Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin is set in the 1930s during the great depression era. The film's main concerns echo those of millions of people at the time where unemployment, poverty, and hunger were an enormous factor. The film was a comment about the impact of industrialization on people during 1930s. it is a quasi silent film which reflects the social protest against unemployment, poverty, and hunger.
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London, England, on April 16th 1889. His father was a versatile vocalist and actor; and his mother, known under the stage name of Lily Harley, was an attractive actress and singer, who gained a reputation for her work in the light opera field. His father died when he was ten and her mother was also sick which made him and his brother Sydney work hard since their childhood. He started working in his early age being a stage perfomer or a tap dancer with his natural talents. When he was about fourteen, he got his first chance to act in a legitimate stage show, and appeared as “Billy” the page boy, in support of William Gillette in “Sherlock Holmes”. At the close of this engagement, Charlie started a career as a comedian in vaudeville, which eventually took him to the United States in 1910 as a featured player with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company. As he gained his popularity in the United States, he started working for the motion picture companies being a comedian. Not only comedian, he was also a good composer, director, producer, and a good writer.
In his movie Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin is a factory worker who screws nuts at an ever-increasing rate onto pieces of machinery. The stress and the fast moving machine makes him mentally distressed. This picture gives a clear message of industralizing world and the victim of economic dipression. The huge machine and the rate of work suggest a worker at that time being slave of the machine. One day he has a nervous breakdown from the stress of his job and creates chaos in the plant before being sent to prison. Released for good behavior, he goes not looking for trouble but is once more arrested for picking up the red construction flag and ending up as the apparent leader of the worker’s union. After having an enjoyable prison stay, he is released but finds life on the outside difficult. He tries to get thrown back in prison by taking the blame for an orphaned young woman who was caught stealing some bread. He befriends her, and they start living together in a run-down shack. The tramp goes back to work at a factory as a mechanic's assistant. But the factory closes down because of a strike, and he is again incorrectly held for attacking a policeman in a riot. When he gets out of jail, the young girl has found a job in a café. He also starts working as a singer and have a pessimistic life after. The final scene has the Tramp optimistically arm and arm with his love Paulette Goddard walking into the sunset, a fitting end to the grand era of the silent film.
Modern Times is the classic battle of man and the toil and dehumanization of factory life. The best example is the automatic feeding machine, which is a mechanical, automated, aerodynamically-styled, silent feeding machine which features a revolving table, an automaton soup plate, an automatic food pusher, a revolving low and high gear corncob feeder, and a hydro-compressed sterilized mouth wipe. It is described in the movie as, “a practical device which automatically feeds your men while at work. Don't stop for lunch. Be ahead of your competitor...the feeding machine will eliminate the lunch hour, increase your production, and decrease your overhead” (The Modern Times)”.
The music composition and the sounds used in the movie are also supporting the social satire of the industrialization and the great depression era. The sound of the fast moving machine and the command of the chairman of the factory clearly pictures the industrialization era. Although the background of the movie is sad and depressed, the song by Charlie Chaplin makes audience feel happy in the movie. The communist movement, strike, and the revolution are also shown in the movie. When Charlie Chaplin waves the flag, he got arrested being charged of a communist leader. In his real life also he was charged being a supporter of McCarthyism.
Modern Times is often hailed as one of Chaplin's greatest achievements, and it remains one of his more popular films. The iconic depiction of Chaplin working frantically to keep up with an assembly line inspired later comedy routines including Disney's Der Fuehrer's Face, an episode of I Love Lucy titled "Job Switching", and most recently, an episode of Drake & Josh. This was Chaplin's first overtly political-themed film, and its unflattering portrayal of industrial society generated controversy in some quarters upon its initial release.
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