Modern Times - Management, Mass Production and
Motivation
Modern Times (1936)
Famous for...
- Charlie Chaplin –its star, director and writer. It was his last ‘silent’
film (voices, music and sounds are included but not synchronized voice dialogue, as in films
today).
- Its attack on poverty, unemployment and the dehumanization of the factory assembly line. It was inspired by
Henry Ford’s (pictured right below) car factory
in Detroit.
Set in...
America during the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
Director
Charlie Chaplin.
Oscars
None.
Key characters
The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin),a poor worker with the famous cane, baggy trousers and tight
coat (pictured right in another of Chaplin's films,City
Lights).
Young girl (Paulette Goddard, Chaplin’s second wife and also the star of his film about
Hitler, The Great Dictator).
The story
Compared to a flock of sheep (pictured right), workers push out of a subway station to get to their work in the
Electro Steel Corporation’s factory.
After doing a jig-saw, reading a paper and being served by his secretary, the company’s boss:
- spies on his workers (via a TV screen).
- tells their supervisors to make the workers increase production.
One worker is the Tramp whose job is to tighten bolts (with both hands) onto steel plates,
brought to him on a conveyor belt assembly line (pictured right below).
His supervisor:
- continually urges him to keep up with the speed of the conveyor belt.
When he itches, gestures, or brushes away a troublesome fly, he:
- causes tremendous chaos further down the production line.
- frantically tries to catch up.
Whilst sneaking a cigarette in the toilet, he is spied on by the boss on his TV screen who
tells him to go back to work.
During lunch the Tramp automatically starts his bolt tightening movements, which:
- tighten buttons on a lady’s bottom.
- spill someone’s soup.
In his office the boss is shown a mechanical feeding machine for workers to eliminate the lunch
hour and so increase production (pictured right). The Tramp is chosen to try out the new machine, but it’s useless,
going haywire and making the food inedible.
He goes back to work and the line is put on top speed.
The Tramp:
- is driven insane by the strain.
- manically tightens everything in sight (including people’s noses)
- explodes some factory equipment.
- sprays everyone with oil.
- is sent to a psychiatric ward (after chasing two women to tighten their
buttons).
He leaves the hospital, recovered from his nervous breakdown but jobless. Like lots of others, he can’t get a
job because of the Great Depression.
He is arrested by the police who mistake him for a communist, when he waves a red warning flag in the
street.
Meanwhile a poor motherless young girl steals a case of bananas from a ship (pictured
right), sharing them with:
In prison the Tramp (bolstered by some cocaine accidentally eaten with his lunch) stops a
jailbreak which leads to his release.
The young girl’s sisters are taken away into care, when her father is killed in a riot by the unemployed. But
she escapes, and the Tramp sinks a half-finished ship in a brief shipbuilding job.
The girl (pictured right) is arrested after stealing some bread (despite the Tramp trying to take the blame
for it) . He is arrested, too, when he can’t pay for a meal.
They:
- meet in a police van going to jail.
- escape and dream of living in a home like the nice suburban house they
see.
The Tramp is inspired to make this dream come true.
He:
- gets a job as a night watchman in a department store (where the girl eats
and sleeps).
- (after roller skating with her in the toy department) stumbles upon a gang of
burglars (including an unemployed old work colleague from the steel company).
- gives them food (after they say that their hunger is the only reason for the
burglary).
On his release, the overjoyed girl tells him that she has found a home for them. Even though it’s a lakeside
delapidated shack, they are thrilled with it, because it's their first home (pictured right
above).
He gets a factory job as assistant to a machinery mechanic who gets caught in the cogs of a huge
machine . After feeding him lunch, the Tramp loses his job, when the workers go on
strike.
He is again put in jail, when he accidentally hits a policeman.
Meanwhile the girl:
- is hired as a singing waitress in a café.
- persuades the owner to give the Tramp a waiter’s job on his release from jail.
He is a disaster as a waiter but very successful as a singer. He then escapes with the girl when child care
officials try to take her.
They are finally seen walking optimistically into the sunrise arm in arm (pictured right).
Lessons for management, motivation and mass production
1. Mass production murders minds
The assembly line turns the Tramp into a dehumanized, automated machine.
He gets a nervous breakdown from the:
- stress of keeping pace with the line.
- monotonous repetition of his job (over which he has no control).
2. Control is costly
Chaplin used the term “Big Brother” (13 years before George Orwell, pictured
right below, did in his book, 1984) to describe how the boss spies on his workers
to make sure they:
- don’t waste time (even in the toilet!).
This close supervision destroys workers’:
- freedom to think for themselves.
So they go on strike or (like the Tramp) leave.
3. Follow your dreams
The Tramp is determined to work hard, so that he and the girl can have a better life.
4. The human spirit has huge potential
The Tramp and the girl overcome all their difficulties (ill health, poverty, unemployment and her dead parents)
to face the future with:
At the end of the film, the girl is at the point of giving up, when the Tramp tells her:
“Buck up - never say die. We’ll get along!”
5. Injustice infuriates
In his plush office, the boss reads comic strips, while his workers slave away on the assembly line, bullied by
their supervisors.
The workers’ unjust and bad treatment leads to the strike which the police wrongly believe is
caused by communist agitators.
6. Co-operation is crucial
Workers on an assembly line must work well together, because a mistake by one person leads to
problems for people further down the line (as the Tramp shows).
7. Machinery isn’t always marvellous
The mechanical feeding machine for workers:
- shows how exploited they are.
The mechanic gets trapped in the cogs of a huge machine, symbolizing the potential threat of
technology.
8. Kindness is cool
The girl and the Tramp help each other, and he gives food to the burglars in the department store.
Two film websites to recommend
1. filmsite.org (run by Tim Dirks).
2. aveleyman.com (run by Tony Sullivan)
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