Modern Times

“Modern Times” depicts a man that struggles during the great depression between work and unemployment, but makes it through ever challenge that he was given. During his journey in the movie he finds love and the security of having someone that cares and to care about. In the end, they both find happiness and that makes challenges easier to work through.

Eight y percent of communication is through body language. It was impressive how Charlie Chaplin made a movie with little to few words and still conveys humor and his messages the way he did. Not all humor is verbal and in this case most to all of the humor was non verbal. I have seen a couple of silent movie but not as funny as this one or enjoyable for that matter. It does not take much to make someone laugh. There were some parts where I could not stop laughing and I thought to myself, “Why am I laughing this hard? I don’t laugh at stuff like this.” Charlie Chaplin uses a lot of slapstick humor, which makes the movie more enjoyable to watch. “Modern times” would have not been as entertaining to watch if there was no humor.

Also, it was also interesting to see where everything first started technology wise. They had assembly lines and huge machinery that had to be manually moved to work or pulled by a lever. Now days you don’t see technology like that. The scene with the feeder machine was silly, but it was funny at the same time. The technology during our time period does not malfunction to that extent it did in the movie. There are a few bugs here and there but not to the point where it will make a machine spark and catch on fire. Also, that is a ridiculous idea to have a feeding machine. It makes it seem like the workers are animals and don’t have a mind of their own to be able to function to work on machinery. On the other hand, that makes that scene extremely hilarious. First, it is an unrealistic idea because it would work just as well as the workers feeding themselves. Second, the machine breaks down and it is hysterical.

An issue that I wanted to bring up was the main character. I am sure the way the protagonist was portrayed was intentional. At the beginning of the movie I found it very peculiar that the nameless protagonist had a mustache that looked a lot like the mustache that Hitler had. I am not sure why it was done this way, but I am sure it was with a good reason because none of the other character had a mustache like that. The other peculiar thing I noticed was that the nameless protagonist resembled a clown. He had larger pants and his shoes were too large that also curled upward. Now, I am not sure if it was supposed to help the slapstick humor along or if it was for another reason. Either way, the movie was still funny with the way the characters were portrayed.