Chaplin's Optimistic Outlook

"It's Paradise," she says. This entire scene just made me very uncomfortable. It starts with the factory worker and the gamine standing outside of a tiny wooden shack, hand in hand, with the ominious surroundings of a barren field and a shallow pond. As they skip inside you realize that sadly, this is their new home. The house is literally falling apart at ths seams, "Of Course, it's no Buckingham Palace" the gamine says. The scene is a little over a minute, but it made the strongest impact on me.

It didn't make me uncomfortable that the house was falling apart, what really upset me was, she was so happy about this house. Believe me, it's far from paradise. However, sadly it's an upgrade from their living arrangements prior.

The 1930s was the decade of The Great Depression, and Modern Times is a commentary on just that. The two are poverty stricken and unemployed like so many others in the era. It's difficult to find work. Their tiny shack is equivalent to a brand new house with a picket fence and a garage. It's the best they can get and that's what makes me so uncomfortable. It's just hard to imagine life truly being like this. Granted, this is only a movie, but it was based on the reality of the times and it's a harsh one to say the least.

This scene is a part of the overall idea of what people will go through and put up with. Since it's a comedy there's humor in every scene, however, it really is quite sad. What keeps the movie so upbeat is the disposition of the two main characters. Nothing seems to break their stride. This is the message Chaplin was trying to place upon America in the 1930s. In an era where there was mass suicides, and families were falling part, it's still possible to look past it and see your shack as paradise.