Study of Frames in Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times"

Frame Study of Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" and "The Great Dictator"

Hello Readers!

We are studying Twentieth Century Literature as a part of our syllabus.And as we all know that this literature had a larger impact of industrialization and World War I and II.We always says that "Literature is X-ray image of society."In modern times we find lots of images of that particular times in various movies.This can be observed in this both movies.So this blog is a part of our thinking activity on study of frames in Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times" & "The Great Dictator" given by our Prof.Dr.Dilip Barad sir.

💠Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin popularly known as Charlie Chaplin was a British comedian, writer, and composer who is well remembered for his Tramp character. He was very famous for his silent film. He made the world laugh without speaking a single word. To know more about Charlie Chaplin click here .

💠Frames from "Modern Times"

The film is directed and acted by a polymath, Charlie Chaplin in 1936.The title of this film itself suggests the modern times. The time was changing. It suggest the industrial revolution and after that machines took place of man and people started working like machines.

We can see this frame in two different angle. First is that time is moving as clock is moving. The secondly it  shows time of employees till 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. In modern times employees works very hard till early morning to late evening.

Sheep+ People=Sheeple

 Through this frame we say that due to unemployment,many people were roaming like sheep.As we know that sheep haas no direction they also roaming without any direction.This is novel idea of Chaplin says nog to follow crowd,follow your own way.

In this frame we can see that the factory owner playing puzzel game.so it symbolizes the game played with his employees.We can say that he also playing this kind of puzzel with his workers.

 

In this frame the owner is monitoring his workers.In second frame Charlie ,one of his employee is 8n washroom,but even though his boss is keeping eyes in his employees.so humans are the slaves of the industrial,they are slaves of the machines and the technology.Worker's liberty is ceased by the cameras.(masters).we can say that poor people doesn't get liberty to live their life in their own way.

It shows the rise of advertisement in modern times.People of modern times easily get affected by advertisement.

The practice of this machine is being continued but the protagonist is fixed at the place to have the soup.Instead of serving you this soup through his mouth ,it is poured on Chplin's T-shirt and body.and we can see that the wiper is wiping his mouth instead of T-shirt.

This image shows how workers suffers from this kind of industrialization.But still they have to work hard to earn their livelihood.Here human is depicted as part of machines.He is like robot.

In this frame we can find that this is about protest by working class people to get liberty.B because of industrial revolution machines took place of humans and humans become unemployed. So they fight for employment ,for liberty, self respect and all this things.

Because of unemployment many workers committed suicide. They didn't earn their livelihood.

Dream V/S Reality

In this frame we can see Charlie(waiter) is trapped between dancer.It symbolizes that poor people always suppressed by  rich people and here we can see the idea of colonization.

The ending of this film is very significant.Gamin and tramp both are seen walking in the empty road and the mountain symbolizes that they will have to do hard work to climing that mountain ,to get better and happy life they  have to do very hard work.