Charlie Chaplin: Modern times

Opening of the movie. Modern Times is a 1936 comedy film by Charlie Chaplin that has his famous Little Tramp character struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and fiscal conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in Chaplin’s view, by the efficiencies of modern industrialization. The movie stars Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Stanley Sandford and Chester Conklin. It was written and directed by Chaplin, and marked the final screen appearance of the iconic Tramp character.

In 1989, this film was deemed “culturally significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Modern Times is often hailed as one of Chaplin’s greatest achievements, and it remains one of his more popular films. The iconic depiction of Chaplin working frantically to keep up with an assembly line inspired later comedy routines including Disney’s Der Fuehrer’s Face, an episode of I Love Lucy titled “Job Switching”, and most recently, an episode of Drake & Josh.

This was Chaplin’s first overtly political-themed film, and its unflattering portrayal of industrial society generated controversy in some quarters upon its initial release.

It is important to note that in this Chaplin film, Modern Times, that all the sounds in the film only came from and through machines such as a television or display (Boss yells at him through this device), a phonograph, radio, and machines (sounds of machinery). The reason this is important because all these sounds are used to dehumanize the main character, a factory worker. Also, this film gives us an aspect of how the average factory felt like in those times, because you see how the main character is put under immense pressure (by the head boss and his supervisor) to perform his duties, far beyond his physical abilities.