Social Issues in Film Week 1 Modern Times

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Social Issues in Film Week 1- Modern Times
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Charlie Chaplin 1889-1977

• Born Charles Spencer Chaplin in London, England
  on 16 April 1889.
• His parents, Charles Chaplin, Sr and Hannah Hill
  were music hall entertainers but separated and
  divorced shortly after Charlie was born. His
  father did not pay child support.
• In 1896 Hannah was confined to a mental asylum,
  no longer able to care for her children, Charlie
  and his brother Sydney were admitted to Lambeth
  Workhouse and later, Hanwell School for Orphans
  and Destitute Children. He and his brother
  Sydney were reunited with their mother after 4
  months, though she was occasionally readmitted.
  For a while they lived with his alcoholic father
  and step mother.

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• By his early teens, he has performed several
  times. When he is 16 his mother relapses and is
  institutionalized for 7 years. His father had
  died four years earlier.
• Charlie joins the Karno troupe working alongside
  Stan Laurel. Two years later, Chaplin (along with
  the rest of the Karno troupe) tour the United
  States' vaudeville circuit.
• Two years later, in 1912, Charlie returns with
  the Karno troupe to the USA, but this time
  decides to stay.
• The next year, Chaplin leaves the stage to join
  Mack Sennet's Keystone Films Studio.
• His character of the little tramp has become a
  popular star.

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• By November of 1913, Chaplin is leaving Keystone,
  having signed an exclusive contract for the newly
  formed Essanay Film Company.
• Desiring even more creative control, Chaplin
  began building his own studio in the fall of
  1917, and signed with yet another studio, First
  National. For the first time, Chaplin has
  complete control over every phase of his films.

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• Charlie begins in his personal life a recurring,
  destructive pattern -- he chases (and frequently
  marries) a young woman, loses interest in her
  (being consumed by his creative energies), goes
  through a messy breakup (or divorce), typically
  impacting his professional life, and then repeats
  the pattern.

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• 1919 his infant child is born, horribly deformed,
  and dies after only 3 days. In that same year, he
  formed United Artists with his closest friend
  Douglas Fairbanks and Fairbanks' wife, screen
  legend Mary Pickford.
• Had two sons with second wife, Lita Gray, another
  leading lady.

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• 1932 he met Paulette Goddard, who would costar in
  his next film Modern Times -- which would be
  the Tramp's final film.
• After the release of Modern Times, Charlie
  Chaplin and Paulette Goddard were married in
  secret, while on vacation in the Orient.
• Upon his return, Charlie began his most audacious
  comedy yet The Great Dictator, making fun of
  Adolph Hitler.

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• 1942 was a very busy year for Charlie Chaplin, at
  least in his personal life. Paulette Goddard
  divorced Chaplin, and went on to be a star in her
  own right.
• Falls deeply, and permanently, in love with
  Onna ONeil. Daughter of Eugene O'Neil, the
  famous playwright.
• Also dating Joan Barry, a troubled young woman,
  who had some talent for acting. She had met
  Charlie Chaplin, who had given her a screen test
  for a role, but did not hire her for any of his
  movies. Although they dated on and off, nothing
  serious came of it. But in Joan Barry's mind, it
  was very serious -- serious enough that she
  breaks into Chaplin's home later that year, armed
  with a gun. Charlie eventually talked her out of
  any violence, got her to leave quietly, and then
  called the police, resulting in a restraining
  order that should have served to keep her out of
  Charlie Chaplin's life.

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• Has seven children with Oona.
• Rumored to be a communist (hes actually a
  Pacifist), when he travels in 1951, the
  government rescinded his reentry permit --
  effectively locking him out of the country as an
  undesirable alien. This is largely a ruse to
  seize his assets. However, his wife Oona
  returned to the United States, and promptly took
  all of the liquid assets, as well as liquidating
  everything she could -- leaving the government
  without a penny for its' trouble.
• Relocated to Vevey, Switzerland in 1953, where
  they lived for the remainder of their lives
  together. After their death, it has been turned
  into an international Charlie Chaplin Museum.

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• In 1972, Charlie Chaplin did something he never
  thought he would do -- he returned to the United
  States of America. He was returning to accept a
  lifetime achievement Academy Award.
• In 1977, Charlie Chaplin passed away, on
  Christmas Day.

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Modern Times 1936

• Nine years after talkies came out.
• Chaplins protest against the new technology.
• The singing tramp scene demonstrates how actions
  are more important than words (tramp performs
  singing gibberish
• Last film featuring his famous Silent Tramp
  Character- a protest for the working person.

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The Plight of the Modern Worker

• Set in the 1930s during the Great Depression era,
  
• Themes of unemployment, poverty, and hunger.
• Struggle by proletarian man against the
  dehumanizing effects of the machine in the
  Industrial Age (Fordism), and various social
  institutions.

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Devices

• Chaplin uses cinematic devices to make his point
• We hear spoken voices only when they come from
  mechanical devices, a symbol of the film's theme
  of technology and dehumanization.
• Universality of plight- a silent film can be
  understood by all.

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Alienation

• For Marx, the history of mankind had a double
  aspect It was a history of increasing control of
  man over nature at the same time as it was a
  history of the increasing alienation of man.
• Alienation may be described as a condition in
  which men are dominated by forces of their own
  creation, which confront them as alien powers.

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The Four Aspects of Alienation

• The Object Produced
• The Process of Production
• Himself/Herself
• The Community of Fellows

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The Object Produced

• 1) The Object produced- "The object produced by
  labor, its product, now stands opposed to it as
  an alien being, as a power independent of the
  producer. . . .The more the worker expends
  himself in work the more powerful becomes the
  world of objects which he creates in face of
  himself, the poorer he becomes in his inner life,
  and the less he belongs to himself.
• The object produced is used to satisfy basic
  needs, but the worker lacks detailed knowledge
  and control over the product.

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The Process of Production

• 2) The process of production- "However,
  alienation appears not merely in the result but
  also in the process of production, within
  productive activity itself. . . . If the product
  of labor is alienation, production itself must be
  active alienation. . . . The alienation of the
  object of labor merely summarizes the alienation
  in the work activity itself.
• Productive activity belongs to the capitalist,
  the process is no longer satisfying in and of
  itself. Instead it is tied into the generation
  of profit.

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Himself/Herself- Species Being

• 3) Him/herself- Being alienated from the objects
  of his labor and from the process of production,
  man is also alienated from himself--he cannot
  fully develop the many sides of his personality.
  "Work is external to the worker. . . . It is not
  part of his nature consequently he does not
  fulfill himself in his work but denies himself. .
  . . The worker therefore feels himself at home
  only during his leisure time, whereas at work he
  feels homeless."31 "In work the worker does not
  belong to himself but to another person."32 "This
  is the relationship of the worker to his own
  activity as something alien, not belonging to him
  activity as suffering (passivity), strength as
  powerlessness, creation as emasculation, the
  personal physical and mental energy of the
  worker, his personal life. . . . as an activity
  which is directed against himself, independent of
  him and not belonging to him.
• One is alienated from his/her human potential.
  We become less human through our work and more
  like animals. (who only do things to satisfy
  basic needs).

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Community of Fellows

• 4) Community of Fellows- "Man is alienated from
  other men. When man confronts himself he also
  confronts other men. What is true of man's
  relationship to his work, to the product of his
  work and to himself, is also true of his
  relationship to other men. . . . Each man is
  alienated from others . . . each of the others is
  likewise alienated from human life.
• Rather than working together, workers are pitted
  in competition against one another.

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Emancipation- Praxis

• Human emancipation only occurs when individuals
  become species beings, or realize their
  potential.
• Praxis- concrete action informed by theory
• His ideal society does not rule over people and
  is nothing beyond the concrete relations between
  individuals.

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• For Chaplin, what is the ideal happy ending?