Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936)

Modern Times (Chaplin, 1936) - TSPDT #48

A factory worker is fired and befriends an impoverished girl and they try to survive in a middle-class fantasy.

As beautiful as the scenes are, they also seem strangely unconnected. Chaplin's work within the frame is stellar, but the whole holds together rather loosely. I had much better memories of the film and although it's production value has aged really well, the story as a whole has the very strong feeling of assembled from shorter stories.

Production design in the factory is fantastic and I loved the "monitoring" of the boss. I realized that there is a lot more incidental sound in the beginning than in the end of the movie, where the film becomes practically the classical silent film in a slow but amazing transformation.

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