The Circus: Geraldine Chaplin in the cinemas of Robert Altman and Alan Rudolph

In many of her American films, Geraldine Chaplin is figured in self-reflexive stories about stardom and self-image, particularly in the films directed by Robert Altman and Alan Rudolph in the 1970s and 1980s: Altman’s Nashville (1975), Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976), and A Wedding (1978); and Rudolph’s Welcome to L.A. (1976), Remember My Name (1978), and The Moderns (1988). In these films, as discussed in this chapter, Chaplin develops a distinctive presence, tapping into her already established persona from the 1960s but in now frequently ironic and self-reflexive ways. Perhaps the best example of this intriguing development in her persona is Chaplin’s role as Opal in Altman’s Nashville, its massive ensemble cast suggestive of a kind of performative circus. Opal, this chapter argues, is a thoroughly ironic variation of the kind of privileged character Chaplin played in some of her 1960s films.