'Modern Times' by Charles Spencer Chaplin : The Frame-Study Of Major Frames.

Introduction : This blog is written as a response to the Thinking Activity assigned by my professor Dr Dilip Barad sir concerning the 'setting' of the twentieth century England and correlative movie 'Modern Times' which was released in USA on 25th February, 1936 and was directed by Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin famously known by his alias Charlie Chaplin. In this blog we are going to see the relation of the setting of twentieth century English zeitgeist with reference to the first chapter 'The Setting' of the book 'Twentieth Century English Literature' by Alfred Charles Ward along with the spiritus mundi and the general tempo of the time discussed.

The aforementioned study shall be done by studying several successive major frames of the movie mentioned.

Frame 1 :

The very first frame indicates the aim and included aspects in the movie. It focuses on Industrialism, Entrepreneurship, humans' pursuit of happiness by ample material means.

Frame 2 :

The men of the nineteenth century worked like machines in factories which shows how the mechanisation of men was at its topmost peak.

Frame 3 :

Men's existence was imbued and whirling around with the machine gears; the aforementioned picture seems unbelievable but has a symbolic significance to the life of men they lived amongst the world of machines, completely contactless to their self and nature due to the only goal of material success.

Frame 4 :

The frisky food habits were the outcome of men's rate-race after money. Health was put at the back of the desires and wishesto fulfil them.

Frame 5 :

The frame mentioned is suggestive to the will of business-class people to overtake the marketing lead by saving time of eating thus the vily inventors came and presented the machine which helped eating food without any ado.

Frame 6 :

The mass-mentality is shown here by putting the frame of people to get job right after showing sheeps running in herd. The sheeple are shown who like Sisyphus seem to have been assigned a meaningless work from which they cannot escape.

Frame 7 :

A co-worker asks the protagonist to help in the work shows the mutual goodwill to help fellow-class people in working and might be indicating the communist ideology propounded by Sir Karl Marx.

Frame 8 :

Not even a single minute was spared for rest to the workers by the owners of the facories because they did not want their ego to be crushed down by their rival factory owners, so they kept prompting their workers to ceaselessly do work.

Frame 9 :

Now both the aforementioned frames show the psychological imbalance and illness caused due to excessive inclination towards work regardless one's physical limitations and so on, thus the depression leading mental illness was result of such foolish pursuit.

Frame 10 :

The indigent class is depicted in the aforementioned frame that even for food of an hour, they had to either steal it or to do excessive laborious and meager works, and at last by doing so they were made elogible to have a limited amout of food by which they can only survive but cannot have healt benefits out of the food.

Frame 11 :

It is a small but interesting frame to observe the mai tenance of law & order in the century ws almost like an instructive book to operate machine. Men were ordered and seemed to be ruled by the authority of law and officials, whom they were treated as  remote-controlled robots than human beings.

Frame 12 :

The mass turned to industries from the agriculture which created limited number of job vacancies in industries, thus unemployment was natural outcome of the situation. People starved and struggled to live, mob gathered and striked for job, many died and plight of the family members was indelible.

Frame 13 :

People sought happiness in the limited resources which were only useful  to make the end meets; this frame shows that how the modern men lived in a secured but very small place where they can get basic amenities like food, shelter, and clothes and the liberty from unnecessary welter. This is quite contradictory to the men who constantly worked to achieve their dreams.

Frame 14 :

The poor are again taken into consideration, they had to steal food, for they lacked the means to earn it by hardwork or anykind of business.

Frame 15 :

In this frame, the dream of every modern person to have ideal home and lifestyle is dealt with. The protagonist and his beloved both are sowing seeds to have desired home and ideal lifestyle by the sight of other successful people lived in the century.

Frame 16 :

So, the protagonist dreams of the house where he and his beloved can live an ideal life, have healthy natural and ample food, freedom from the welter to earn wages, and no corruption of natural resources. This was and perhaps is an ideal lifestyle generally considered by most people in that time and perhaps now as well.

Frame 17 :

The hurry to externalize the conceived dream is shown. Men looked for happiness outside and in the material gain lacking spiritual aspect which is one of the startling characteristics of the modern age as T. S. Eliot showed in his poem 'The Waste Land.'

Frame 18 :

The plight of poor can take a form of burglary and this is a compassionate corner for the unsettling truth qnd reason behind most of the larcenies are acted upon, especially by those who were needy and impecunious, this is attempted by the director to minutely show one of the causes behind all the burglary acted out.

Frame 19 :

Even getting a hut-like home, the female protagonist calls it "paradise." The satisfaction was derived out of little available things, which was the tendency of poor-class.

Frame 20 :

Men's struggle and hurry to find work is shown. Even for the fulfillment of dreams, they were even ready to cost their lives. The running man towards industries is symbolic to the rat-race wherein modern men threw himself.

Frame 21 :

This brief sequence of strike by the workers is allusive to the Labour Unions who resisted the excessive work hours and so many related issues by which the workers' lives can be put into danger.

Frame 22 :

Utilitarianism is seen when two wealthy hotel owners try to use a beautiful girl as a piece of attraction in their hotel or lodge. They just want a young and charming girl to perform dance so that the hotel can have more chance of having customers. This is the idea of Utilitarianism wherein humans are deemed machines to get other human' job done.

Frame 23 :

As seen before, the poor had to sell their freedom and art just to satisfy their hunger. They had to be the puppets of rich's hands and do the things as commanded only to earn a few dimes.

Frame 24 :

This is somewhat humorous sequence, a drunkard comes in the hotel and erects an uproar by puny fights with the fellow drunkards.

Frame 25 :

The hope never dies. The couple sets out to find the other ways to have happy life, even after having been failed into so many attempts to do so. Then they are seen going 'far from the madding crowd' of the roary cities to the 'solitude' of rustic and bucolic life.

Conclusion : The frame-study is interesting art to understand the idea conveyed through several frames in movie by directors. It is something like reading between lines and doing a critical evaluation on the basis of the prevalence of time and contemporary social and political dynamics.

Thank you!