Charlie Chaplin, the king of
comedy, was a master of silence. His slapstick humor wrought with outrageous
facial expressions along with huge and exaggerated movement did not suffer from
silence but thrived because of it. If noise would have been added to Chaplin’s
work, his humor, his exaggerated nature and crazy antics would have crossed from
hilarious to annoying. Modern Times reflects
this. In a time when sound was the newest fad, Chaplin recognized that a good
silent film was more valuable than a poorly crafted talkie.
Chaplin however, did utilized sound
in an inventive and refreshing way as the star, writer and director of Modern Times. His foreboding factory
boss spoke clearly and assertively in the beginning of the film but the typical
sounds of a Chaplin film are what really shine. The score, the wacky sounds as
Chaplin consumes corn on the cob while being fed by a futuristic machine, along
with the heralded song he performs at the end is the perfect balance in an age
when the invention of sound-on –film dominated the theaters. Silence is golden
in the case of Chaplin and Modern Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment