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Select media
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Stills must not be reproduced, copied or downloaded in any way.
Film details
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Featuring
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Director
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Country
USA
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Year
1936
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Genre
Comedy
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Type
Film
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Category
Fiction
Alternative titles
- Tiempos Modernos Alternative
Introduction
“The film becomes a satire on the mechanization of thought and industry, a plea for the reinstitution of human individual values over those of industrialization and mass production.”
Doug Tomlinson, International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1990
Nine years after the arrival of film sound, the silent cinema’s biggest star remained reluctant to leap into the new world. While City Lights (1931) was almost wholly silent however, Charlie Chaplin’s new film incorporated some sound effects and voices, alongside the by then archaic use of intertitles in place of dialogue.
Chaplin admitted he didn’t know how to make the Tramp work in sound, but his ambivalence about the new technology was appropriate to the theme of Modern Times, which distils anxiety about the dehumanising effects of mechanised labour into inspired comedy.
Sequences including the Tramp unable to stop his assembly-line bolt-tightening (to the alarm of passing women with temptingly placed buttons), or being conveyed helplessly through the cogs of a giant machine, found the director’s comic genius undimmed.
Modern Times was an influence on Jacques Tati, whose films Mon oncle (1958) and Playtime (1967) find his Monsieur Hulot character similarly aggrieved by modern (in)conveniences.
Cast & Credits
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Cast
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a factory worker
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a gamin
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a café proprietor
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burglar/Big Bill
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a mechanic
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burglar
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Sheriff Couler
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president of the Electro Steel Corp
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a convict
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the chaplain
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the chaplain's wife
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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[burglar/addict]
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[.]
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Credits
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Direction:
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Director
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Assistant Director
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[Assistant Director]
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[Script Clerk]
Production:
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Production Company
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[Producer]
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[General Production Manager]
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[Assistant Production Manager]
Casting:
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[Casting Director]
Writing:
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Written by
Photography:
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Photography
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Photography
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[Assistant Camera]
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[Assistant Camera]
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[Assistant Camera]
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[Gaffer]
Stills:
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[Portrait Photography]
Special Effects:
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[Process Photography]
Editing:
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[Film Editor]
Design:
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[Art Director]
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Sets
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Sets
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[Props]
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[Props]
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[Purchasing Agent]
Make-up:
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[Make-up for Chaplin and Goddard]
Music:
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Music Composed by
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Music Conducted by
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Music Arranger
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Music Arranger
Sound:
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Recorded by
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Recorded by
Consultant:
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[Projectionist]
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