Loneliness

There's a moment in Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush that perfectly captures the feeling of loneliness in a singular, unforgettable image. Chaplin awakes from a dream in which his love interest, Georgia, and her friends attend his New Year's Eve party as they had promised. In his dream, he has impressed them with one of the film's most dazzling sequences, a dance performed with two pieces of bread. After he awakes, he realizes that they have in fact not shown up. He hears a noise coming from outside his home and opens the door to hear the denizens of the town, including his love interest, celebrating at the local bar. A medium shot of Chaplin with the door partially ajar cuts to a close-up of his face.

Thomas Prieto