Title: Modern Times
Directed By: Charlie Chaplin
Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard
Number on the AFI List: 78 (WHO'S JUDGING THIS ANYWAY?!)
Year: 1936
STOP. BEFORE YOU READ, PLAY THIS SONG AND LISTEN TO IT WHILE YOU READ.
Smile. Written by Charlie Chaplin (for Modern Times). Vocals by Nat King Cole.
Once again, Charlie Chaplin has left me speechless. This movie is challenging, thought provoking, humbling, and heartbreaking. How appropriate that the title theme is Smile. Smile when life is hard, smile when you've lost your job for the fourth time, smile when your home is nonexistent. Sometimes all you need is your loved one by your side on the long road to who knows where. What a powerful message this must've been to the depression-ridden USA of the 1930s. Not only does this film challenge (albeit over-exaggerated) the atrocities experienced by city laborers at the time, it humanizes those struggling with joblessness and starvation. I must say, I didn't laugh for the first 30 minutes even though there were funny moments. The struggle of the Factory Worker (Charlie Chaplin) was sickening-especially the moment where he is asked to be the guinea pig for a human feeding machine. I'm sure it was supposed to be funny, but I couldn't get past the hopelessness of the situation. I FINALLY laughed during the lunch scene in jail where the Factory Worker accidentally consumes cocaine time and time again. The faces! THE FACES! I died.
And who can forget the skating scene in the department store? I was on the edge of my seat, so nervous he was going to fall.
This is the last Charlie Chaplin film on the AFI list, and I must say I'm sad that I don't have another Chaplin film to look forward to (at least for now-I will be watching all of them after I'm done with this list!).
Charlie, thank you for your inventiveness, your risk-taking, your boldness, your humor, and your kindness to share your talents with the world. I'm sure like most artists you were hard on yourself, wanting everything to be perfect and not settling for anything less than best. I hope that you found moments to truly smile and be satisfied with your work, proud that it touched so many lives and helped people during times of hardship and sadness.
That's what we artists do, right?
"You'll find that life is still worthwhile if you just smile."
Favorite moment: Cocaine scene. Those eyebrows!
Will I watch it again: Absolutely. No question.
I would post the YouTube link on here, but the only good one has the very few dialogue lines in French, so I would recommend you pick this up from your local library.
MY ORDER OF THE TOP 100 MOVIES OF ALL TIME THUS FAR (based on tastes alone, not cinematic quality):
1. City Lights
2. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
3. Modern Times
4. A Night at the Opera
5. The Gold Rush
6. It Happened One Night
7. King Kong
8. The General
9. Intolerance
10. Duck Soup
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