As I first began to watch "Modern Times" I was not very excited. I was thinking to my self it was not going to be very good because first of all it is a silent film, and second it was from the 1930s. The only other silent film I have seen is "The Phantom of the Opera" also from the 1930s and to be honest I don't think I made it through the entire movie. I was in 8th grade, so naturally I thought I was "too cool" to watch a silent movie. But as I continued to watch "Modern Times" I found myself getting more and more interested in it.
The story of people struggling during the time of The Great Depression is not very unique. Charlie Chaplin struggles to find a job after he is fired from the factory and eventually ends up in jail. When he is released things don't get much better. For the rest of the movie the audience gets to see the everyday struggles of an everyday person in the 1930s. As Chaplin finds love things begin to look more optimistic, but do not come perfect my any means. They both have hardship but are able to look at the bright side of things. Even though this movie has a serious message about trying to make it in one of the hardest periods of American history, the audience can find some relief from the comedy also in this movie. It give the audience a time to relax and also find the light in a dark place.
The movie also made me think about how far we have come with technology. The "new" feeding machine would be considered way out of date now, but to them it was the absolute newest thing. Technology advances so fast in a short amount of time. If we think about it the 1930s were only about 80 years ago, and now we have computers that can fit in our hands. The technology in the movie seems so ridiculous to us because we know how far its come. But, I must admit, having a machine that can feed us would be pretty awesome! But knowing how society is today the machine would probably get taken advantage of and aid in the already huge problem of obesity in out country.
When the movie was over, despite how I felt at the beginning, I was glad I had just watched a piece of history. We do not fully appreciate how far technology has come until we look into the past, and can see where we came from to get where we are today.
An astute thought! The sound era did herald a lot of stylistic changes and end a lot of careers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your feelings about silent movies. I had only seen parts of other Charlie Chaplin movies. I liked them but still felt that, on the whole silent films mist not be that good merely because they used "primitive" filming techniques. As with you, I was delighted to have seen a movie involving one of the most influential actors his time.
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