Project Description
Charlie Chaplin: Modern Times
Welcome to the sixth in our series of releases of limited edition Charlie Chaplin photographs focusing on a key Charlie Chaplin film.
Over time we will build a substantial collection of important Charlie Chaplin photographs—all of which are available to purchase and hang on your walls at home or in your office. You can see photographs from other films here.
This collection of images is from one of Charlie Chaplin’s most acclaimed films, Modern Times, released in 1936.
The images that follow are available to purchase in limited editions as museum-quality archival handmade silver gelatin photographs, in a range of sizes from 10 x 12 inches to 48 x 60 inches.
Scroll down and select an image for full details.
AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN TIMES (1936)
Modern Times was Charlie Chaplin’s fifth film for United Artists.
Released in 1936—a full five years after the release of his previous film, City Lights—Modern Times marks the final appearance of Charlie Chaplin’s iconic tramp. Chaplin once again proves his genius through a constant stream of gags, one even involving cocaine, some impressive roller skating, and subtle references to class struggle during America’s Great Depression.
The tramp is a factory worker who suffers a nervous breakdown on the production line, unable to cope with the repetitious nature of modern manufacturing. The setting is said to take its inspiration from a visit Chaplin took to Ford’s factory in Detroit ten years previously. The tramp symbolises the millions of factory workers in America at that time, forced to work at a furious pace in factories filled with frightening, complicated machinery.
Explaining this, he wrote: “I wanted to say something about something that is going on at that present time. Regimentation – that was the idea. The way life is being standardized and channelized, and men turned into machines, and the way I feel about it.”
Chaplin’s co-star in the film, the female street urchin (or gamin as she is referred to in the film) is played by his love interest at the time, Paulette Goddard. Although their onscreen relationship appears more childlike than romantic, the film’s final scene shows the pair walking into the distance together, a contrast to the usual Chaplin films that have concluded with the Tramp facing the world on his own.
The film premiered in New York in February 1936 and its reception was unanimously positive.
The machines
Photographs such as this—which document the empty set where important film action took place—will be a feature of each collection of photographs we launch throughout 2019.
Even though this photograph acts as a simple photographic record of the set layout, it is remarkably evocative—it is impossible to look at this photograph without thinking of the action that took place there.
Where’s my duck?
A brilliant piece of comedy business in the dancehall/restaurant. The tramp, undergoing a trial as a waiter, holds his platter high to avoid the throng of dancers surrounding him, but the duck he is delivering becomes impaled on a chandelier. Presenting the food to the increasingly agitated diner, the tramp lifts off the lid with a flourish, only to find—no duck.
