Response 1Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936)
Silent films were of huge proportion in the early 1900’s. It wasn’t until the advent of sound in 1927, with the production of “The Jazz Singer” that would indefinitely change the ever-expanding landscape of cinema. Audiences and movie-lovers alike were shocked and mystified when Charlie Chaplin released Modern Times in 1936, still being proclaimed as a silent film (excluding the movies soundtrack and occasional Foley sounds).
Even in such changing waters, Chaplin manages to create one of the greatest comedies the film world has ever seen. It seems to be timeless in its comedic actions and telling of the dehumanization of labour. He thoroughly symbolizes the common man and the troubles of “The Great Depression” with his character “The Tramp”. On top of that, I will argue that his use of sound, and likewise his non-use of sound could not have been more balanced and eloquent.
It was apparent how closely Chaplin related the Tramp to The Great Depression and the struggles of the common man to maintain a job and put food on the table, but also in how he struggles against adversity, and no matter how hard he tried, he didn’t seem to fit in. In the opening scene, we are quickly shown a herd of sheep being brought back in from the fields. Among the hundreds of sheep there is one black sheep. We can infer that this ‘black sheep’ is none other than the Tramp himself. He resembles the common man in that he is going the same direction as all the other “sheep” but he still can’t seem to fit in. He is the one that stands out and the one that defies conformity. Even when all the other workers are hard-pressed on their seemingly endless assembly lines, we see the Tramp casually working at his own pace, not worried about the others around him. At one point, while doing his mind-numbing task of tightening bolts, he pauses to scratch himself.
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He does not seem to care, let alone be bothered by the fact that he is holding up production. Chaplin also wanted to make clear how different the Tramp was in his appearance and individuality. His distinctive waddle, mustache, and his hat and cane all symbolize his character and the dissimilarity he has with the working class of that time. Gilberto Perez sums up this point immaculately well when he says, “The society was concerned only with the pursuit of profit, and often not even with that so much as with the mere preservation of the ugly and impersonal machinery by which the profit was gained; the Tramp was concerned with the practice of personal relations and the social graces” (Perez 593).
So while the other members of the working class are trying so desperately to earn this “profit,” the Tramp is merely trying to get by. Even so, I can’t help notice that at times, the Tramp seems to be a proverbial cog in the great “Gears of the Depression.” Quite literally, in fact, as one scene shows him being pulled down the conveyor belt into the great machines below. The Tramp is shown to have no name or identification (other than his iconic wardrobe), and he doesn’t even seen to have any friends or family, or money for that matter. It is because of this that I must stress that while the Tramp is symbolized as the common man, he is also completely and whole-heartedly different from those that surround him.
An interesting aspect of this film was how Chaplin used sound. It is important to note that technically speaking, it is a silent film. Chaplin uses sound only as a filler for the actions occurring in the film and he does this marvelously. During the scene where the Tramp is being force-fed in the factory, Chaplin was spot-on with the sounds of the automatic corn feeding machine and the various other “industrialized” sounds that he incorporated into the film. The way Chaplin demonstrates dialogue in this film further enhances the “silent” feel it has. He doesn’t just simply have two actors exchanging words with each other, but instead, Chaplin uses the environment around the actors as a way of communication. There are a couple scenes in the film that exemplify this point quite clearly. One instance occurs very early in the film when the president of the steel company turns to his large TV screen and orders one of the workers to increase the speed. He uses the technology around him rather than a face-to-face interaction. The other instance of this is shown when the “Billows Feeding Machine” is being presented to the president. The presenters don’t talk directly to him, but they use the radio player they have with them to explain the functions of the machine. Even though Chaplin made use of sound in the film, he still preferred the “silent” process of filmmaking.
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The greatest success of Modern Times was Chaplin’s ‘non-use’ of sound. Modern Times was released in 1936, practically a decade after the invention of sound films. Most audiences didn’t understand why this was a “silent” film, and Saul Austerlitz demonstrates this very poignantly: “To make another (silent film) in 1936, nearly a decade after the advent of sound, appeared downright perverse” (Austerlitz, 9).
It seemed that Chaplin couldn’t come to terms with producing a completely sound-film. He says, “Dialogue, to my way of thinking, always slows action, because action must wait on words” –Chaplin (Austerlitz 9).
His words stand true even in today’s time, as Modern Times is able to stand toe-to-toe with Hollywood’s most modern films. It is noteworthy to examine the other side of this “sound debate.” Eisenstein says this: “Sound, treated as a new element of montage, cannot fail to provide new and enormously powerful means of expressing and resolving the most complex problems” (Eisenstein, 371).
Eisenstein cannot help but disagree with Chaplin’s view of sound in film. Eisenstein firmly believed that the use of sound would be instrumental to the very essence of film itself.
At the end of the film, we see the Tramp and the Gamin (Paulette Goddard) walking off in the distance after the Tramp says, “Buck up – never say die. We’ll get along!” The struggles that the Tramp faced were parallel to the ones Chaplin faced in the real world. It was important for his character, and for Chaplin himself, to keep their heads up and be optimistic about the things to come.
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