Charlie Chaplin came to Vaudeville, which was a quiet film that made him the most famous man in the world. His mastery of that form prepared him to feel some skepticism about the sound when he appeared. In 1931 he called silent images “a universal means of expression.” Nevertheless, he was a publicly preferred reader who was too keen to believe that he could remain silent forever, but he began to speak on screen in his own words – literally, in the case of present day. In that famous film, his iconic character The Tramp sings the song, but does it with an inexperienced hash of French and Italian, but still understands his meaning, as he had in all his previous quiet films.
That scene will be displayed in Cinemastix video essay above “The moment when the most famous silent comedian opens his mouth,” present day but The Great DictatorChaplin’s send-up of Adolf Hitler in 1940. In it, Chaplin plays two roles. The narrow master stunt Hitler Palodia Denoid Hinkel is a Jewish barber who “speaks” in Elsatz German with timidity and rhythmic persuasiveness, and the injustice that the Hinkel administration interned in the only line of the film at the end of the film.
Dressed as a dictator to escape camp, the barber suddenly finds himself giving a speech at the victory parade. When he speaks, he becomes famous for Chaplin’s natural voice, expressing emotions that sound like Chaplin himself. He opposes “machine man with a machine heart” and pleads for freedom, brotherly love and goodwill towards men.
It may have been Chaplin’s biggest box office hit, The Great Dictator Not his most highly regarded photo. When it was made, the United States had not yet participated in the war, and the perfect nature of what the Nazis were doing in Europe had not yet been revealed. Therefore, the relationship between the film and actual historical events is unsettling as if Chaplin himself wasn’t sure how light or heavy the tone he was struggling with was. Even his climactic speech was created only as an alternative to the intended final dance sequence, but he worked on it, writing and modifying it over the course of several months. That’s a bit ironic The Great Dictator Mainly in the scene where words are not against image, a comic genius abandons all the techniques that have made him a star, and in fact abandon the comedy itself.
Related content:
Charlie Chaplin’s final speech The Great Dictator: Statement on greed, hatred, intolerance, fascism (1940)
Charlie Chaplin finds comedy even in the atrocities of World War I: Scenes from Shoulder arm (1918)
The Charlie Chaplin Archives open and place 30,000 photos and documents online from the life of the iconic movie star
How Charlie Chaplin uses groundbreaking visual effects to film a deadly roller skate scene present day (1936)
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Based in Seoul Colin marshall Write and broadcasting stationTS about cities, languages, and culture. His projects include the Substack Newsletter Books about cities And the book The Stateless City: Walking through 21st century Los Angeles. Follow him on social networks previously known as Twitter @colinmarshall.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
