Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times presents a critique of the way industrial capitalism transformed culture.
Identify 3 transformations that the film refers to and describe how Modern Times presents them.
300 words.
About author
related...
6 total comments on this postSubmit yours
keith
23/03/2010
Charlie Chaplin’s critique of industrialization
The movie start of you see sheep being flocking together then next shot is of humans coming out of a train station mimicking the animals. It shows that the people are seen as exploitable as cheap labour cause you see them all going to the industrial factory you see everyone punching in to show the division of labour. The boss look over his workers giving orders from the top .the factory show mass production. Chaplin pokes fun at the repetition of his job, also hinting at the automation of the industrial production. Chaplin shows the stress that people must have being under and he breaks down
Now we’ve seen the factory and the exploitation of cheap labour .Chaplin move on to the effect of industrialization he is see to be leading the protest for the worker it tells us that there where a lot of social unrest maybe due to wage rates .you see a lot of poor people trying to get jobs but no luck. Chaplin gets a job in a department store as he is working it shows what the rich could buy if wanted. It shows the contrast in the rich and the poor with the poor having to steal to feed them self. Chaplin soon loses his job. And finds himself unemployed .but then in the news paper he reads that the factory is reopening and rushes off. This shows how desperate for work people must have been. He finds himself working as a mechanic assistant .but at the gate before he got his job there is a crowd of people gathering by the gate of the factory all wanting jobs he pushes in front of everyone to get the job .his job as a mechanics assistant only need two people the mechanic and his assistant .this show that automation is there too reduce labour cost. So that makes unemployment increases and causes more specific jobs for people. So if they where to do another job they would not be able to do it as efficiently as some one trained to do it.
Govinder
23/03/2010
Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” conveys several dark truths about the industrial era, although they are presented in his specific comedic fashion. For example at the very begin of the film sheep are shown, crowded together, all moving forward. This then transitions into people. This short amount of film, comments on how he believes people act. All the same, going to the same place, herded together like animals. This loss of individuality is also demonstrated at another time. You have Chaplin and others working on an automated line. All are fixed to their individual tasks. Ignoring what happens around them seemingly transfixed on their jobs. Eventually, Chaplin after repeating the same task, he gets stuck doing this movement, as if he has forgotten anything else. You can even say he becomes machine like.
After possibly losing his humanity, he appears to go crazy. Despite being for humorous effect, I think he comment on how people are not designed for this repetitive work. After this Chaplin finds it impossible to sustain a job. Continuously, failing he demonstrates how difficult life was. In particular for someone who worked in automation, he suggests that they lose their skills.
We also see during the film, several riots and strikes. All connected to the factory Chaplin worked at. This shows that people hate working there, we even see people having to steal in order to survive. By doing this he comments on how bad the working conditions were. However despite this as people are desperate for work, but with technology improving fewer people are needed. He portrays that people are not given any respect because of their expendability.
lama
23/03/2010
Modern times is a film that describe how the character struggling to survive in modern industrialized world. The film shows the desperate employment conditions many people faced during the great depression. Time and movement were conducted in order to maximise the productivity of workers. People were then treated as if they were an extension of the machine. Charlie is driven crazy by the pace of the machine and the tough manner of his Forman. IN his fantasy Charlie gets a tick that makes him move like a machine stuck on a continuous moving objects from one place to another, he ran through the machine and he becomes part of it. The factory in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern times showed that technology has the power to reduce costs and improve our lives, it can also alienate us from our humanity. The way Charlie Chaplin goes crazy and started dancing ballet, he wants to show that the movements aren’t mechanical and the human body begin to exist in a way that is no longer machine – like. During his nervous breakdown, Chaplin destroys the modern technology and he used his art to speak against suffering and the dehumanizing aspects of modernity; in almost every situation in Modern times. He is a man who, in the face of modernity takes joys to the lives of the people around him. After he suffers a mental breakdown, he is sent to a hospital. Following his recovery Chaplin is arrested because he was waving a red flag that fell off a delivery truck. In jail he accidently eats smuggled cocaine mistaken it for salt. After he was released he discovered life is harsh, and attempted to get arrested again after failing to find a decent job. He was arrested once more for letting the burglars have some food. This shows us how easily people get arrested for unserious crimes. Finally, we see him with the girl down a road at dawn, towards an uncertain but hopeful future. Modern times are non-talkie. This was done to help his fans in non- English speaking because action is more generally understood than words .
alex
23/03/2010
In the opening scene, the industrial workforce are seen emerging from the underground stairwell during what could be perceived as the early form of rush hour, as these people are walking packed together, as if herded like sheep.
In Modern Times, we see how the workers are arranged specifically in line with the conveyor belt. This displays the division of labour in effect while also detailing the system of automation and the severe effects it has on people. Charlie Chaplin is seen working often at an uneven pace as he tries to keep up to speed with the conveyor belt in order for the work load to progress through to the next person who appears to be hammering the product.
It is uncertain how long Charlie has been working in the factory, but it is evident that it is having an effect on his mental condition. He proceeds to (comically) assault members of the work force and his superiors with his tools as if they had screws loose.
When given the opportunity to find a new job, Chaplin found it difficult to adapt to the new working environments and struggled to cope with different tasks as all he knew was tightening bolts in the factory. This fact is also shown when returning to the factory. When he enters the control room, he begins to pull levers and turn handles at random, damaging the electronics and affecting the components in the factory as a result as he did not understand how anything worked.
Low rate jobs offered to the masses for little pay created immense poverty issues among the population. Riots and strikes were a common occurrence, and due to the working class’ state, they weren’t highly regarded or respected. It is seen that Chaplin was assaulted by the police force for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
John Watson
24/03/2010
The introduction of Modern Times shows the factory’s workforce emerging from the subway, and then a shot of sheep being herded off a truck. The point of this is to show that the worker and sheep are the same, that they have little rights and are a cheap expendable force.
The next scene is of the workers on the production line each doing their own specific job, which is a prime example of division of labour. As the workers have a break from the line, they find it difficult to stop the repetitive motion of their job as they become automated by the work. This is in comparison to the president of the company in his office doing his puzzle and reading his paper. Every so often he gives out orders for production and spy on his workforce to stop slacking on the job. This shows the differences between the average workers to the fat cat boss at the top.
As the film progresses, Charlie becomes more and more stressed from the job. In the end it just gets to a point where he can’t take much more and loses all control. I think the point is too much pressure is applied to the worker in the factory.
Out of the factory the film focuses on the effects of mass industry on society with the poor getting increasingly poorer. The poor cannot afford food, housing and no longer have jobs because of the increased amount of automation in the factories which leads to social unrest. Another example of the gap between the rich and the poor is the posh shopping centre where Charlie gets a job in. The workers that lost their jobs have now resulted to crime to survive. There also seems to be some sort of worker bond as Charlie sees an old friend from the factory.
Zen
25/03/2010
At the very beginning of the film, you see the film compares the sheep with people while they go to work in factory. In Modern Times’ Chaplin plays a factory worker, employed on an assembly line. he suffers a mental breakdown. Chaplin is sent to a hospital. Following his recovery the now unemployed Chaplin is arrested as an instigator in a Communist demonstration since he was waving a red flag that fell off a delivery truck. In jail, he accidentally eats smuggled cocaine, mistaking it for salt.
Outside the jail, he discovers life is harsh, and attempts to get arrested after failing to get a decent job. He soon runs into an orphan girl (the “gamin”), played by Paulette Goddard, who is fleeing the police after stealing a loaf of bread. To save the girl he tells police that he is the thief and should be arrested. In order to get arrested again, he eats an enormous amount of food at a cafeteria without paying. He meets up with the gamin in the prison , which crashes, and the girl convinces the reluctant Chaplin to escape with her. Dreaming of a better life, he gets a job as a night watchman at a department store, sneaks the gamin into the store and even lets burglars have some food. Waking up the next morning in a pile of clothes, he is arrested once more. At that time, there was cheap labour and still it exists today all over the world especially in China, India and other poor countries. The cost of Chinese factory labour is apparently 64 cents an hour an average of $14.22 a day in the 30 poorest foreign countries. There is a big problem that there is no health and safety regulation in poor countries. Factories try to find easy ways for their company to use technology that can do the job without paying the labour. That is why workers work for very low pay, so they can live.
i hope is cool