Modern Times

This blog is a response to a task assigned by Dilip Barad sir, Department of English (MKBU). This blog is about the movie ‘Modern Times’. Click here for more information.

The Modern Times is a movie by Charlie Chaplin. It was released in 1936. It was directed, written and produced by Charlie Chaplin. This movie satirizes the impact of industrialization, capitalization and its impact on common peoples lives. It is a story of a factory worker Tramp, who suffers a lot in a capitalistic society. The movie shows the harsh reality of the common people of 20th century America.

The setting in the movie is a great depression period of USA. There is a huge difference between the rich and the poor. As we know during 20th century the power lies in the hands of the people who have the money. In the movie it is shown that how rich factory owners and politicians exploit the common man, they use them in a mechanical way. In the eyes of the rich people there was no value of a poor men's lives.

In the 20th century there were leaders who were described as dictators like, Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; Adolf Hitler, Führer of Germany; Augusto Pinochet, President of Chile; Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party; Benito Mussolini, Duce and Prime Minister of Italy; Kim Il Sung, Supreme Leader of North Korea. These dictators have influenced many people during their contemporary time in a way that people started to believe that they we their ultimate savior and without them world would be very bad place. Those incidents alarm us to inquire that may be we are also going into the same direction where, there is no way out and once such people acquire the power and made people their blind followers then history will be repeated and many innocent lives would suffer.

Let us discuss some of the frames in the movie which show the mirror of the their contemporary society.

In the very first frame Charlie tried to cover the importance of the time in the 20th century. It has become tool, which controls the human being. Time is the very entity that forces people to do certain thing. Time is the thing that makes human mechanical and inhuman. All the factory workers has certain time to complete their work and even for the sake of time they can not eat properly.

In the second frame we see that the herd of sheep is moving towards something and in the very next frame where the humans are also going in the same way, this shows that how in the 20th century people had to work. They had to reach at certain time and have to perform certain duty at the factory.

 

This frame is seems rather futuristic at that time, but now in the contemporary time it is true. A man sitting in his office controls the whole factory and make people work. At that time it is also shown that how the owner of the factory passes his time. He reads newspaper, he play a puzzle game and then he controls human being as a piece of the puzzle and he arrange them in the right order.

In this frame one can observe how workers had to work in an assembly line and how monotonous work they had to do in their contemporary time. It shows the dehumanizing effect of the 20th century world.

To save a time, companies try to make a new type of machine that save time of the workers, which they waste during lunch time. Now through this type of machine workers can eat while working continuously. This shows the the very little value of a human being, that one should not spend time even in eating.

This scene shows the very basic idea a whole movie that how industrialization affected the human lives, especially the working class people's lives. The humans are squashed through this type of advancement and lack of  human value.

Due to some misunderstanding Tramp ends up in the jail where he does a good work by helping the policeman to catch the escaping prisoners. In the jail he enjoys, there he does not have to find new job or work monotonously. When the policeman says that now he is free to go, he says "Can't I stay a little longer? I am so happy here." This shows that even the situation in the prison was good compare to the outer world in America in the 20th century for poor people.

It is the time in the movie when they see a dream of their own house, where they seem more focused on the food rather than any other things. So even the dream of the poor people are all about the basic human need : food, shelter and clothes, which government was not able to provide at that time.

This last frame of the movie shows that how they are tired of the struggles of life and running for jobs and escaping from the police. There is the the mountains and that is all about the hope that they still carry with themselves after all that suffering. This gives the motivation to the people to fight with the situation even if that get out of their hands.

Charlie Chaplin was courageous film maker who showed the reality of the America during that time, when everyone was singing good songs about the country. The movie shows the insights of the country which is famous for its advancement.

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Pictures: 11