Movie Review: Modern Times

The emergence of modern societies gave new significance to clock-time. A crucial aspect of this was the way in which, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the tempo of agricultural and manufacturing labour increasingly came to be set by the clock and calendar in a way very different from pre-modern forms of work. This all is what we generally go through in our textbooks. But this Friday we analysed it through our own eyes. We established our own definitions and understandings of the industrial era. Through the lens of silent comical masterpiece of Charlie Chaplin "Modern Times" we cleared our learning of modern era.

The "Little Tramp" character in the movie struggles to survive in the modern world. The pace and repetition of his work in assembly line stresses him. He suffers from nervous breakdown. This made him cause troublesome and chaos. The film in general symbolises the life of a common man in the complex instrialised world.

While going through our textbooks of sociology we got to know that "Prior to the development of industrial capitalism, work-rhythms were set by factors such as the period of daylight, the break between tasks and the constraints of deadlines or other social duties. Factory production implied the synchronisation of labour-it began punctually, had a steady pace and took place for set hours and on particular days of the week. In addition, the clock injected a new urgency to work. For both employer and employee *time is now money: it is not passed but spent.*" Little Tramp was going through the similar mania. The workers were just round the clock. They are occupied all the time. There behaviour is controlled by the hands of clock.

All these complexities depressed The Tramp. And he had a nevous breakdown. He was sent to hospital. Right after his recovery, the now unemployed Tramp mistakenly got arrested in a Communist protest. Then he was released because of his heroic act. He got a letter of recommemdation from the police officers for his doings. But it was the time of great depression. The air was full of unemployed. But he got the job. His innocence becomes the reason of losing the only job he had. Then again the struggle begins. He met a girl named Ellen. Unfortunately, both of them was about to jailed for a theft. They escaped from there. He dreamt of having a happy life with the girl. Again he was arrested. The struggle remains so. He becames the puppet of system and modern time.

It's true that industrial era brought new skies with it, but one cannot deny freedom and opportunity are available only to some individuals. More accurately, only a socially and economically privileged minority can have the luxury of a predominantly free and fulfilling life. Most people who live in cities have only limited and relative freedoms within larger constraints. Similar was for The Tramp. He was just the source of happiness and entertainment for the ruling class.

The industrial revolution also evolved new ways of organising labour and markets on a scale larger than anything in the past. Modern large scale industry thus became a world wide phenomenon. Modern industry enabled the urban to dominate over the rural. Cities and towns became the dominant forms of settlement, housing large and unequal populations in small, densely populated urban areas. But the vast divide was eactly the way it was. The rich and powerful lived in the cities but so did the working classes who lived in slums amidst poverty and squalor.

At the end of the movie the police arrived to arrest Ellen for her earlier escape. Both of them was again forced to change their way.  Ellen was desperate that their struggles are all pointless, but the Tramp console her. At a bright dawn, they walk down the road towards an uncertain but hopeful future. The future that's the hope of a common human.

Reference:
*Understand Sociology
*Understanding society
(Textbooks of class 11th)