★ 8 / 10
Really good movie from visionary and fun Charlie
Andres Gomez
Really good movie from visionary and fun Charlie Chaplin in which industry literally swallows the human being.
Really good movie from visionary and fun Charlie Chaplin in which industry literally swallows the human being.
★ 7 / 10
I wonder how many people watch this nowadays
CinemaSerf
I wonder how many people watch this nowadays and sympathise immediately with Chaplin's unskilled worker trying to keep up with the relentless march of…
I wonder how many people watch this nowadays and sympathise immediately with Chaplin's unskilled worker trying to keep up with the relentless march of technology? It starts with him being an unwilling guinea pig for a gadget that appears as useful for cleaning teeth as it is for feeding him - a cunning invention which allegedly saves time, money and increases productivity... Needless to say, it's a crock of the proverbial - but that's just the start with these wacky, frequently absurd, ideas that sees our hapless hero expend considerable energy and quick-wittedness trying to stay one step ahead of these "advances" - oh, and of just about everyone else he encounters as he struggles, comedically, along! Meantime, a starving, homeless, orphaned woman - Paulette Goddard - is caught pinching a loaf by a rather snooty passer-by, she bumps into Chaplin on the street whist effecting her getaway, and the pair are soon in cahoots together for more engaging escapades. Chaplin is outstanding in this film - his agility, timing and visionary direction - not just of the film, but of the portents for society at large - resonates just as soundly today as when audiences started watching it 85 years ago. It swipes at modernity, but not just for the sake of it , it's not luddite in outlook - just evaluative of what/who gets left behind - and that isn't just the blue collar workers either... The scenes on the ice skates in the department store are a delight to watch; charm, humour and agility all rolled into one - and I love his style consuming the rum! Definitely one for a big screen, there is so much going on...
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★ 9 / 10
"Actions speak louder than words"
Steffi_P
There is something fundamentally sad about Modern Times, by the very fact that it shows an unparalleled genius making his last move in the now-defunct art form…
There is something fundamentally sad about Modern Times, by the very fact that it shows an unparalleled genius making his last move in the now-defunct art form with which he made his name. Charlie Chaplin, undisputed master of silent comedy, had managed to bluff his way through the awkward early days of sound, but by 1936 the talkie had got its act together, and screen comedy was dominated by the witty wordplay of the Marx brothers and the smart sass of screwball. Slapstick had all but lost its market, and the picture is saturated with a feel of "One last time
" And Chaplin expresses his feelings with scathing satire. Modern Times is quite plainly a blast at many aspects of industrialised living, especially unemployment and Fordist production management. However the picture also takes several sly swipes at sound film itself. From the beginning, sound is associated with the mechanical, the authoritative, and the austere, with the few bits of spoken dialogue being via some piece of technology such as a radio or the boss's speaking tube. Sound effects too are reserved for nasty clanking and scraping sounds of machinery and things breaking apart. Finally there is Paulette Godard's pronouncement that "The words don't matter" as Charlie forgets the lyrics for his singing waiter act. Chaplin was of course very good at nonsense voices, as this and his Adenoid Hynkel act in The Great Dictator demonstrate, whereas meaningful verbal comedy was his Achilles Heel.Despite all this vehemence, Chaplin is making one or two concessions to contemporary cinema. Modern Times features a lot more camera movement and close-ups than we see in his previous pictures, where he tended to stick to static long shots to preserve the best flow of physical comedy. The more technical approach here is always done for a reason – for example whip-panned close-ups are used for emphasis, and there is often a change of angle to punctuate a gag such as the half-built ship slipping out of dock. While they do draw attention to the funniest moments they disrupt the purity of the routine and are most likely concessions made by Chaplin for an audience not used to silent comedy. Modern Times is also much more variable and fast-paced than previous Chaplin features, skipping from factory to prison to department store and so on.And yet, of all his feature films, Modern Times includes perhaps the most protracted bouts of silent comedy, far more than the story-driven City Lights. Despite its linking plot, the various settings in which the little tramp finds himself each provide fully-fledged slapstick routines, and there are very few moments in which point or poignancy are allowed to overrule the comedy. The picture is in some ways like a compendium of the non-stop gagging two-reelers he was making in the 1910s. Modern Times may not be quite the tearjerker that The Kid or City Lights were, but it is the master's final great showcase of his primary talent.
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Be honest Saru, it was your dad who had went to buy the milk.