Modern Times is a film directed by Charlie Chaplin that was released on February 25th, 1936 which was during the historical economic downfall known as the Great Depression. The Great Depression took place in 1929 till 1939 and caused a lot of people to lose their jobs which further caused the consumer spending and investments to drop as well due to the stock prices being much higher than their actual values at the time. During the Great Depression, it’s also said that the wages for the workers still with jobs were lowered, the consumer debt tremendously increased, agriculture was in a struggle due to the drought & falling of food prices, and that banks had incredible amounts of large loans that could not be liquidated. The film, Modern Times, shows the life of a man living through the Great Depression which shows the desperation of job searching for many of the unemployed and how difficult the financial situations were for the middle and working class that these people will do anything they can for a job. Modern Times supports the idea that these industries did not care about their workers because there were no actual benefits for the workers, the workers worked in harsh conditions, and overworked these workers to make the business as efficient as possible, just so that they didn’t lose any of their money. Modern Times is a film about the lives during the Great Depression which depicts the behind the scenes of Capitalism through the means for mass production, mass consumption, and mass entertainment.
There were multiple instances of economic crises before the Great Depression hit, many banks and businesses periodically fell into a crisis which was usually of brief duration; these banks and businesses will usually close due to a lack of funds or due to the stock market prices dropping causing these banks and industries to experience an economic downturn for a couple of months, but eventually will lead back to recovery and prosperity of the business. The Great Depression lasted longer than any other economic crises, caused a lot more businesses to go out business and unemployment, and affected a lot more of the population. The Great Depression was started by the Wall Street crash of 1929 when it suddenly collapsed in October of 1929 which led to the eventual fall on October 24th, 1929 where there was an unprecedented volume of selling on Wall Street causing the stock prices to plunge. The next day, a group of bankers bought million dollars stocks to stabilizes prices which only led to the following Tuesday of the week, when millions of investors ordered their brokers to sell, but there were no buyers which caused the prices on Wall Street to keep going down. There were many causes of the Wall Street crash, one of the causes being government policies. During the 1920s, the government had complete faith in these businesses and didn’t do much to regulate them, the government actually even protected many of the industries which leads to capitalism. Capitalism is defined as “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by state,” (Dictionary.com). Since these industries were privately owned, the Great Depression probably hurt the workers that worked for these industries a lot more than those that own these industries. Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times portrays capitalism as a monster destroying many people’s lives, their hopes and dreams, but a monster that everyone knows and accepts eventually. In the first part of the movie, Chaplin is seen working for the Electro Steel Corporation where he’s put in this assembly line which is directed by the president of the company to go even faster than it’s already going. This overworking of workers later shows Chaplin’s mental/psychological state not only with the job, but with people around him, like this co-workers and supervisors. He’s shown in the film as practically crazy; wanting to screw not only the bolts, but humans and pouring oil on people’s faces. But during this time, never once is Chaplin shown arguing with a supervisor or boss of the company about the harsh conditions the workers are put in, so are the co-workers; they’re all shown to be accepting the fact that they’re working in this harsh condition environment, being over-worked with no benefits at all. Of course, there were the rise of the unions and more strikes going on during the Great Depression, but there were more people accepting the harsh reality than fighting against them and many of these unions and strikes are quickly disbanded as shown in Modern Times.
In Modern Times, there are three main keywords that Chaplin touches upon on the topic of capitalism, one is mass production. Mass production is described as “the manufacture of large quantities of standardized products, frequently using assembly line or automation technology,” (Investopedia). Mass production is usually some type of mechanization to achieve high volume, as well as detailed organization of materials flow and careful control of quality standards and division of labor. As shown in Modern Times, there are machines everywhere, and the reason for these equipment are for its low cost of production and a small workforce supporting it and because of the use of machines, the productivity increases, the efficiency increases, and there’s more quantity. In the movie, where one could see Chaplin and his co-workers in that assembly line, one could the speed of the quantity of items that are being made on the assembly line. Chaplin and his co-workers were struggling to screw the bolts and for the one second one’s distracted and messes up, the whole assembly line is ruined. It’s also said that mass production assembly lines may lack motivation from workers because of the tasks being repetitive and that’s shown in Modern Times where Chaplin keeps stalling before he switches with one of his co-workers because he doesn’t want to go back to it. In the movie, there’s a scene where they introduce the feeding machine, the main purpose being that it’ll take more time away from the time that the workers eat their lunch and put that time back into working. The people selling the machine kept mentioning how the president needs to get it to be the better one in town, meaning that there’s competition between these industries on who can produce the fastest.
Mass production happens because there’s mass consumption. The focus on the industrial economy was to boost production to maximize output. Many of the assembly lines were to maximize production to out-produce the ability of consumers to actually buy the product. It’s said that if the item is cheaply made, there would be more people that wanted to buy the item because it’s affordable. So, the industrial economy was mainly built around the concept of boosting consumption, leading to mass consumption. And many manufacturers found that if they promoted mass-consumptions, they boosted profits even more. The first mass-consumptions is said to be the newspaper which became an opener for advertisement. The irony of it all is that consumers keep the producer in business and the business then pays the wages which finances the consumer. In Modern Times, the assembly lines show how much production is being made by the workers. The faster they bolt the screws, the more screws they bolt, and the more of what they’re making is being made.
Modern Times was part of the mass entertainment during the 1920s. During the 1920s, the entertainment industry grew due to the post-war economic hike. Radio was part of everyone’s lives and became high demand, radios also introduced the Billboard music charts and such. Movies were used as more than just entertainment value, just like how Modern Times was a film to express more than just entertainment. Modern Times was not only inspired by the lamentable conditions during the Great Depression, but actually also by this conversation that Chaplin had with Gandhi about modern technology. Modern Times was daring approach to the reference of drugs, especially because the production code forebode the reference to illegal drug use in films. Modern Times is one of Chaplin’s overtly political-themed film and it did create some controversy when it first released. In a liberal magazine, it’s said that Modern Times should be seen by every young liberals because it’s first-class liberal propaganda.
Modern Times was a film that greatly portrayed the lives of people during the Great Depression. It showed the harsh reality of many of these overworked workers and the unemployed due to capitalism which is portrayed as this monster figure. Capitalism affected many worker’s mental/psychological state and sometimes even their physical state. Mass production makes workers work in a fast pace work setting with bad conditions because of mass consumption of the product by the people purchasing the product, which in irony are workers that get paid from these industry jobs. Modern Times is part of the mass entertainment that was booming in the 1920s where radios and films meant more than what they are. Modern times is a film that represents the people and their struggles in the harsh conditions of the Great Depression.