Silent movies - Modern Times

It's obvious we had to get to this point eventually.
A silent movie project without Charlie Chaplin wouldn't be complete and "Modern Times" practically jumped at me when I was checking what was new in the ARTE Mediathek (the TV channels keep a video library of their content for a certain time) and found they had a Charlie Chaplin event.
Again, I knew parts of it, such as the Tramp getting caught in the cogs of the factory, but wasn't sure if I had ever seen the whole movie.
Also, ARTE didn't just have the movie itself, but also a documentary on it.

After "City Lights", which had been a huge success in 1931 even as a silent film among talkies, Chaplin had been burnt out and went into depression. His PR tour turned into a trip around the world to help him find himself again. After 17 months, he came back to Hollywood ready to do another movie. At his side was Paulette Goddard.

Public domain

"Modern Times" is a little special in this project of mine as it's not a completely silent film.
Actually, Chaplin had already written a complete dialog for it until September 1934, rehearsals started in October. In December, however, after three days of shooting, Chaplin stopped. He just couldn't make himself to have his famous character talk, he didn't know what voice to give him and what to make him say.
As mentioned, however, "Modern Times" isn't completely silent. People may not speak to one another, but they speak through the machines, the intercom through which the factory boss gives his orders even during break time, the radio, the "mechanical salesman". There's only one scene in which you hear the Tramp's voice, not speaking, but singing, not in understandable words either, but in gibberish because he has forgotten the lyrics to the song. What could be better to show Chaplin's position towards talkies?
Shooting ended in August 1935 and the movie came out in 1936 - "A story of industry, of individual enterprise - humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness."

Ready for some plot (with spoilers)?
The Tramp works on an assembly line. Due to the stress - the scene with the feeding machine designed to feed workers to make breaks obsolete and thus increase profits really stressed me out - he suffers a nervous breakdown which ends in chaos and ends him up in hospital.
After his release he stumbles into a demonstration and gets arrested being mistaken for the leader because he happens to pick up a lost red flag.
In jail he prevents a jailbreak by knocking down the convicts which gets him special treatment. Being told that he will be released soon, he says he'd rather stay in jail.

Back in a world of unemployment, uproar, and poverty, the Tramp is determined to go to jail again after messing up at another job.
He meets Ellen, "The Gamin", who just lost her father and whose sisters were taken away by juvenile services (never to be mentioned again in the movie) from which she could escape. She has stolen a bread from a van, and both to help her and to get arrested himself, he claims he did it, but a witness tells the police it was Ellen, so she gets taken away.
He meets her again in a police wagon after he gets arrested for eating a huge amount of food at a restaurant without paying. The wagon breaks down and they escape together.

Next he gets a job as a night watchman in a department store and brings Ellen with him imagining how it would be to live in a nice house with her.
During the night, three burglars come in one of whom he knows from work. They say they are just hungry, so they eat and drink, and the Tramp wakes up when the department store has already opened.
When he gets out of jail this time, Ellen surprises him by showing him a very rundown shack where they can live. He gets a new job, but the workers go on strike and during that he inadvertently hits a policeman with a brick.

While he's in jail, Ellen has found a job as a café dancer and secures a job for him as well, as a waiter and entertainer.
Unfortunately the police arrives and wants to arrest Ellen for running away from juvenile services. They both escape, but Ellen has lost all hope and wonders why you should even bother trying.
The Tramp tells her never to lose hope and together they go down the road into an uncertain life.

"Modern Lights" was the last appearance of the Tramp on screen, and despite coming out almost ten years after the first talkie (The Jazz Singer), it was a very successful send-off.
While the movie has very funny scenes, there is a lot more to it, though.

Its opening scene is a flock of sheep pushing along - one black one among them - and next a crowd of workers coming out of a subway station. You see a few crowds in the film and often the Tramp is getting caught up in them without wanting it and without being able to escape - for example in the demonstration, during the strike, and a scene in the café where people dance while he's trying to get an order to a guest.
Chaplin had been to Ford's factory, he had seen how hard and exhausting work on an assembly line was for the young men working there, so it's not surprising that his Tramp can't take the stress he's exposed to by the ever increasing speed of the line. If one worker falls behind, it has a direct effect on all the others, too.

After the Tramp is released from hospital, the movie is one attempt after the other to find a place for himself and Ellen in this merciless system, and just when they think they have found it, the dream gets destroyed by that system once again.
It's what makes the Tramp so universal, a lot of people could identify with that feeling, especially during the Great Depression. And yet he never gives up and keeps that childlike hope that there will be something good in the future.
Originally, a different ending had been filmed with the Tramp finding out that Ellen has joined a convent, but then Chaplin found that the film had to end on a hopeful note.

Given Chaplin's own history of a hard childhood in the slums of London and bouts of depression throughout his life, the Tramp's relentless pursuit of his little happiness - because he isn't asking for much - is quite amazing (also for me, a terrible pessimist).

In Germany, "Modern Times" was prohibited, just as Chaplin's other movies were not shown anymore. That doesn't mean it wasn't criticized in the USA for showing "communist tendencies". Not everyone was happy with Chaplin getting political, even more so with his later films. Eventually he even had to leave the USA because of that.

I enjoyed the movie much more than I had expected although I can't really tell you what exactly I had expected. I laughed, I was touched, and I suffered with those two just doing their best to survive in difficult times.
Again, there would be so much more to say about the movie, but as always I'm going to list some sources for you if you are interested (quite randomly picked, as you can imagine, there is a lot available!).
"Modern Times" has been called one of the greatest films not just of Chaplin, but ever. I would definitely recommend watching it and I'm quite sure I will be watching it again myself, too.


Sources:
1. R.K.: Chaplin : Modern Times. Originally in: The Manchester Guardian, July 14, 1936
2. Chaplins "Moderne Zeiten" - Der Abschied vom Stummfilm (France 2024, German dubbing/subtitles). On: ARTE TV (currently available until November 30, 2025)
3. Matt ?: Modern Times (1936). On: I Draw On My Wall, September 4, 2017
4. David A. Punch: Modern Times: Aversion to Innovation. On: The Twin Geeks, February 4, 2019
5. Josh Matthews: Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times - - What Makes This Movie Great (Episode 7). On the YouTube channel "Learning about Movies"