Modern Times is a 1936 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.
Modern Times | |
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File:Moderntimes.jpg | |
Directed by | Charlie Chaplin |
Written by | Charlie Chaplin |
Produced by | Charlie Chaplin |
Starring | Charlie Chaplin Paulette Goddard Henry Bergman Stanley Sandford Chester Conklin |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date | February 5 1936 (USA) |
Running time | 87 min. |
Country | USA |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,500,000 US (est.) |
The factory where the Tramp works has a futuristic look and may have been influenced by Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The factory was equipped with two-way Big Brother-like screens; remarkably Chaplin’s movie was released 13 years before George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The film also bore some similarities to the René Clair film À nous la liberté (Freedom for Us) (1931) -- such as the conveyor belt gags. This resulted in a controversy which lasted around a decade; Chaplin maintaining that he had never seen the film, as did everyone else at the studio. René Clair refused to take part in the case, always maintaining that they were all in debt to Chaplin. In the end, the issue ended with an out-of-court settlement. A speculation over this case was that it was a conspiracy from Nazi-Germany to discredit Chaplin. The production company for À Nous la Liberté, Tobis Klangfilm, was German. It is notable that the settlement was reached only after the end of World War II.
Modern Times was one of the last silent films made, although it does include sound effects, music, singers, and voices coming from radios and loudspeakers. Towards the end of the film the Little Tramp's voice is heard for the first time as he ad-libs pseudo-French and Italian gibberish to the tune of Léo Daniderff's popular song, Je cherche après Titine.
Most of the film was shot at "silent speed", 18 frames per second, which when projected at "sound speed", 24 frames per second, makes the slapstick action appear even more frenetic. Chaplin created this effect deliberately.
In one memorable scene, Chaplin's character looks for a bolt to tighten while he is being pulled through the gears of an enormous machine. This scene is symbolic of Chaplin being the film going through the projector. Another has the Tramp picking up a presumably red warning flag that has fallen off the back of a truck carrying an over-length load, and waving it to attract the driver's attention. He fails to notice that a parade of labor protesters, ostensibly communists attracted to the red flag, have come up behind him. When the police break up the protest they arrest the flag-waving Tramp assuming him to be the protest leader.
The music score was composed by Chaplin himself. The romance theme was later given words and became better known as the song "Smile" ("Smile though your heart is breaking...") and covered by such artists as Judy Garland, Liberace, Nat King Cole, and Michael Jackson.
The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
It is rumored that it is the inspiration for the title of Bob Dylan's 2006 album.
Cast
- Charlie Chaplin - A factory worker
- Paulette Goddard - A gamine
- Henry Bergman - Cafe proprietor
- Chester Conklin - Mechanic
- Stanley Sandford - Big Bill
- Hank Mann - Burglar
- Stanley Blystone - Gamine's father
- Allan Garcia - President of the Electro Steel Corp.
Crew
- Director: Charlie Chaplin
- Producer: Charlie Chaplin
- Screenwriter: Charlie Chaplin
- Director of Photography: Rollie Totheroh, Ira Morgan