Film Assignment: Modern Times (LABR 1F90)

1. What is the significance of the clip of the flock of sheep at the very beginning of the film?

In the film Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin, the significance portrayed by the metaphor ‘flock of sheep’ refers to the image of a crowd descending into an underground station. This follows a juxtaposition in which the sheep are the workers. They were being herded as they were streaming out of the Steel factory. Little Tramp played by Chaplin notices that the automation and productivity had literally changed the worker’s views, altering the masses like some livestock of obedient workers. It was as if they did nothing but work a lot with the inclusion of getting paid the least. Furthermore the factory owner or the boss was viewed as someone that was happy and relaxed who watched over all the workers through a pair of panoptic lenses. None of the workers were allowed to neglect any of the boss’s orders. Tramp was seen as a factory worker that has been exhausted from doing repetitive work on the conveyor belt.

Critically the flock of sheep filmic metaphor shows that the workers have a sheep like behavior. Even though the two things were meant to represent the same thing; the phenomenon transfer of meaning can be seen as unambiguous. The crowd remains as the crowd and the sheep remains as the sheep. The association of the two simply incites the effect of the symbolic leap from one to the other based on a level that acquires a relative value.

2. The film covers various themes (unemployment, automation, food shortages, and political repression). Choose two of these themes and describe the ways in which the film highlights them.

Unemployment

Unemployment is highlighted throughout the Modern Times film for Tramp. After getting fired from jobs Tramp would go back to being unemployed and start looking for new jobs again. From working at a factory, to being an entertainer, a waitress to working as a security guard, the constant struggle for looking for employment never stopped for Tramp. The scene where Tramp went through a nervous breakdown after working at the Steel factory was sent to the hospital. Upon his recovery, he became an unemployed worker. It was at that moment he noticed the several thousand unemployed marching in the city with a strike. When he mistakenly joined the riot he got arrested and was sent to jail. The city was driven by alarming rates of poverty, unemployment, strikes, strike breakers, political intolerance, economical inequalities and the tyranny of automation. When the era was encountered by an economic sprawl it led to a high unemployment rate and declining corporate profits. With such economic problems came the fixation of saving time and money as way for increasing profits. Another scene of unemployment was dealt with the gamin woman, Ellen. When she was first introduced, she stole bananas for her sisters to support her family. As she arrived home, her father appeared to have been unemployed and was desperate to feed the children. The film tried to show how a family could fall apart if the father was unemployed. Ultimately her father joined the protest that led to his death while her family had no choice but to give themselves up for orphanage.

Automation

One of the things highlighted about automation is the scene about the Steel factory’s obsession with time and automation. In one of the factory scenes Tramp is seen working at his station on the assembly line where he holds two wrenches on either hand to tighten nuts on a long stream of steel on the conveyor belt production line. Beside him is a foreman that tells him to keep up with the belt and intimidates him. When Tramp stops to do something for a moment he causes disorderly chaos for the rest of the fellow workers in the production line. When he attempted to catch up and do his part the foreman began to lag on his part. This showed that the workers were expected to keep up like the machines or make the rest of the workers suffer for their mistakes.

During the great depression in North America, workers were pushed to their limits to have their work done faster in order to cover business losses. Though, Tramp despised the benefits of technological contribution to a capital lifestyle. As it is seen to this modern era, automation has removed factory workers with the help of profit and technological evolution. This eventually led to massive job cuts ultimately replacing the expensive human force with machines putting thousands out of jobs. Tramp felt that machines were viewed as a dangerous apparatus that was run by the hands of some greedy people. The drawback of machines was that if they were given full control, there would be fewer workers on the job. However automation meant faster productions that were capable of delivering on time.

Another highlight of the automation was the invention of a feeding machine that was capable of feeding its workers while they worked at the production line. The machine was designed to shorten their lunch hour break and improve productivity. The boss of the steel factory was shown the feeding machine and Tramp was selected as the human taste tester. The testing started off very smoothly until the machine malfunctioned and crashed. Yet Tramp became trapped, unable to move, was tortured with food. This scene explained a crucial fact about automation that there were some things machines couldn’t always solve.

3. What is the political message, if any, being conveyed in Modern Times?

There are several political messages conveyed in Modern Times. One of the first political messages is signified at the very beginning of the film, the scene where the boss of the factory attempts to complete a puzzle while demanding orders from his office. This can be used as a metaphor for Tramp in which he could be using the factory workers like puzzle pieces. This concept is seen in the type of work he does in the factory where he represents one of the pieces of the puzzle. Tramp suggested that the workers as a whole were viewed as parts in a machine that could be replaced anytime.

A second political message is portrayed by what unemployed workers would do for food. Those who couldn’t find a job would rather break the law so they can eat. The film has referred to this perception twice, once with Ellen, the woman Tramp falls in love with and the other being his co-workers. Ellen is shown throughout the film trying to support her family with food for their struggles. On the other hand, Tramp’s co-workers attempted to break into the department store that Tramp once worked in for food. Both of these characters faced a rough time, having been on the run for breaking laws to survive everyday of their life. Although their actions were viewed as a crime to the public, Tramp didn’t judge them by their actions since they were desperate for food and stealing was the only way to support them.

A third political message is shown when Tramp is thrown in jail. When Tramp spent the time in jail, he didn’t show signs of depression instead he preferred to be in prison than in the harsh environment of the outside world. He noticed that all the inmates in jail were treated equally and were distributed with food – which was something he wasn’t getting outside. Living in jail was like Marxism to Tramp since people were treated fairly with no money and inmates went about their lives without a classless foundation. This scene suggested that the system in which the people were living was not working out very well and that an alternate way of living was needed.

A fourth political message is seen when Tramp and Ellen sat on the pavement near a middle class house where they thought about the future. More importantly they discussed about a proper house the two could have and be happy with, leaving poverty and problems behind. Both were hard working individuals. They could continue to work hard and enjoy a western type of life. Chaplin showed the difference between the rich and poor based on the fundamentals of capital economic savages.