Modern Times
Modern Times is a silent Black and white film performed and directed by Charles Chaplin in 1936. The film is of both slapstick and satire and is a social economic commentary on American society during the thirtics a period of rapid industrialization and the onest of the great depression in the film he plays a character known as the tramp a happy go lucky underdoy who does not quite understand society and yet remains both cheerful and hopeful despite facing innumerable difficulty in modern times he portrays the reign of technology and society where humanity is forced to adjust to the machines and institutions of modern society particularly with advent of the dream and the parsuit of happiness.
1931 Charles Chaplin told a newspaper interviewer
Modern Time marked the last screen appearances of the little tramp the character which had brought Charles Chaplin world fame and who still remains the most universally recognised fictional image of a human being in the history or art.
Unemployment is the vital question Machinery should benefits mankind it should not spell tragedy and throw it out of work.
In modern times he set out to transform his observation and anxieties into comedy the little tram described in the film credit as a factory worker is how one of the million coping with the problem of the 1930.
Chaplin at first planned a sadly sentimental ending for the film while the tramp was in hospital recovering from nervous break down the gamine was to become a nun and so be parted from him for ever.
By the time modern Times was released talking pictures had been established for almost a decade till now Chaplin had resisted dialogues knowing that his comedy and it's universal understanding depended on silent pantomime.
Just at one moment though Chaplin own voice is heard directly tilted as a waiter the little worker is required to stand in for the romantic cafe tenor.
As he had done for city light Chaplin composed his own musical score giving his arrangers and conductors a harder time than usual with the result Hollywood musicians Alfred Newman Walker off the film.
The challenge of sound
The arrival of sound film was a bigger challenge for Chaplin then for any other actor or director he had won word fame with the universal language of pantomime in 1931 he predicted that taking pictures would not last six months and told an interviewer that dialogue may or may not have a place in comedy dialogue does not have a place in the sorct of comedies i make
The ending of modern Times
The most notable item in the supporting programme was a new silli symphony from the Walt Disney studios Mickey's orphan connect. The inclusion of this cartoon exemplified an intense mutual admiration between Chaplin and Disney who both recognised similarities in the other work . Disney bought advertising space in the programme in appreciation of the pantomimist supreme whose inimitable artistry and craftsmanship are timeless . It was signed Mickey mouse and Walt Disney.
Thank you
