Modern Times, produced, directed and starring Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard
Modern Times, by Charlie Chaplin, is one of Chaplin's finest silent films -- and his lastModern Times, produced & directed by Charlie Chaplin. Starring Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard
Synopsis of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times:
Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin is a landmark film, marking many changes in Chaplin’s film making. It is also one of Chaplin’s most famous films, and deservedly so. It contains several firsts for Charlie Chaplin. It is Chaplin’s first attempt at using a movie to make a social commentary. It introduces Paulette Goddard, his partner both on & off screen for the next few years. It is his first true talking film, having experimented with sound in City Lights; in keeping with the movie’s theme of the dehumanization of society, all of the voices in the film come from non-living sources (radios, a phonograph record, etc.) One exception to this is the Tramp’s first, and last, spoken words on film—singing gibberish in a scene in a restaurant. It is also the final appearance of Charlie Chaplin’s world famous Tramp clown.
In this satire on the modern, mechanized world Charlie Chaplin portrays his beloved little Tramp character, working in a factory. The theme of the dehumanization
Notes on Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times:
- Supposedly was to be Charlie Chaplin's first full sound film, but instead, sound is used in a unique way: we hear spoken voices only when they come from mechanical devices, a symbol of the film's theme of technology and dehumanization. Specifically, voices are heard from: - The videophones used by the factory president - The phonographic Mechanical Salesman - The radio in the prison warden's office The singers in the restaurant are also heard, and some scenes include sound effects.
- The final appearance of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp character.
- Chaplin allows the Tramp to speak on camera for the first time during the restaurant scene, but insisted that what the Tramp says be universal. Therefore, the song the Tramp sings is in gibberish, but it is possible to follow the story he tells by watching his hand gestures.
- Charlie Chaplin wrote all the music for this and all of his other films, and Modern Times contains his most enduring theme, "Smile."
Editorial Reviews of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times
Charlie Chaplin is in glorious form in this legendary satire of the mechanized world. As a factory worker driven bonkers by the soulless momentum of work, Chaplin executes a series of slapstick routines around machines, including a memorable encounter with an automatic feeding apparatus. The pantomime is triumphant, but Chaplin also draws a lively relationship between the Tramp and a street gamine. She's played by Paulette Goddard, then Chaplin's wife and probably his best leading lady (here and in The Great Dictator ). The film's theme gave the increasingly ambitious writer-director a chance to speak out about social issues, as well as indulging in the bittersweet quality of pathos that critics were already calling "Chaplinesque." In 1936, Chaplin was still holding out against spoken dialogue in films, but he did use a synchronized soundtrack of sound effects and his own music, a score that includes one of his most famous melodies, "Smile." And late in the film, Chaplin actually does speak -- albeit in a garbled gibberish song, a rebuke to modern times in talking pictures. --Robert HortonI rate it 4 clowns 
on a 5-clown scale.