As I reminisced on last year’s film list, one of the things that screamed out to me was the absence of silent films. The first 34 years of film was projected without synchronized sound and yet I watched nothing from the era. I aimed to rectify that on this year’s list and figured it made sense to start with Chaplin! “Modern Times” features Charlie Chaplin’s last go as his famous “The Tramp” character (big shoes, suit, bowler cap, toothbrush mustache—you know the one). What’s interesting is that it was released as a mostly-silent film well into the era of the “talkie”. However, Chaplin believed the allure of the character was tied to his silence and thus chose to keep him (mostly) so.
“Modern Times” is a story about the challenges of getting ahead in the industrialized, depression era. “The Tramp” is employed as a factory worker and is subject to various indignities in the name of efficiency on the assembly line. He has a “nervous breakdown” and is hospitalized, released, and after a wrong-place-wrong-time moment, jailed. He gets out on good behavior, meets “The Gamin” (the female lead, the beautiful Paulette Goddard) and they fall in love. Together, they try to get ahead in life, working a serious of odd jobs—none effectively working out for one reason or another.
I loved this movie! I immediately found The Tramp to be a lovable, curious, and endearing character. The film is mostly composed as a series of comedic bits that could stand alone as brilliant sketch comedy: The Tramp is force-fed by a malfunctioning automated lunch feeder; The Tramp accidentally consumes cocaine he mistook for salt and goes bonkers (LOL...seriously!); The Tramp movies in with The Gamin into a dilapidated shack that is falling apart on top of him; The Tramp is trying to serve an angry patron food while caught up in a 30’s era flash mob—the list goes on and on, and they’re all pretty great.
For being a silent film, the movie actually says quite a bit about life in depression-era America and of working as a (literal) cog in a capitalist society. Clocks are a reoccurring theme throughout the film (the opening title cards are over one) and the role they play in regulating one’s life on industrial time. The film reminded me of Wall·E, not only for non-speaking characters but because this film took factory labor as far as Wall·E took consumerism—to extremes we laugh at but are silently discomforted by. The film manages to find comedy in the pure insanity of the system and the characters’ failure to advance despite all of their (mostly) honest and best efforts. 83 years later and I think this film would really resonate with the Millennial generation in uncomfortably palpable ways. Seriously, if you can manage a silent film, this is worth a watch!