A reflection paper on Modern Times - Movie Review Example

Insert Introduction Modern Times is a 1936, 87 minute box office comedy movie produced, directed, written by and featuring Charlie Chaplin. It was released on February 5th 1936 and features other actors such as Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Stanley Sandford, Chester Conklin and others. The movie takes a more silent tone with music widely used to illustrate mood and predicament creating an atmosphere that influences the mood of the viewer (Gehring, 24). The movie, showing the struggles involved in surviving in a modern industrialized world, presents a negative take in the direction society and businesses are taking with their focus on profit.

Set at the time of the Great Depression, the movie highlights desperate and poor employment conditions that many of us often have to contend with especially in trying times, and the restlessness that sets forth amongst workers. The character is not settled at work and will not do so until he finds something that truly fulfils him (Gehring, 35). Most employees are subject to indignities such as work overload and the movie demonstrates this by delving a bit into the computer/ machine VS man wars at the workplace, with a scene showing the main character screwing nuts at an ever increasing rate as dictated by the machines.

The effects of such practices like nervous breakdowns, hopelessness and insanity on employees are also seen as the character finally runs mad. This endless work that has become more of a societal norm dehumanizes people and reduces them to little more than cogs in a machine. In addition, the movie silently implores the world to be more selfless and self sacrificing, even when they themselves are embroiled in so many circumstances. One must not pass up an opportunity to assist a friend, neighbor or stranger simply because they themselves have pending issues.

The character who at the time is caught up in a multitude of problems, still has empathy left in him for fellow mankind and offers to be arrested in the stead of a young girl who steals a loaf of bread (Gehring, 44). There is also the theme of perseverance and a never-say-die attitude advanced from the movie. In spite of misfortunes after another, arrest after arrest, the characters in the drama still manage to face life with hope, laughter and zest. Hopping from one employment to another in search of stability and good fortune someday, the movie ends in a scene where they walk down a road at dawn towards an uncertain but hopeful future (Gehring, 50).

Works Cited Gehring, Wes D. Film Clowns of the Depression: Twelve Defining Comic Performances. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2007: 24, 34-45, 50. Print.