LogFAQs > #972125199

19. Modern Times (1936)
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
Score: 171

Mythiot: 1
John: 5
Poke: 14
Suprak: 14
Plasma: 17
Tangy: 20
Karo: 22
Forty: 23
Gavs: 25
Vis: 30

1. Mythiot
Charlie Chaplains swan song as his signature character of the Tramp and really for silent film as whole isnt just his best work, its one of the best films ever made, flawlessly combining perfect physical comedy with a bittersweet story and scathing social critique. The first half of film portrays work in the modern world as miserable and dehumanizing, forcing humans to practically become machines, the Tramp unable to stop his programmed repetitive motions even after the work stops, the higher ups even try to automate the simple human act of eating. The Tramp even prefers the security of prison after being thrown in there after being mistaken for a revolutionary leader. But soon enough, he befriends a poor young woman and they try to find employment again only for the police to thwart any successes they have because of their pasts as vagrants. You cant help but root for the Tramp as he stumbles from one predicament to the next, completely befuddled along the way. Also, he accidently gets high on cocaine at one point, never thought youd see that in a (mostly) silent film, did you?

5. John
I will forever love the way Chaplin can go full on anti-capitalism and do so via goofy slapstick.

17. Plasma
Mr. Mime and Barefoot Babe star in this pseudo-silent comedy about embracing and avoiding jail time during the Depression era. Though Modern Times is undoubtedly amusing, its not the Yeah, Id love to watch 86 minutes of this! type of amusing. I found myself checking the clock before I was even ten minutes in, and although this is a great example of visual storytelling, the comedy never hit the mark for me.

That said, I will admit it does an incredible job of making me care about characters without any proper dialogue. I love the films dream-like quality, and Mr. Mime and Barefoot Babe nail the emotional beats no matter what home or workplace setting theyre in (not surprising, considering they were married in real life). C-

20. Tangy
I like Chaplin well enough and the satirization of the work-centric society is incredibly clever, but my main issue with Modern Times is that all the best bits happen in the first part of the movie and it just kinda goes downhill from there. The toy store sequence goes on for way too long and while I do like that the restaurant scene satirizes talkies as a whole, I was just so exhausted with the slapstick, I just didnt care enough to find it fun. Chaplin has certainly earned his place in history, but I find it difficult to consider his films to be some of my favorites.

Biggest Laugh: The food machine for sure.

22. Karo
So this is the misadventures of Adolf Hitler and his struggles to find work in America during the great depression. Basically he goes to some new place, is an incompetent idiot so he gets fired almost immediately, then sulks about his lot in life.
It was more funny than I expected it to be but man this is... vintage. The kind of physical comedy the film engages in may be timeless, but I was left wanting something a little more.
Oddly enough it seems to have an identity crisis that sticks it halfway between a silent movie and a talkie. I mean I can understand the artistic decision in making a silent movie far past the heyday of silent cinema, but then why do you put in random talking everywhere? Doesnt that defeat the whole point?
Anyway, it is old. Old and unfortunately quite forgettable.

23. Forty
Buck up never say die. Well get along. I had only seen clips of Charlie Chaplin before, never a full film. It was mostly a joy watching him bumble from one slapstick scene to the next, although the zany music with no dialogue and all the schtick wore a little thin by the end. That isnt to say this isnt overall brilliant comedy though. There were some genuinely hilarious moments, like the malfunctioning feeding machine and the accidental smuggled jail cocaine ingestion. Chaplin is pretty incredible, a unique comedic force whose physical performances are second to none. Ive never seen finer drunken roller skating. Amongst all the wackiness theres a nice message about keeping your head up and not letting the man keep you down in a world where we can sometimes feel like just cogs in a machine.

25. Gavs
Way to not future-proof your title Charlie! Did you not consider that the modern times depicted would move further and further away from modern as time went on? Probably not. To be fair, films were a lot less permanent back then, partly because the medium wasnt yet old enough for the thought of viewers wanting to go back to old films and watch them again years later to have become commonplace. Storage of film reels was expensive and took up lots of space, so it wasnt uncommon for reels of old films to be overwritten for a new film. The reels were also fragile and prone to degradation or spontaneous combustion depending on the conditions they were kept in.

I digress, so I guess I should end the history lesson and talk about the film. Of the two 1930s films, I preferred Duck Soup to this one, because I thought the story was too thin, serving more as a throughline for the comedy skits. I thought the themes bounced around a bit too. At first, the suggestion is that the factory workers are portrayed like cattle or mindless drones, while the elite are lazy, greedy and easily distracted by their shiny new toys, meddling with things for the sake of it despite the machines being impractical and inferior to just leaving things as they are. Skynet is a while off yet! This angle is dropped for the most part once Charlie leaves the factory and goes to prison, growing increasingly desperate to stay there. You could interpret this as either Charlie being institutionalised, or him wanting to stay in prison because the security of a roof over his head and guaranteed meals is preferable to the uncertainty of trying to find work during the Great Depression. From there, the film switches gears again to Charlie and his new girlfriend trying to hold down jobs and a home, though this theme isnt dwelled upon as much as the earlier ones.

The slapstick here didnt work for me as well as in Duck Soup, because here most of the comedy was in that vein. As a result, it didnt feel as fresh, and it couldnt vary things as much as Duck Soup due to this film being mostly silent, thus preventing any spoken jokes or wordplay. I did like Charlies song and dance at the end though. He do be shmoving there! The song was the first time Charlie Chaplins Tramp character spoke, so its a fitting finale for a character who hailed from the silent film era. Had I known that context before watching the film, it would have likely been more impactful for me than it was already.

30. Vis
Spoiler alert, but I feel bad for these first few movies on the list, because theyre very slapstick heavy, and thats just naturally harder for my modern (hey, a reference to the title) sensibilities to appreciate. And unfortunately, unlike Metropolis (which I enjoyed because I had English subtitles), I think comedy is harder to process in a silent format. For me, it just vacuumed up all of the energy that the movie was trying to showcase. I will say though, the theme of the film is still relevant to this day: were living in this workplace culture that makes us miserable, and people fail upward despite being fuck-upsbut at the end of the day, whats best for us is following our dreams and just doing what were best at, instead of being cogs in a machine.