There are a whole slew of comics that come to mind by simply bringing up the words "black and white" - Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Three Stooges, Abbot and Costello among others. Admittedly, Chaplin stands unique from and perhaps head-and-shoulders above all the rest, so much so that we continue to reference him in our own artistic culture:
"The difference between Keaton and Chaplin is the difference between prose and poetry, between the aristocrat and the tramp, between eccentricity and mysticism, between man as machine and man as an animal." - The Dreamers, 2003
In Modern Times Chaplin especially plays up this idea between man as a machine and man as an animal: by the end of the film, he has been both. But there is a degree to which it's shown that he has to be a little of each - the Tramp dreams of a simpler time when he will have everything he needs at his disposal and he will be permitted to simply live but he recognizes that must work, at least for a time, in order to achieve this - life requires an amount of unlife, or "Need to work until I don't have to."
Chaplin's comedy addresses this situation we've created for ourselves, the idea that in order to enjoy our humanity we must first sacrifice a measure of it - in our society, a person still needs to afford to be a person.
The bitter-sweet thing about Chaplin's act, however – the really potentially distressing thing – is that he does not offer a way in which a man can provide for himself and still retain his humanity. It can be argued that the gamine girl represents this cross-over, but her struggle cannot be called work in the occupational sense; society has taken from her, and so she is taking back. The tramp, meanwhile, attempts to provide for himself and later for the gamine by belonging to society but even those jobs he takes end in him flying in the face of society and abusing his position as a means of providing for the two of them - any actual, societal work would inevitably rob him of his humanity and leave him unable to live.
No one else in the Tramp's proximity, none of his fellow factory workers, can really be said to be living, none of them are animals any longer, they are driven by the machinery. As the Tramp develops his twitches and is unleashed on society, his actions are a hyperbole of the interaction but we have to admit to ourselves that his antics aren't, really, anything unusual. Mechanized husbands will eventually go home to mechanized wives in constant routines, even the woman with the buttons marches down the street towards the Tramp like she's a steam engine - the fact that he chases her with the wrenches can very much be seen as one machine about to give another a tune-up.
Of course it should never be this way - humans were never mean to behave this way with one another. But even from the beginning of scripture, we've been commanded to work, and in our brokenness our work takes us over. Chaplin sees this disparity, sees that the society has created a situation in which a man must choose between the necessity of his work and the existential need of his own humanity. The end result, for all its humor, seems to be that the two remain mutually exclusive.
...What do you think?
"In our society, a person still needs to afford to be a person."
ReplyDeleteVonnegut would have loved that phrase, I think.
Viewing humans as machines? I think the fact that any voice is only heard through technology is telling of this idea too. Do you see the ideal that is established in the film (the dream sequence in the house with the cow and whatnot)as something that ought to be achieved? I think that I may have, but part of me is wondering if there is any element of satire in that sequence that would suggest otherwise. Just a thought.
It's quite tempting to take the tramp as a stand-in for Chaplin himself - and Chaplin, I think, tends to invite this. However, the dream of middle class comfort is both framed by parody and itself a parody, but in different ways. The tramp mocks the gushing wife, but he seems earnest about getting them a home. The later contrast with the shack points up the tramp's own illusions about what life can be and reflects back upon the dream sequence, suggesting the tramp is part of the joke - think of moments when Twain makes Huck part of the joke. Thus, Chaplin and his tramp are sometimes separable, and it's a certain vision of life that is critiqued.
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