Sometimes...

..."Modern" still applies, even when it's 80 years old.

I have watched another in the list of the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition)...

I am NOT going to get this done in a calendar year.  I've got 59 to go in just over 90 days....and I don't see that as possible.  I suppose I could cut myself some slack for the 5 months I took off, but that is not like me...

Film 41

41.  "Modern Times" (AFI Rank #78)

We have gotten to a point where I'm writing about films that I have not seen in their entirety on a previous occasion.  There are now only 19 left (this was 20).  This film may be the one that I'm most "ashamed" of not having seen before.  Most of the rest are movies that are great (I'm led to believe), but haven't interested me, particularly, either because of their length, their genre, or their subject matter.  There are a couple of exceptions in that.  This one was the biggest of those.  

I deliberately put Charlie Chaplin at the beginning, near the middle, and at the end of my list.  He has three films in the Top 100, and I would argue that there is no individual who has had as enduring a legacy, nor as massive an impact in his time, as Charlie Chaplin did.  He was the greatest film star there ever was, and I really don't think that will change.  When presented with his honorary Academy Award in 1972, it was presented for his "incalculable effect he had on making motion pictures the art form of the century."   That's a pretty fair summation.  We can never fully realize the effect Chaplin had on the world, I think.  Want to have some fun?  Look up his Wikipedia page.  At the bottom there are photos of 8, count them, EIGHT statues dedicated to him around the world.  Chaplin is a global treasure.


Why?  Well.  Because of films like "Modern Times."  Shot as the last of the silent films (but incorporating quite a bit of sound), Chaplin used his "Little Tramp" character for the last time (not really used in "The Great Dictator," but close).  And, for this one, Chaplin pulled out all the stops.

Working nearly 'round the clock for 10 full months, this film, like all of Chaplin's work, is a study in the art of filmmaking.  Acting as writer, lead actor (carrying the whole film himself, really), and director, along with soundtrack composer...and editor...well.  If ever Hollywood produced an "I've got a barn, let's put on a show" talent, this guy was it.  Working with autonomy, Chaplin shot the film at...Charlie Chaplin Studios, on his dime.  That a man could, nearly single handedly, envision so much, and then execute it, and then...sell the hell out of it...is stunning, in today's terms.  Even though Chaplin had a lot of help, his studio was not the layers and layers of bureaucracy that exists today, with scads of people helping with every detail.

And that, really, is the crux of my thoughts on this film.  How could one person do this?  The sets are amazing, wondrous toys that Chaplin uses to his great benefit.  The factory that we find our protagonist in at the beginning is a delightfully clean, automated marvel.  The President of the company speaks (through an enormous videophone - "Big Brother" style) out loud to a foreman, whose job is to speed up production through a choreographed series of lever pulling, wheel turning and switch throwing.  Wait.  I said this was a silent film.  Well.  Yes.  No actor speaks out loud, except through machinery.  We see the same President later in the film use title cards...it's a clever touch.  Chaplin was commenting on the mechanization of human beings, and in the era of "talkies," it is a bold statement that the only human voices are either sung (in gibberish) or spoken through a machine.  As the film progresses in the set up, we see the effect that the factory is having on our hero.  He's losing his mind.  Looking at his job...we get it.

It is impossible to talk about a Chaplin film without discussing the gags.  Whether the twisting of the two wrenches that is the protagonist's sole job, or watching him twist the buttons with that wrench on a lady's behind, or watching him look at the buttons on an amply endowed woman's chest...again with the idea of twisting them...Chaplin loves the gags.  We remember him for them.  This film is chock full of memorable bits.  The "automated feeding machine" designed to eliminate the lunch break for factory workers has to be seen to be appreciated.  The famous scene with the Little Tramp being ground through the gears of the factory is another one that defies description.  But on top of that, we get the origins of the gastric distress in "The African Queen," as the Little Tramp and a very proper reverend's wife share some uncomfortable moments listening to their stomachs react to some tea.  I can't talk about them all.  You have to see the film.

One bit, however, is breathtaking.  Shot in the same fashion as the woods in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," the roller skating scene is a palm-sweating wonder.  Skating on an upper level of a department store...a store under repair and missing its balustrade, we watch Chaplin, again and again, skate right on the edge of a very deep dropoff.  That the character is blindfolded increases the risk multifold.

 *SPOILER - DON'T READ THE NEXT SECTION IF YOU WANT TO BE AMAZED.  SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH*  Chaplin, however, ever the technician, didn't do the stunt that we think we saw.  He did it, essentially, on a flat floor, and painted the dropoff onto some glass which was mounted in front of the camera.  That we so completely believe the danger...wow.  I bought it, hook, line and sinker.  And...I should have known better.

Other bits include Chaplin feeding his boss his lunch while the boss is stuck in the gears of the factory...and the man being OK with that.  I mean work is one thing, but when it's lunchtime, it's lunchtime.  Said the guy who writes these reviews during lunch.  So much to comment on.  So little that I wish to give away.  God, I loved this film.  You really should watch it.  I bet I tell you to do that again.

I started this by saying that "modern" really applies, still, to this movie. Yup.  Chaplin's co-star, Paulette Goddard is a stunningly beautiful woman, with a modern look that would feel as natural today as it did then.  So often the hair styles of the age do something to our perception of beauty.  Tell me that Goddard doesn't look like she just walked into a film in the 21st century.  She is gorgeous to the eyes, with an infectious smile, and she acts pretty well, too.  Well, pantomimes, anyway.  That's acting. This is the second film in a row that I've watched where I've fallen completely for one of the female leads.  It was Liesl on the last one, and this one, I was dumbstruck by Goddard in this.  Gobsmacked.  Completely.  What a beauty.

Goddard isn't the only modern thing in this film.  There is a tremendous scene with "nose powder," in which we get to see Chaplin...on cocaine.  I hadn't known that was in the film, and while Chaplin's actions are, of course, not very realistic, the superhuman strength and disregard for one's own safety...they are in there.  Chaplin had obviously been around people who had used the drug, if he hadn't done so personally (I don't know...anyone?).  Add to that the opening shot, of sheep walking towards the camera...which dissolves into a group of workers headed to work.  We also see the briefest of Communist rallies, inadvertently led by the Little Tramp.  We see the trappings of suburbia, before the idea really, really took off post-World War II.
That all of this could be seen, commented on, and filmed by really one man...damn.

One other thing.  The Little Tramp sings.  Out loud.  Sold yet?

Chaplin was the shit.  For real.  This film shows him really flexing his muscles, and I am really, really glad I've finally watched it.  I've long thought that I would want to have dinner with John Lennon, if I could "have dinner with any person, alive or dead."  I may be changing my mind.  I don't think the dude would have time for me...but Chaplin would probably be a fascinating eating companion.  I'm not sure he'd get in a word edgewise, as I'd likely just barrage him with questions...but man, I'd enjoy that.

Watch this film.  Watch it in its entirety.  It is one of the reasons that films even exist today.  I intend to show it to the boys sometime soon.  I couldn't mention the ending...but boy.  Wow.  "We'll get along."  Ugh.  What a film.

I am going to make a minor quibble.  How this film is ranked lower in the Top 100 than "Forrest Gump" is beyond me.  I'm picking on that one in particular, but there are a TON of lesser films ranked higher on the list (but in this region of the list) than this one, and...well...that's just wrong.

Ebert didn't put this in his list of "Great Movies."  He did a brief review, really, of audience reaction to the re-release in 1972.  It's here.