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I just thought the same thing.

fantastic

I've watched through most of the features, and they're uniformly excellent. The commentary was solid and entertaining, if a bit weirdly defensive about Chaplin's leftist politics. The Criterion-produced little discussion about the sound and visual effects was a little repetitive, but the actual exploration of some of the effects was remarkable.

I especially like the documentary they put on about the little peasant village with people watching a movie for the first time- it reminds me of the scene in Sullivan's Travels with the church and the convicts all cracking up at the cartoon- it reinforces the power of movies as a medium, and has a real charm to it. It's only tangentially related to the movie, but I'm really glad Criterion put it on.

I realize that of all films from the 1930s, Chaplin's are probably the best preserved; however, I have to comment on the quality of this BD. It's simply incredible. Even down to the nitrate swirls in the print during the landscape shots.

I've just sat down with the disc this weekend. I particularly liked those seeming references to Metroplis in the early section of the film, which I hadn't picked up on before in seeing the film a very long time ago and which the commentary and the still photo feature also picks up on, with very similar viewscreens used by the head of the company to contact his employees throughout the building - the shirtless worker manning the turbines seeming to be an obvious stand-in for the worker in a similar role in Metropolis who fruitlessly tries to hold back the crowd of rioting workers. (I also like the way that the viewscreen is found in the bathrooms as well, surprising those workers nipping out for a quick subversive cigarette, along with showing that the company does not seem to mind invading the privacy of the more intimate rooms!)

Thinking about that first factory sequence in Metropolis comparison terms, I was left thinking of the little tramp, after he has his breakdown, as taking on the manically, giggling destructive qualities of the robotic Maria, although the telling difference in this film is that he is a lone rebellious figure (albeit one who appears to do just as much damage to the machinery!) set against the mass of workers angered by or looking on aghast at his running amok.

I think this plays into that idea of 'leftist politics/communism' in the film - I'd agree with the comments above that the commentary by David Robinson does seem a little over defensive of the possible left wing bias of Chaplin, though at the same time I do not really sense any particularly enthusiastic pro-communist bent in the film. For example the masses of workers are rather bluntly compared with sheep being herded in the very first shots, which does not seem very flattering if you are thinking in collectivist terms that 'the masses' can somehow overthrow their tyranny. It suggests that that particular battle has been lost already. Modern Times appears to be suggesting that the masses are just as dim and venal as the bosses and that capitalism in general, and modern production methods in particular, have appealed to the greed instinct inside everyone, dividing the workers so that it is not in anyones interests to rock the boat, instead just protecting themselves and their small roles as cogs in the larger machine. (The big development since this time of course which Modern Times does not foresee is that point at which machines, instead of simply dictating the pace of human labour, actually replace it altogether. Is it worse to be brutally and uncaringly exploited, or to have your role as a worker removed from the picture altogether? Perhaps that needs to be addressed in Post-Modern Times!)

There feels like there is an apolitical sense of interchangability going on through the film, in terms of both the bosses and the workers. They appear to be mostly the same everywhere you go, even prison, and only the life of the tramp really affords the opportunity to make this comparison. The only other film I can think of that mines this same territory, albeit in a completely different tone(!), is the one based on the Charles Bukowski novel, Factotum.

Rather, I think that Modern Times is pursuing an individualist (some might say humanist, but I don't think that fully addresses the capitalist-aspirational element displayed by our heroes) approach to life. There is teasing of the bosses, yet also of the workers or the various 'big lugs' in prison, the policemen or the demanding clients who push our characters around. The red flag waving and brick throwing sections both depend on the little tramp getting accidentally caught up in an ideology that he has not particularly chosen to get involved in (similar to the way that he is shown as being innocently exposed to cocaine and booze as well). He is acting for his own reasons but then has his actions in a sense 'misinterpreted' by both sides as an excuse for either espousing or repressing ideology. What is most important to note in both those scenes is that the little tramp's motivations (or carefully set up lack of them) are completely ignored by everyone else.

The other scene which suggests this individualist idea is the one where the tramp and the gamine meet after the girl steals the bread from the truck. The tramp says that he stole the bread instead of the girl, though it seems clear that this admission of guilt is far more to do with the relatively selfish wish of the tramp to go back to jail, not really to spare the girl from punishment, although that is an added bonus. The gamine herself also displays a number of these individualist traits, such as running from the department store on waking, rather than checking on what has happened to the tramp, or stealing the bananas, and so on. Both of the characters are living for themselves, and one of the most interesting things about the last section of the film and the ending is that, while throughout much of the film the tramp has been alternately proving himself and then messing his opportunities up, or having them mess up beyond his control, eventually the gamine gets her opportunity to save them both and in a sense messes up too by being caught up to by the authorities. However this allows for the ending where rather than one character being in the other's debt and being saved by the good fortune of another, this then allows the pair to become more equal partners in their relationship. They're two individual partners who trust each other getting together for a joint enterprise more than two emotionally needy lovers in debt to each other at the end.

I liked the comment from the commentary that we only hear voices through electronic devices throughout much of the film until the songs near the end. I wonder if, along with the practical and artistic reasons behind wanting to keep the little tramp silent for the bulk of the film, that this could also be a comment on the power of the disembodied, recorded voice over face-to-face conversation. The way that the devices provide only a one-way communication, barking orders or delivering set speeches that everyone has to pay attention to, because those being broadcast to are simply assumed to be paying attention, suggests the 'voice of God' idea of electronic communication. That it is all about who is in control of the technology that decides the manner in which it is used, something which can also be applied to the automated machines as well.

Perhaps the final song is the idea of Chaplin taking control of that power for himself but in a comic manner with the song combining many different languages (and therefore getting past the new issue of having to consider the language barriers that coming of sound had introduced), something which is all present in the one scene here but later could perhaps be seen to fracture into the duelling scenes of the nonsensical Hitler speech and final didactic speechifying of The Great Dictator.

For all the talk about À nous la liberté (which I think is the film that focuses much more on, and therefore is the one to go to if you want, worker/boss conflict and class satire) in the commentary, with Robinson giving a short recap of his essay from the Criterion disc for Clair's film, I wonder if that scene in René Clair's other film, Le million, in which the tussling over the jacket containing the winning lottery ticket gets overlaid with the sounds of a football match, had any bearing on the sequence where the duck gets mistaken for a football in this film?

Another strange influence I could perhaps discern would be the one that the automated eating machine could have had on the ED-209 sequence from Robocop. In both cases an employee is pulled out of the crowd as the subject of a demonstration of a new piece of kit, which then goes spectacularly haywire and abuses the employee while the inventors gather with concern - not for the safety of the employee but around the malfunctioning wiring for their labour of love machine. And of course both sequences end with the boss saying that he's probably not interested in the invention!

If there's been mention of this issue somewhere I've missed it, but my viewing of this was somewhat compromised by Chaplin's factory uniform constantly flickering blue. I presume this has to do with how thin the black and white stripes are on the uniform and that it can't be remedied on home video, but it's still frustrating. Has no one else noticed this?

I actually recall looking for something like that when I was viewing those scenes but didn't notice it happening.

swo17 wrote:If there's been mention of this issue somewhere I've missed it, but my viewing of this was somewhat compromised by Chaplin's factory uniform constantly flickering blue. I presume this has to do with how thin the black and white stripes are on the uniform and that it can't be remedied on home video, but it's still frustrating. Has no one else noticed this?

This could be related to watching the film on an interlaced screen vs. a progressive scan one.

Hmmm...well, I'm getting the problem through an LCD projector set to 1080/24p. Looking more closely, the issue is that, in fits and spurts, the thin black stripes on Chaplin's uniform actually turn bright blue, as in

I've never encountered something like this with my projector before (though I haven't had it that long either). Is this perhaps an issue unique to LCD projectors, or to lower end ones? I just tried playing the disc on my plasma TV and didn't see the same problem so it doesn't seem like a problem with the disc.

I have a lower end projector, a 720p one, and didn't run in to that problem in Modern Times- although I have had weird shimmering and colors popping up in other movies with black and white thin stripes.

Buy a TV like a normal person, swo.

I was planning to watch it again so I'll look out for it. But I would imagine that it's down to the the projector getting the colours mixed up. If the projector is still in warranty I'd try a few more b/w films see if it happens on them.

I have a panny plasma that does a similar thing but changes greens to purple.

Weird indeed, I thought LCDs had no problem with the rainbow effect or colors in black and white films, that being something which only affected DLPs with their spinning color wheels, I'd see about getting a replacement or at least emailing the manufacturer?

I think it all depends on whether one lives in a Blue state or a Red state.

swo17 wrote: my viewing of this was somewhat compromised by Chaplin's factory uniform constantly flickering blue.

I can understand wanting to know how your equipment works and why, but as for enjoyment of the film, isn't it just simple enough to turn off the color?
Am I missing something?

I've never had this particular problem with my LCD projector, but I do usually minimise the colour when watching b&w films. However, it isn't possible on mine to turn it off completely. Over time, LCD projectors (in my experience) are prone to patches of discolouration which cannot be removed by the controls. But that's a different issue and the unwanted "tinted" areas remain constant, though they are most visible of course on b&w material.

This is only a month-old projector, though I've watched a ton of B&W stuff on it already and not noticed anything like this before. I can minimize the flickering on Modern Times by changing the color scheme.