Modern Times

Modern Times (1936) was Chaplin's last stand against sound. Talkies had existed for nine years and he was still shooting silent. That was an argument, not stubbornness. The Tramp works an assembly line. The belt speeds up, he breaks, he is hospitalised, then arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong moment. He meets a young woman and they try to build something resembling a home. The factory sequence, and the shot of him travelling through the machine itself, are among the most copied images in cinema. But the subject is not comedy. It is the Depression, unemployment, hunger, and the effort to fit a person to a machine. One detail: this is the first time audiences ever heard Chaplin's voice, singing nonsense syllables near the end. He refused to let the Tramp speak properly, believing that giving him a language would cost him the world. It runs 87 minutes and never sags. Good for: silent cinema, the history of comedy, and social criticism. It works with children, since there is effectively no dialogue barrier. Less good for: the rhythm of silent film tires some viewers. Try ten minutes and decide.