Vox Nova At The Movies: Modern Times

Whether one agrees with his political views or not, Charlie Chaplin was one of the greatest, most influential filmmakers of the 20th century. He was a genius who worked at all of the levels of film production: not only was he the lead actor in his films, he could and did write the scripts, compose the music, direct the films, and, of course, produce them. Most people would not be able to handle all of those responsibilities; yet Chaplin handled them all masterfully. It is difficult to decide which film is his best, but I’ve always felt that honor goes to Modern Times.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=f7vQLBHQQUc

The film has some of the funniest scenes of all of Chaplin’s work, and yet, in the midst of the humor, he was able to produce some of his best social commentary. Industrialized society objectifies the human person, and has no qualms against turning people into guinea pigs to test out new products for capitalistic consumption. We see this, for example, in a scene where Chaplin has been recruited to test out an automated eating machine. Its creator suggests the machine will help create more productive factory workers. The results, of course, are disastrously hilarious:

This movie also was the first in which Chaplin spoke, and it was his transition film where he moved from silent films to talkies, and to do so, he mixed both styles in such a way to emphasize his own discontent to the highly regimentalized modern times.