Kerri Battles the AFI’s Top 100 — #78: Modern Times

I don’t know if I can honestly say I was excited for this week’s film or not. I know I wasn’t dreading it — nothing from Chaplin is ever unwatchable — but I can’t say I was exactly eager for it, either. I think it all boils down to the fact that I want to like Charlie Chaplin much more than I actually do. The man is practically a patron saint of Hollywood, but I can’t seem to watch any of his films all the way through without getting bored or distracted somewhere in the middle. I think I was just hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. Reality fell probably somewhere in between.

Modern Times stars The Factory Worker (The Tramp – Charlie Chaplin) as a factory worker on an assembly line with a clear case of repetitive stress disorder. He suffers a nervous breakdown on the job and hospitalized. Upon his release, he is immediately mistaken for a “communist” labor leader and arrested. During his first prison meal, The Tramp salts his entire plate, unaware that the shaker was hiding contraband cocaine. His newfound coke-strength allows him to single-handedly foil an attempted escape by much larger fellow inmates. The Tramp is heralded as a hero and given a cushy cell until his subsequent pardon, which he tries to refuse because of the prison comforts to which he’s grown accustomed. A reluctantly free man, The Tramp witness the pretty Gamin rightfully accused of stealing a loaf of bread and steps in to take the blame. He is placed in custody just long enough for The Gamin to make an escape. When a witness corrects this error, The Tramp intentionally orders food he can’t pay for in a nearby restaurant and is arrested again. He and the Gamin find themselves in the same paddy wagon and, when it crashes, make a run for it together.  The two discuss dreams for a better life together and The Tramp decides to work for it. He gets a job as a night watchman at a department store and … takes advantage of the situation. When he is awoken the following morning as a customer peruses the pile of clothes under which he’s sleeping, The Tramp is arrested again. When he’s released 10 days later, The Gamin meets him and takes him to their new home — a crumbling and decrepit shack on the beach. When he hears the factory is reopening. The Tramp gets a job repairing the machinery, but is informed mid-shift that the entire staff is going on strike. Of course, he’s arrested again. When the 2 weeks for this stint are up, The Gamin tells him she works at a cafe and has a job there for him as a singing waiter. The waiting part leaves something to be desired, but his performance is such a hit that the owner offers him a full time job. Unfortunately, the cops arrive in search of the Gamin for her escape from custody roughly a month prior and she and The Tramp make a run for it. The next morning, by the side of the road, The Gamin sobs and questions the use of even trying. The Tramp tells her, “Buck up — never say die!” and the two walk off into the dawn.

 

Modern Times is written by, directed by, and produced by Charlie Chaplin, featuring music by Charlie Chaplin, and, of course, starring Charlie Chaplin. Watching the film will prove that Charlie Chaplin is incredibly talented in all of these departments. When it comes to filmmaking, it’s probably probably been argued by someone somewhere that Chaplin doesn’t actually have any weaknesses at all. I don’t want to speak ill of a Hollywood legend, so let’s just say that some of his strengths aren’t quite as strong as others. For example, cohesive plot lines — maybe not his strongest of strengths. To his credit, Chaplin uses topical and political situations to support his characters and frame his gags. But these events are just scaffolding. They’re the barest and simplest of structures meant to prop up the precious monument inside — the sight gags. This is why I get lost in Chaplin films. I stop paying attention during these scenes because, to me, it’s clear they don’t matter. They’re nothing more than interchangeably generic plot devices used to create an excuse for The Tramp to be in a department store that sells roller skates or a factory with comically large machinery. These scenes are the lead in, not the pay off. By 1936, Talkie Technology had already moved well beyond separate canned soundtracks that had to be perfectly synched to the film like Dark Side of Oz. Quick and quippy dialogue was quickly becoming the bedrock of film comedy — just ask the Marx Brothers. At this point the history of film, Chaplin made an artistic and stylized decision to make this film silent because the emphasis needed to be on what he did best. He’s lucky it paid off.

The elaborately choreographed, propped, and detailed sight gags Chaplin creates are proof enough for his Hollywood Canonization. Whether or not this kind of humor will push you to riotous laughter is a matter of personal taste (me — not so much), but either way, the artistry is equally as enthralling to watch. He utilizes large crowds of extras in the same way he uses huge cogs in giant machines — as just another prop for The Tramp to grind past and squeeze through and push against all in the name of a laugh. Still, each scene moves like a delicate dance, whether the The Tramp is dancing with a robot that force-feeds him nuts and bolts for lunch or working blue with a filthy solo pantomime. The physicality of it all comes across as both expertly practiced and completely effortless, as though it’s only something Chaplin has practiced because it’s the thing he was born to do. As you watch him fight against the tide of an entire dance floor in order to deliver a diner his roast duck unscathed, you don’t question the realism behind the events that brought him to this restaurant as a waiter. Instead, you marvel at the perfect, bumbling fluidity that leads to that duck being skewered on a chandelier while the wine and empty dishes continue on to the table. It’s the sort of act the medium of film was created to display.

I still wish I liked Chaplin films more than I actually do. But now that I’ve forced myself through a Chaplin film in its entirety with an analytical eye, l can at least say that fact speaks more about me as a 21st century viewer than it ever could of Chaplin as an artist and a performer. Film has evolved to suit the audience and, in turn, the audience has evolved to suit film. Certain things about silent films simply don’t hold up against the modern audience’s attention span, but artists who changed the world enough to earn a place in the eternal collective pop culture hive mind will never grow dull. It’s possible that Modern Times is actually the worst Chaplin film in history and I’d never know. But I do think the man deserves at least one spot on The List and Modern Times seems like as good a title as any to fill it with. — KSmith