Charlie Chaplin and the Modern Times

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The great depression seen
through Charlie Chaplin's
eyes.

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1936, The Great Depression. It was a time caracterized by high
unemployment rates and social issues. It started after 1929's
economic crises (Wall Street bank crises), during Hoover presidency.
He was not able to find effective solutions and people were more and
more in despair.
During that period there was the emergeance of Hoovervilles (shanty
towns/ slums), renamed after the president. People went on the streets
to protest, they needed social measures. FDR became president in
1932 and made series of measures with the New Deal but people were
still in misery so they demonstrated in the streets because they had
lost hope. For exemple: 1,5 million workers took part in 1,800 strikes in
1934. Its only from 1935 to 1938 that FDR started a 2nd New Deal,
more radical, aimed at helping workers.
“Modern Times” came out in theaters in 1936 exactly in the period of
transition between the 1st and the 2nd New Deal. It depicts the climate
of tension in which people lived in America before the 2nd New Deal.
This climate with the rise of unemployment and the decline of living
conditions, is presented through the story of two ordinary people
confronted to the events.
Context:

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I'm going to explain what the movie is about:
It is a Comedy. Its aim is to show and denounce some aspects of the society
by the use of comedy.
Summary: The Main character of the movie is Little Tramp. He is very
famous in Chaplin's movies.
He works in a big factory. His work is to tighten bolts and has to do it faster
and faster .. until he will turn crazy. He is then confronted to a lot of events
which led him to jail. When he will get out, he works as a watchman in a mall
and then as a waiter.
The orphan “Gamin” played by Paulette Goddard goes along with him in
those adventures.
The movie :

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I/ Analysis of the movie
II/ Problems
III/ Impact of the movie
Conclusion
How does the movie modern times describes the
american society of the 1930's ?

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Paulette Godard & Charlie Chaplin
● A couple :
Chaplin's wishes
The couple with Paulette Godard
represented as "neither rebels nor
victims, but, wrote Chaplin, ”The
only two live spirits in a world of
automatons. We are children with
no sense of responsibility, whereas
the rest of humanity is weighed
down with duty. We are spiritually
free”. In a sense, then, they are
anarchists." Idea of liberty, trying to
survive the change of the society,
hope is really present (hope to
have a home / job → take every
opportunity to get a job ex: in the
big store, when the factories
reopen / Final scene: he cheers
her up and never stop believing in
the future).

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● A silent movie
Chaplin made the choice of not using dialogues. (silent movie)
He first did one, but quickly changed his mind because it didn't
correspond to this type of comedy.
The only voice we can hear is the voice of the boss in the factory
but through a microphone. We can hear Chaplin's voice when he
sings the Charabia song. It is used as a comic device to show the
big comical aspect of Little Tramp.
“Dialogue, to my way of thinking, always slows action,
because action must wait upon words.” It means the action can't
be undestood instantly with words.
The movie is silent but there is some music that helps the
members of the audience to understand what is on the screen.
Chaplin is the author of the music (as he usually does in his
movies).
He also is the creator of the effect of sounds.
(ex: "For a scene involving rumbling stomachs, he created the
noises himself by blowing bubbles into a pail of water. ")

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● Industrialization
Main themes
→ Apparition of new
techinques of work, boss can
watch the workers using
cameras and big screens
even in the lavatory.
→ Very famous scene when
Chaplin is swallowed by the
machines -> metaphor. Man
and humanity are swallowed
by industrialization

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● Robotization
● New tendencies
Robotization. It has a big part in that movie, and it is shown through
exaggeration and humour.
→ There is the scene with the robot which is supposed to feed the
workers, without having to move a finger. It is a reference to Ford who
tried to separate every tasks in industry in order to work faster and do
not waste energy. There are some men around Chaplin who try to
operate the machine (faire fonctionner)but it is not well finished and
does anything (faire n'importe quoi).
This shows the limits of machines, as it can't do anything we want. It is a proof rich
people have gone too far in thinking they can replace human beings by robots only to
improve their productivity.
Let's see what was the impact on people. It is very close to the previous themes but at
that time, we could see people being influenced by the new tendencies. In fact, it raised
the standards of living since new materials and products were available for public use.
There was the arrival of the household appliancies (électroménager) for example.

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The appearance of hypermarkets made possible for people to have
choice and lower prices. As a consequence, the consumer credit
(crédit à la consommation) was created to help people equip
themselves. Thanks to this and the help of advertisement, there was
an increase in consumption (hausse de la conso).
There is a scene in the movie that shows a store with a lot of things to
buy. Charlie Chaplin and his girlfriend are alone in the store and they
use everything they can (eat the cake, use the roller skate...)
More and more people moved in the cities and their lives changed.
Their life time was more structured because of the factories. Breaks,
time for lunch and work schedules are well-defined.
The image of the clock pointing 6 hours at the beginning refers to the
hour when a large part of the population wakes up to go to work.
That is why they all are in front of the factory at the same time. In this
image, Charlie Chaplin is recognizable because of his dark clothes. He
is as a black sheep among all the other men, and reprensented this
way because he will be the one who will bring disorder in the factory.

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→ Scene when he and the girl dream of a house with their cow, dream of
simple life different from the one in usine with a lot of unemployment.;
→ Their actual house, reference to hoovervilles, slums. They can't afford a
decent place to live in. They live in misery.
→ Scene with the strike Chaplin got into by accident. Here comic devices are
used but it shows people were demonstrating about the really bad situation at
that time.
→ Scene of people trying to make their way to go into the reopened factory
because they need job.
● Unemployment

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II/ Problems
Conclusion

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II/ Problems
The period
● Speed up the rhythm
● New diseases
At that time, people are supposed to work always faster and faster.
A good production is fine, also is the increase in consumption... but
the necessity to work fast and by repeating the same mouvements
all day long brought new diseases among the workers:
There was the apparition of the (TMS) Musculoskeletal
symptoms, due to the repetition of mouvements. It led to
unemployment because of the pain or to surgery in the best
cases. There was depression too because the work was less and
less interesting.
At that period, the aim of fordism was to bring people to do a
particular task in order to speed up the rhythm (accélérer)
and increase the production. It was good for the economy
because a big production means lower prices so people
are able to buy more.

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In the movie
II/ Problems
● Unemployment
● Human beings = machines
- Movie accused of plagiarism by the Franco-German
firm Tobis. Accusation lasted after the WWII, Chaplin
finaly paid but it was only to stop that trial. He believed
that trial was a revenge agaisnt his anti-nazi views in
The Dictator.
-The fact that people are considered as machines. They
have to do a perfect work in a little amount of time and
repeat the same movements for hours, days and years.
Movie which denounces the way society has taken,
always more, always further without consideration of
the human being. More productivity and competitivity
with machines but as a consequence more
unemployment.

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II/ Problems of that time
Conclusion

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● Nowadays : used in schools
● On the world : silent movie
Comedy
This movie is still known nowadays. It has become a easy way to show
children in schools how this period was: fast production rates, (cadence),
repetitiveness of the work, and the apparition of the new diseases that are still
present today.
It also had a major impact on the world, beyond american frontiers thanks
to the fact it's a silent movie so it could be universal. It's also important to
notice it's a comedy, laugh is the way Chaplin uses to denounce actual
problems. Day-to-day situations are so absurd they became laughable and
people realized how crazy some situations at work could be.

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●
Recognition
-Recognition of Big names of Movie Factory as Grauman and Walt
Disney:
→ "Grauman had devised elaborate live stage
shows for Chaplin premieres (...)"
→ Disney created a special advertisement for the
movie with a new “Silly Symphony from the Walt Disney's studios,
Mickey's Orphan Concert” You could read in the advertisment: “In
appreciation of the pantomimist supreme whose inimitable artistry
and craftsmanship are timeless” and it was signed, “Mickey Mouse
and Walt Disney”.

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Does it still depict our society ?
● Supermarkets
We can say that the movie still has an impact because a lot of people can identify themselves
in it. In France, nowadays the work is strictly timed.
In supermarkets for example, it is impossible for a cashier to leave their place to go to the
lavatory and neither can they answer to agressive people.
It is still true that they have to work fast and correctly not to be vired.
It is to wonder how people can resist to such pressure. The risk of accident or disease
increases with repetitiveness and pressure at work. Timing everything can increase the
level of stress and have a bad impact on famillies, and (on a bigger scale) even on the
country.
It appears that in our society, people are much more nervous than before, that is why they
try to come back to natural things in their daily life (in food for exemple) and go back to
countrysides. So it may be about to change.

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→ This movie made us and still makes us think. It denouces the flaws of our current
capitalist societies (which started to look for more productivity and time optimization
with the Industrial revolution) and people understand that. But with the development
of those new techniques of work it seems impossible to change that, to improve the
situation of individuals. Industrialization created both the improvment of the economy
and the loss of meaning in one's work.
But there's actually a new tendency which consists in buying handmade products, or
products directly to the farmer without passing through all the industrial food chain.
They are simpler ways to work in a way, with more humanity and contact in the process.
● Facilitate working
conditions
On the second hand, this situation doesn't correspond to everybody.
Machines are not just here for a big return (rendement) but also
to facilitate the working conditions of people.

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II/ Problems of that time
Conclusion

2018/12/2014
Conclusion
● Critical and comic
● The great depression
“Modern times” was made at a time when people couldn't really stand back
(prendre du recul) what they saw. That is why they critisized it, because they
thought Chaplin was making fun of them, and it was the case, but not only. He
wanted them to realize how they were manipulated and instrumentalized. So is
both critical and comic about the changes which occurred in America in the 1930s.
It depicts the Great Depression that will follow and
the misery people will live with. Indeed machines
progressively replaced people at work, so people
didn't have money to buy the new things of that time or
to go on holiday. The economy crashed down and
this deep fall is described in the movie through the
description of the living conditions of CC and his
girlfriend.

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● Hope
It also a movie about hope, the main characters never stopped trying to improve their
living and social conditions even if it seems impossible and everything and everyone
(police for ex) tried to stop them.
“Modern Times” is still considered as one of the most important masterpiece of
Charlie Chaplin's work. It is probably the most popular of Chaplin's movies. The one
that most people have heard about.
Conclusion

Charlie Chaplin and the Modern Times

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