daily rut for a few moments to join in the
adventures of that kind, chivalrous, stubborn
creature of that very little man against the
big, big world: Charlie the tramp.
In your mémoires you teil us of an old actress
who was in tears when she was watching the
rehearsal of a picture in which you had been
fired and you were miming appealingly that
you had a large family of little children. At
that moment you realized for the first time
that you had the ability to draw tears as well
as laughter. Never shall we forget how moved
we were by some unforgettable scènes of this
marvellous picture „The Kid"; never shall we
forget how we laughed with a very tender fee
ling inside when you so delicately banqueted
on a shoe and a string in „The Gold Rush",
and how we breathlessly watched the dance
of the little buns in that same film. I mention
only a few of the highlights amongst so many
others: never shall we forget our shouts of
laughter when in „City Lights" you had
swallowed a whistle and how it blew with every
hiccough. And how many tender scènes do we
owe to that same picture! We think of all the
humor, the foolishness and the melancholy in
Modern Times, where you were moved by the
growing madness of a technocratie society.
You have often been moved by social injus-
tice, Mr. Chaplin, by the hopeless outlook for
the underdog, by the loneliness of the dis-
abled, by the struggle for live of the disinhe-
rited. The way in which you made us take
part was not complicated - you went straight
to the point and did not complicate the pro-
blems with Freudian or other scientific noti-
ons. And yet you succeeded in arousing the
admiration of people like Einstein, Debussy,
Shaw. Why? Because what Charlie did went
straight to the heart, he didn't follow the con-
volutions of our brains however important
they may be at times but in a straight line,
without detours, with foolishness and tender-
ness he went for our very hearts. And because
every human being has a heart, even though
sometimes he is ashamed to admit it, you
were able to reach everyone and I am certain
it will please you to hear that some of the
renowned intellectuals amoung those who this
time were to decide on the granting of the
prize, made the most glowing pleas on behalf
of your art.
Mr. Chaplin, in the development of movie pic-
tures during the first half of this century you
have been of the greatest significance. The
hardships of your youth, of which you teil us
so absorbingly in your mémoires, the artistic
talent you owe to your father and perhaps
even more to your mother, gave you an early
start in earning your life on the stage. Of your
mother you write that she illuminated for you
„the kindliest light this world has ever known:
love, pity and humanity". But in that same
period you have had to fight hunger and the
fear of tomorrow. All of life's experiences have
helped you perfect your creation, Charlie, to
make him a more thruthful mirror of human
nature. He grew to a mixture of grandeur and
weakness, of pity and severity, of obstinacy
and uncertainty, of naïveté and loneliness, of
ruthlessness and tenderness. Your life has
been blessed with true friendships, but you
have also known loneliness. About the wel-
come given you in New York in 1916 by a
crowd of admirers you wrote: „Everybody knew
me, I knew nobody".
You continued to study human nature. Human
nature also at its lowest depth. Shortly before
the war you feit by intuition the dangers that
threatened us, the tragedy Europe was heading
for. Everything inside you, which during all
those long years had stood up for the under
dog, for social justice even though you
never used a big word like that for indivi-
dual freedom, rebelled. The result was your
film „The Great Dictator". I know that some
have said that in this picture you failed to
exposé the essence of facism, that you should
have paid more attention to the ideological
misapprehensions. I don't know but I don't
think that that is what you had in mind. What
I do know is that the struggle of the insigni-
ficant but indomitable little jew, of that repre-
sentative of a tiny piece of human dignity,
against the mighty but abominable dictator,
has within many in America ignited a spark
- and as always it was a tiny little spark-in-
the heart, lit by humor. In doing so you have
rendered Europe and the world a great service.
That is why in this country which has also
suffered so badly from the war and where we
value human dignity highly, we wish to honour
you today with the prize that bears the name
of that great European, Erasmus.
But not because of that alone.
It is because you throughout your entire
oeuvre - have succeeded in making children
understand the things for which the grown-ups
are responsible.and to conjure up before the
eyes of the grown-ups the purity of a childlike
heart. It is because for almost a life time you
have made us undergo the pathetic emotion
which only a very great clown can evoke. It
is because you have moved us and made us
laugh as no-one else has been able to do in
a life-time.
Mr. Chaplin, it fills me with pride to pay
tribute with this award to the man who will
remain in our memory as the one, who after
every adventure, after the great catastrophe or
the great sacrifice, slowly disappears from our
field of vision, and then, with a little shrug of
the shoulders, a little dancing step and a
swing of his cane, has the courage to start all
over again: Charlie, the eternal, kind, sensi-
tive, indestructible nobleman!
ADDRESS BY HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE PRINCE OF THE NETHERLANDS
THE AWARDING OF THE PRIZE
TO INGMAR BERGMAN
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Your
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
From different sources and as it has been
said by the Chairman, you all know by now
that Mr. Ingmar Bergman has been prevented
from coming to Amsterdam because of a se-
rious illness. A few weeks ago, when our
director Mr. Sluizer visited him in Stockholm
he was quite confident that he would be able
to attend this ceremony and pleased and
happy to do so. For us it would have been
a great pleasure to have him and Mrs. Berg
man with us today. We would have liked to
pay a tribute to him personally, and I am sure
you would have liked to acclaim him. Alas,
the improvement in his health has not been as
satisfactory as the doctors and he himself had
hoped for and finally on their firm advice
he was not allowed to leave Stockholm. There-
fore, and first of all, I wish to express my
personal best wishes for his rapid and com
plete reoovery and I would like to do this also
on your behalf. I hope you will agree that we
shall let him know our feelings by telegram.
Mr. Bergman has asked his best friend, Mr.
Kenne Fant, director of the Swedish Film In-
dustry, with whom he has been working for
20 years, to represent him on this occasion
and so l welcome you, Mr. Fant and Mrs. Fant,
and I would like to thank you for coming to
Amsterdam, from where you may convey per
sonally to Mr and Mrs. Bergman together
with the prize, the feelings of this gathering.
You have heard a few moments ago which
were the grounds for granting the Erasmus
Prize 1965 to Ingmar Bergman. The various
reasons all have my full approval, but among
them there is one which has struck me in
particular because it in itself qualifies the
high level of his work. I mean the one which
says that he has continously made high de-
mands on the receptivity of the public and
something which is of great importance that
this public in its understanding, in its ability
to enter into the problems of the mind and
the soul, has fully come up to his expectations.
This in itself is an award which makes the
Erasmus Prize a pale one. Undoubtedly to
part of the public, which on the whole is in-
clined to take it easy, an evening out is not
synonymous with a film of Ingmar Bergman.
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