#55: Modern Times

Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936)

There's not much to say about one Chaplin film that doesn't apply to the other Chaplin films. He's a master of slapstick comedy and has a grudge against the upper class. He's so good at the former you don't care whether or not you agree with his political commentary.

In Modern Times he portrays working in a factory as unbearable and dehumanizing. The boss is looking for ways to eliminate lunch breaks, so he experiments with a contraption to feed employees automatically, without taking their hands away from the production line. He then dismisses it not because it treats human beings like animals, but because it's 'Not practical'. He meets a seventeen year old girl who's on the run because her father was arrested and she ran away from social services. Every time the two of them try to carve some kind of living out for themselves, the dehumanizing system bears down on them and forces them away.

It's a good thing Chaplin came up in the era of silent films. If his earliest movies had words, he probably would have had more of his socialist political commentary and less of his slapstick.

Rating: **** / 5

60/101

Looking down the list, the only ones I haven't seen that aren't on Netflix are Letter from An Unknown Woman, Greed, and Voyage In Italy. If it comes down to it I may have to get expensive used compies on Amazon or Ebay.

Others:

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari: ***** / 5

This is easily my second favorite silent film. It has the best score I've ever heard in a movie, and some beautiful visuals. The movie is black and white but the film is heavily tinted in various colors. The music has a lot of jazzy sax and guitar, some of which sounds like stuff that didn't popularize until the sixties. It sounds impressively ahead of it's time, and always fits the scene perfectly. The acting is a little too exaggerated and pantomimic, but that's the case with almost all movies of that era. The plot is as simple as the other movies of the era, but it has psychological horror movie elements also way ahead of it's time.