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MODERN TIMES
Charlie Chaplin, USA, 1936
Saturday 4 October 2003 9.15pm-10.40pm
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The 'Little Tramp' works in a futuristic factory where every move is monitored on camera and the brutal management employ any means necessary to ensure maximum productivity. This extends to rebuking the workers for any rest they may need and mechanically feeding the Tramp at his post. He endures a number of calamities, such as the feeding device malfunctioning and becoming ensnared in the factory's machinery before he cracks.
After losing his grip on reality he runs amok before a white-coated attendant leads him off for psychiatric treatment. When cured he joins the masses of unemployed and attempts to "start life anew", but everywhere he finds a dehumanized world which waltzes on the edge of insanity.
Modern Times is a film born of anger and despair. Chaplin observed his beloved art of movie-making being turned into little more than an assembly-line process and this work, his final to feature the Little Tramp, highlights the soulless tragedy of this evolution. Of course, he recognises the syndrome occurring everywhere in the midst of the Great Depression and when his character becomes trapped in the cogs of the inhumane factory he suggests a society mangled and mauled by modernity. His plea is for individualism and although anti-establishment in tone, the film acknowledges the need for fair work and order.
Overlooking the subtleties of Modern Times, the Nazis denounced the film - always a good sign - and it was banned in Germany where the burgeoning fascist movement accused it of promoting communism. Ironically, Chaplin faced similar claims several years later in his adopted country of America, where misdirected bile forced his return to England.
Chaplin's timing and extraordinary imagination are employed to brilliant effect, making this a comic as well as cautionary tale. Along with The Great Dictator, it represents Chaplin at his satirical best. More than seven decades after its release, the film remains modern - fresh and funny but also a relevant and poignant crie de coeur.
Gavin Collinson
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Chaplin not only starred in Modern Times, but directed, produced, wrote and provided the score for the movie.
