95. Modern Times (1936)

Directed By Charlie Chaplin

Synopsis

The tramp goes crazy working in an assembly line. He meets a little orphan girl and together they fight to stay employed, nourished, and with a roof over their heads.

Review

This is the best of Chaplin films on the list without a shadow of a doubt. From the beggining to the end the film is simply brilliant. This is the first Chaplin film that I actually laughed out loud through it.

It was a strange but fortunate decision that Chaplin made when he decided to make this a silent film. We are really not at a time when silent films were done anymore, but the Tramp was definitely a being who lived in silence. The film is not totally silent of course, there are about a dozen lines in all of it, mostly sounds from the radio or people speaking of camera, and the Tram breaks his silent, although he says nothing.

In a great scene near the end the Tramp actually sings, a completely gibberish song. You finally get the Tramp to speak and he doesn't say anything that makes sense. This was the only way it made sense to break the vow of silence, by not making sense. The silent format also gives the film the charm that it needs in order to make the character of the Tramp to work on an emotional level, both as a pathetic figure and a comedic one.

There are parts of the film which were clearly lifted from Rene Clair's A Nous La Liberte, but the films are different enough for it to be more than a tribute or a big nod from Chaplin to Clair. Clair actually recognised this and accepted that immitation was the sincerest form of flattery, and they remained friends. The similarities are mainly the ending and the scenes at the factory's assembly line. A good film, get it at Amazon UK or US.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The music score was composed by Chaplin himself. The romance theme was later given words and became better known as the song "Smile" 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. Its depiction of Chaplin working frantically to keep up with an assembly line has inspired later comedy routines including Disney's Der Fuehrer's Face and an episode of I Love Lucy titled "Lucy in the Candy Factory."

The Tramp sings!: