- For a while, I worried that I was the only film aficionado who didn't love Charlie Chaplin. Sure, The Gold Rush and City Lights had some wonderful scenes, but I was surprised how uneven both of these esteemed films were. At the risk of sounding unromantic, I strongly preferred watching the Little Tramp eat a shoe to watching him fall in love. But now I've seen Modern Times, and I adored it from beginning to end. This is what I had hoped Chaplin's other films would be, and it is a true masterpiece of (mostly) silent comedy.
- Let's start with the first twenty minutes, during which the Little Tramp (Chaplin) is famously subjected to the wonders of modern industry. His job consists of using two wrenches to tighten nuts on metal plates that stream by on a ridiculously fast conveyor belt. Sounds easy enough, but there are two problems. One is that such repetitive work leads him to apply his wrenches to things he shouldn't, including women's clothing and his co-workers' noses. The second problem is that the entire system is so unforgiving of interruption that even something as innocent as a sneeze can cause major problems. One such hiccup eventually leads to The Tramp's iconic trip through the (literal) gears of industry in a scene that still impresses despite its familiarity. And at this factory, efficiency is the order of the day. Smoke breaks are interrupted by the company president himself, who monitors everything remotely when he's not otherwise occupied with jigsaw puzzles or the funny pages. The hilarious culmination of this quest for productivity is the "feeding machine" that completely eliminates lunch breaks by shoving food into the worker's mouth. Or rather, that's what it would do if it worked properly.
- After leading with such a tour de force of comedy, I doubted that the rest of the film could possibly keep up the pace. I was wrong. Upon losing his job, The Tramp immediately finds himself wrongfully arrested for leading a socialist rally. In prison, The Tramp has several interesting interactions with his cross-stitching brute of a cellmate before earning his freedom by foiling a jailbreak (while in a drug-induced frenzy, naturally). Fortunately, his actions earn him an early release, whereupon he first meets "The Gamin" (Paulette Goddard). The Gamin is a desperate young woman who steals food to feed her family while struggling to stay one step ahead of the police. He quickly falls in love with her and imagines their dream home, complete with fruit fresh from the trees and milk straight from the cow. In reality, however, the two are forced to squat in an dilapidated shed that is in a constant state of collapse. Although he has a note from the warden proving he's an honest man, The Tramp's uproarious stints as a rollerskating night watchman, dock worker, and engineer's assistant suggest that perhaps the working life is not for him. How is a man to cope with these modern times?
- I think part of what makes Modern Times more enjoyable than Chaplin's other films is its consistency of tone. Sure, the two heroes find themselves in some pretty drastic situations, but the film always puts comedy first. Thus, we are spared the somewhat awkward stabs at drama that stalled some of his earlier efforts and instead get one fantastic comedy sequence after another. In fact, there are so many great scenes that I have trouble selecting a favorite. Pretty much anything involving the factory is wonderful, but I can't ignore the blindfolded rollerskating, coffee poured through a chicken, or the amusingly problematic roasted duck. And then there's the film's brilliant finale. How can the Little Tramp, silent film's most famous character, possibly sing? Answer: Like a muted French Horn. The comedy is brilliant, the romance is believable, and Chaplin was never better. What a wonderful film.
- So the film was mostly silent in the sense that there were ambient noises (police siren, dog bark, music), but they rarely involved dialogue.
- Depending on how you count it, this may have been the last film of the silent era.
