Go watch a classic...

So...I had to go on a "date" with either James Joyce, Charlie Chaplin or (I can't remember his first name) Nabakov --the guy who wrote Lolita. Anyhow. I decided...well I adore Charlie Chaplin, so we had our date tonight and I watched "The Great Dictator" for my Contemporary Art History class. Then I had to kiss and tell and write a paper, an art critique telling about my date. I thought I'd share because, well, I adore the film and think it is magnificient.

A Date with Charlie Chaplin and “The Great Dictator”

In 1940, Charlie Chaplin created a film about a Jewish barber and a maniacal dictator. The film, a biting satire against Nazism and Hitler’s Germany, was one of his most controversial piece as well as his most successful. The film is the Great Dictator. And it is a masterpiece.

After spending nearly 20 years in a mental hospital recovering from a WWI crash, an unnamed Jewish barber (the timeless lil’ Tramp, played by Chaplin) returns to his home and barbershop in the Ghetto of Tomania. While in the Ghetto, he is fights blindly with Dictator Hynkel’s Storm troopers, ultimately regains his memory and meets up with a pretty, feisty woman named Hannah. As the barber lives his life in the Ghetto, Chaplin demonstrates his genius by playing a duel-role as Adenoid Hynkel, the Dictator of Tomania. The film strings the stories of the maniacal and vain dictator as he plans to invade the land of Osterlich along with the barber, who fights with the storm troopers and is ultimately caught with his friend (and Hynkel’s former general) Schultz. As the barber escapes the concentration camp with Schultz, Hynkel is caught by his own men, culminating in the ultimate switch of the doppelgangers. In the final scene, Chaplin’s barber, who is mistakenly the new dictator, takes to the microphone and gives a magnetic and entrancingly powerful speech on the power of love and humanity.

The Great Dictator was a film wrought with controversy. Born out of the mention that Charlie Chaplin’s lil’ Tramp held a strong resemblance to Hitler, Chaplin began to investigate Hitler’s life and discovered that they shared many similarities. They had the same height and build, similar poverty stricken backgrounds, mother figures and their birthdays were even four days apart. Driven with this information, he felt it imperative to tell of the escalating violence and persecution by Hitler’s hand. The story was born. The film, with the US in a neutral state, was in a constant state of uncertainty. Charlie, with strong believes in the project, even put up $1.5 million of his own funds to ensure that it would be finished. Neutral countries, in attempt to appease Germany, were promising not to show it, though FDR did send his own advisor to meet Chaplin and encourage him to continue with the project. Before the release of the film, in reaction to the changes that took place during the long six month shoot (including England joining the war and the invasion of France), the speech at the end of the film was added and modified.

The Great Dictator was released to mixed critical acclaim. Critics took note of how Chaplin removed himself from the Jewish barber character and spoke directly to the camera and ultimately to the people at the end. High praise still falls for the film, especially the scenes with the globe and the pantomime scene in which the barber does his work to Brahm’s Hungarian Dance. Today it stands still stands as an outright classic with a message. Yet, a New York Times review from Oct. 1940 seemed to say then, what most of the critics since have lauded. “No event in the history of the screen has ever been anticipated with more hopeful excitement than the première of this film.... The prospect of little 'Charlot,' the most universally loved character in all the world, directing his superlative talent for ridicule against the most dangerously evil man alive ... turns out to be a truly superb accomplishment by a truly great artist — and, from one point of view, perhaps the most significant film ever produced."

And I agree with the New York Times and the words they wrote over 65 years ago. The film is one of the most significant films to ever grace the screen, if for no other reason than it stood as a challenge, a plea and a window in a time when indifference and appeasement were the state of things. Through every frame, I watched with entrancement as he mixed a wonderment of comedy and drama. The subtexts of world domination so beautifully woven in with his dance with the globe mark pure genius. The scene is beautiful in its craft. The barber--the definitive lil’ tramp; the consummate gentleman with a true heart warmed my own. And as he’s sitting in a concentration camp, my heart broke a bit. Yet the scene that made my heart race a little faster and struck at my soul was the great speech at the end. The diatribe, though out of character, was stunning. His unblinking, begging, passionate eyes and wavering voice cemented itself within me and I will watch the film again just to see him plea to the world for something better. For humanity. The film is utterly brilliant.

Though, Chaplin said that if he knew of the atrocities of the holocaust “he could not have made fun of their homicidal insanity”, we are blessed with a gift now. It’s not only Chaplin and his work, but the fact that one of the most respected men in film and Hollywood risked his own money and potentially his career to bring even a slight glimpse into that world and his ultimate message.