Chaplin - who else can act silly the way he does..... smile, gaze, walk the way, only he does..... and touch, probe and smother your heart the way only He can!!
Modern-Times is another of Chaplin's great works. This 1936 'comedy' has the typical Chaplin-satire written all over it. The iconic-Tramp is shown struggling thorughout the movie, and fighting to survive in the modern, nut-and-bolts industrialized world. The film is a satirical-take on the desperate employment and dismal economic conditions people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, by the efficiencies and of modern, insensitive, break-neck pace of industrialization.
The movie opens with the Tramp (Chaplin) employed in a factory assembly-line. This character suffers the indignation of being force-fed by a 'smart' feeding-machine. The ever-accelerating assembly line, where Chaplin screws in nuts and bolts takes a toll on his mental-health and he's ultimately sent to a mental asylum. The gradual degeneracy of Chaplin into lunacy, owing to the increasing burdens of the profit-seeking, ever-accelerating machinery, and the subtle satire on the overarching inefficient system, is one of the many brilliant sequences of Modern-Times.
The sequence, where Chaplin is mistakenly arrested for being a instigator of a left mediated labour-demonstration, is hilarious and insane.....for the sheer depiction of it.
In probably the finest, inventive and most impressive moment of the cinema, Chaplin accidentally gets physically trapped, battered and bruised in the giant cog-wheels of the huge automatic feeding-machine he's operating. Chaplin's simple-yet-severe depiction of the impending-condition of the average human in the face of a rampant, ceaseless and insensitive modernization is brilliant!! (This scene was probably suggested to Chaplin by a young reporter, who informed him about the production line system in Detroit).
From then on, we are witness to some other escapades of the Tramp. He falls for an orphan, street-urchin (played by the lovely Paulette Godard, one of Chaplin's real-life wives), and from then on its a saga of the beautiful couple pitted against the ruthless forces of riches. Some other sequences follow, where we catch a glimpse of the talented Chaplin dancing on roller-skates blindfolded, to impress his lady love, not realizing he's near to a steep-fall!
A repeat of the caught-in-the-cog-wheels sequence follows, this time with Chaplin's superior, but while extricating him, the lunch-signal goes on, and the Tramp leaves his boss inside the wheels, because it's lunch!! Ultimately he manages to extricate him and lands himself another job at the cafe where the Gamine is a dancer.
Modern-Times ends with the Tramp and the Gamine walking down a road at dawn, towards an uncertain, but bright and hopeful future.
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Modern Times is often hailed as one of Chaplin's greatest achievements, and it remains one of his most popular films. He directed, produced as well as did the screenwriting for this cinema. Chaplin began preparing the film in 1934 as his first "talkie", but abandoned the idea since he held a notion that the 'beauty' and appeal of the tramp character would be lost if he ever spoke! He was right!!
The picture is awesome and kind of sums up the feel of modern times.... the blog is quite interesting and clearly reflects the Chaplin fan in you...
ReplyDeleteknowing you.. i think definitely (maybe) there is a big room for improvement in your blog...
may i suggest a word for Chaplin-satire... Chaplinesque satire.