Charlie Chaplin is known as one of the first great directors in cinema, and so while exploring this period of film, I found it important to watch some of his best-known works. Modern Times is the fourth Charlie Chaplin movie I’ve seen (with the other three being The Kid, The Gold Rush, and City Lights), and if I’m being honest it was my least favorite of those four. This is a hard movie to criticize because it’s so beloved and has an important message on modern industrialization, but at the end of the day I just didn’t enjoy it as much I would have liked.
You’d be forgiven if, like me, you’ve seen posters and shots of the movie showing Charlie Chaplin in overalls and thinking that the movie is about his struggles of working in a factory, but really this is only a small portion of the movie. The movie is really about the struggles of living during the Great Depression, and how hard it was to find work. We see Chaplin’s Tramp character working in a factory at the beginning of the film, but the hard work conditions prove to be too much for him, and so he soon has a nervous breakdown and gets fired for it. After this, a lot of the film centers around his financial difficulties and personal struggles of adjusting to life in the modern industrial age.
Modern Times definitely has heart and a story with an important message, but this message is hard to relate to nowadays, and so I couldn’t help but feel a lot of the weight of the movie was lost on me. Perhaps if I saw it 80 years ago it would have been more profound, but for me it wasn’t. There’s also the fact that sound films had been around for a decent number of years by the time Modern Times came out, and yet Chaplin refused to let go of the past and continued making silent films. I’m not going to inherently hold this against the movie, but the bigger problem for me is that it actually mixes sound in at times. There are certain times you’ll hear a character talk or sing, but then most of the time it’s silent and has title cards. It’s just an awkward mix to me, and so I kind of would have preferred to see Chaplin commit one way or another.
The movie definitely isn’t bad, but I honestly just don’t feel like it’s one of Chaplin’s better works, even though it seems to be recognized as one of his best. I think Chaplin’s biggest strength is that he’s a master at the art of the gag, always being able to craft really funny scenarios that get a laugh out of me. Modern Times does have a few good moments like these, but overall I just didn’t think he was at the top of his game with them in this movie. It’s disappointing, because I really liked the other Chaplin movies I’ve seen, but I just think this one is a bit overrated. I think it definitely has its merits, but at the end of the day if I’m going to recommend one Charlie Chaplin movie to somebody, it’s not going to be Modern Times.
3/5
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