The Great Dictator (US 1940) has lost none of its edge in the 74 years since it was made. Perhaps because Adolf Hitler is still so present in the everyday? Countless films, documentaries, books, tv channels (Yesterday Im looking at you!), still mean that the Little Corporal haunts our lives. In 1940 the realisation of the true horror was 5 years away, however, admittedly with hindsight the cold chill is still there in some scenes, attacks on Jews, sentencing to concentration camps. However also there is a pure joy in ridiculing a political figure of such ultimate pride & pomposity as Hitler. & Chaplins gift for mimicry is so good that it must have cut Hitler to the bone (some say he saw it, twice!), Chaplin studied Leni Refenstahls Triumph Of The Will, propaganda masterpiece, countless times to perfect Hitlers mannerisms & tone of voice, before exposing the inherent buffoonery they contained. I find it hard to believe that people didnt see it as the warning it was intended to be, but that may just be hindsight again. Then of course we come to the end, that speech. Ive read a lot of opinions on it today, anything from it killed the film dead to it was too preachy. Both of which I find ludicrous opinions, the 6 minute speech is delivered with such utter conviction, more conviction than Hitler could muster in his lifetime, that to me it just sounds like the purest truth. Like nothing I have ever heard before or since. Chaplin was not a politician that speech was not delivered to secure votes, or even cinema receipts, it was delivered from the heart. & This is what I have come to learn of Charlie Chaplin the man, the actor, the director, the writer. Everything he did was from pure motive, from the heart. His earlier work has been referred to as mawkish or overly sentimental, it is not, it is sincere. The love in those films is sincere, as sincere as his wish to just make people laugh, to spread joy. I now have the greatest respect for Chaplin, & his conviction. He paid the price for being open about it, banned from returning to America, dragged through the gutter press over the years (some still try!) for expressing that great secret, together we could end all suffering. If we could all find a bit of pure motive within ourselves.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 23:14:48 +0000