294 - Modern Times, United States, 1936. Dir. Charles Chaplin.
Modern Times, or How the Little Tramp Tried to Keep a Job.
Factory worker. Protest leader. Ship builder. Night watchman. Factory worker. Waiter. Cabaret singer.
Football player playing ball with a roast duck.
If only he can keep up with the times. The modern times.
The Factory.
The sheep traipse through the corral gate.
The people funnel into the workplace.
A Factory Worker works on an assembly line. He holds a wrench in each hand. Turns left. Loosens pairs of nuts on steel plates as they pass. The next man hammers the right bolt post; the next man hammers the left bolt post. The belt takes the bolts with the nuts on the steel plates into a hole through a series of gears.
The plates move past with time to do the task.
As long as you do not have to scratch your armpit.
Or swat a bee on your nose.
The man's body jerks with the jolting lurch of a clutch slip on a manual shift, with the steady tock of a ticking clock, with heartbeat rhythm of a full-body hiccough.
He spasms into the restroom. Before he can smoke or wash his hands his boss appears on a wall-size projection and orders him back to work.
He falls onto the conveyor belt and passes through the gears.
They reverse it and pull him back.
He has become a machine. His wrench-hands loosen everything he sees. The buttons on a woman's dress. A hot bowl of soup. A fire hydrant.
Finally, he is fired.
The Protest Parade.
He walks into the street.
A flag falls from a fleeing flatbed.
He picks it up and tries to return it. A protest parade ambles up behind him. The police arrive. He is taken for the leader. He is taken, as the leader.
He spends the night in jail.
Upon his release he sits next to a woman and his stomach growls.
Ship Builder.
He knocks the wrong plank and launches the half-built ship into the water, where it will sink. He knows he is sunk. He walks away before they fire him.
The Gamine.
He runs into a girl. A street urchin. Wild-eyed and hungry. Or rather, she runs into him. As she is running from the police. Having just stolen a loaf of bread.
He gallantly claims he stole it. To go to jail in her place. The officer begins to take him. But the witness insists. It was she and not he. The officer takes her and not him.
He wants to join her, so he orders a great meal for which he cannot pay and is thrown in the paddy wagon with her. They fall out and dream of a life to come. Apples picked in an open window. A cow giving milk in the kitchen door. Grapes hanging for the taking.
Back to reality.
Night Watchman.
He and she spend the night in a department store. They eat cake.
He roller skates blindfolded to the edge of the open floor below with a missing railing.
She enjoys the luxuries of a mink coat and a great bed.
The burglars come. They order him to stand still. He is on skates. He cannot stand still.
Big Bill is one of the burglars. He is his old workmate from the workplace. The factory. They drink champagne.
The next morning they find him in Women's Apparel under a pile of fabrics.
Back to jail.
Back out again.
The Shack.
The Gamine takes him to their new home. A shack on the wharf. They try to set up home. It falls apart on them.
No problem. The factories are open again.
Factory.
He returns to his old job. It will not work out. This time he runs his boss through the gears.
Waiter.
He carries roast duck and a bottle of wine on a tray above his head and tries to traverse the dancers on the dance floor.
Cabaret Singer.
He loses his lines and sings in an ad libbed language. The manager wants to keep him on but the detectives come for her.
No matter what happens he always keeps his spirits up. Tomorrow he will succeed. They will make it. He will have a job. They will have a home. They will be OK.
They walk off into the sunset.
They walk off in silhouette.
Silhouette in sunset.
The sunset silhouette.
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