Review of Modern Times for GOVT 490 (Miller)

Justin S. Thompson
Professor Miller
GOVT 490
14 July 2009

A Review of Modern Times
Man against the machine seems to be the resounding theme in the Charlie Chaplin movie Modern Times. The movie sets up an explanation for the Great Depression in the United States based on the premise that machines have replaced human workers and that precipitated the mass unemployment of the 1930s. While of course the movie is meant to be comical, it does touch on some political themes. The first being that Modern Times gives a primary cause of the Great Depression as demonstrated at the beginning of the film. The second political theme, a controversial one, is that life inside U.S. prisons is more comfortable than in the outside world for those in poverty. These two political themes -- advanced technology’s displacement of human workers was a major cause of the Great Depression, and prison comforts had surpassed that of poor law-abiding citizens are suggested messages in Chaplin’s Modern Times.

In the beginning of the movie, the viewer is already being introduced to a changing world of modernity. The workers feverishly working on a conveyer belt while the boss is sitting in a removed room watching them through a computer-like screen strikes a great contrast as does the man who is manning the buttons and levers. Charlie Chaplin’s character does not seem to know how to work with the new technology, and soon creates all kinds of chaos within the factory. A scene where a new machine that is supposed to feed a person malfunctions really begins this open battle between man and machine. Chaplin’s character soon after this scene becomes upset and starts to act irrationally, going about and wrecking the factory. He is then arrested, and after a few more scenes is released only to find out the factory has been closed along with many other factories and businesses -- thus the Great Depression. Another event to note is that Chaplin goes to jail at least four times. The first time he is released he does not want to go back into society because he has “it too good” within the jail. However, he eventually meets Paulette Goddard’s character, and this gives him the motivation to stay out of prison and find a way for them to be together – job, house and all. Many comical crimes are committed within the film, but they are crimes that the viewer is quick to dismiss because Chaplin and Goddard’s character are starving, jobless, poor, and looking for a job.

The central problem faced by Chaplin and Goddard is how their characters are going to survive and better themselves in a world ridden by economic depression. The film seems to argue that a world without machines is a world where every man has a job. The movie tries to demonstrate that the machines are not effective replacements for humans as depicted in the scene where the machine that is supposed to feed a person malfunctions. Here there seems to be an attempt to show that machines can not do everything. The scene in which Chaplin is arrested the first time demonstrates that machines are fallible and blindly follow commands -- he was able to wreck all the machines by randomly pushing buttons. The suggested contrary to these fallible machines would be for people to perform these tasks. Where once several people would have to work in the factory doing certain tasks, now just one person is needed to push buttons and levers and the only real physical labor is required is for those working on the conveyer belt. The man who is operating the levers and buttons seems to be a “top guy” at the factory because he directly reports to the owner. The comical, but political, portrayal of how this man is dressed (which is for hard labor) is kind of a smack in the face of the real workers. The man also is caught reading later within the film, seemingly intended to infer that most of the time he does nothing. This seems to all focus the central theme of this film -- the worker has been replaced by machines, a chosen few have kept their jobs to run the machines, and the rest are unemployed which has led to the Great Depression.

To be in the jail within this movie is actually to be in a place of comfort. While certainly Chaplin has issues with the other inmates, he does have food while others, notably Goddard’s character, is starving. And in Goddard’s case, she has to steal bananas and bread to survive. He also has a bed to sleep in, and especially after rescuing the prison guards, he is given a cell of his own which is decorated quite lavishly. After the scene with the minister’s wife and the growling stomach, Chaplin’s character is released from prison, but he does not want to leave. He has it too good inside the jail to leave it -- this speaks volumes about the supposed misdirected support of the government during these desperate times. The message that seems to protrude is that criminals are fairing better in prison than law abiding citizens, and in Goddard’s case, have been reduced to stealing for food out of hunger and caring for her unemployed father and younger sisters. This contrast is unsettling -- that of the criminal being comfortable while the one looking for work and seeking to fill time in a constructive manner is reduced to rags.

Certainly some might find the contrast of those being in jail and Goddard’s character as being innocent comedy. Though, after all, Goddard is a multiple theft offender and Chaplin, whom the viewer also roots for, is inept at work, and destroys property. However, the movie portrays them as heroes because they do not commit these crimes in a climate of great excess, but commit them in the climate of economic depression. The viewer is supposed to be moved to feel compassion on these two even as the viewer shares laughs with them.

Modern Times is effective in suggesting a cause for the Great Depression, showing the unfortunate circumstances the Depression had on society, and many other themes. It took an abased time period in our history and made it comical. This comedy still resonates with audiences today, mainly in that today’s fears and explanations are so often tomorrow’s lunacy. Not many would argue that it was machines that caused the Great Depression, but in an age when machine labor was new, this would seem like a plausible educated guess. A viewer can take pause and look at our “modern times” and wonder about the fears people have today and the explanations one makes, and wonder if someday in the future it will make us laugh as in the explanation for the Great Depression, or will it continue to haunt a person like the discrepancy that does still often occur between the honest worker who is at or barely above the poverty line, and the criminal that gets three meals a day and a bed?