Chaplins

In “Modern Times” Charlie Chaplins character is the quintessential “walker” .His home is the public places of the city .In this sense he could be easily compared to Walter Benjamins “Flaneur”. However his role as a working class laborer, searching for money, food and shelter denies him the freedom of the flaneur and sets him apart from him. The flaneur is essentially a middle class romantic. A person who is enchanted by the teeming crowds of the city, while still possessing the economic privilege to stand outside of it looking in. Chaplins character is a proletarian, a man defined by his labour in much the same way as a machine. He is a commodity. His dual role of Flaneur and proletarian are represented in his directorial choice of images and dialogue as well as the unique physical style of his “little tramp”. He walks the streets in search of, not cheap thrills or idle entertainment, like the typical flaneur. Instead he seeks a job that will give definition to his rootless existence.

“Their brows were knit, and their eyes rolled quickly… Others… were restless in their movements, had flushed faces and talked an gesticulated to themselves…When impeded in their progress, these people suddenly ceased muttering, but redoubled their gesticulations, and awaited with an absent and overdone smile upon their lips, the course of the persons impeding them”

Benjamin points out in his reading of this text that these “walkers” are moving about the city like clowns with a reference to futility and economy to rival Chaplins own clockwork-like affectations. In fact Benjamins description of this type of clown echoes Chaplins style with eerie accuracy. “With his abrupt movements he imitates both the machines which push the material and the economic boom which pushes the merchandise.”

“Modern Times” describes itself as “A story of industry, of individual enterprise – humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness.” Like a true proletarian Chaplins characters idea of happiness has less to do with individual enterprise and more with industry. Throughout the course of the film he takes on a total of seven roles, all of which are professions. They include the factory worker, the prisoner, the ship builder and the waiter. The title given to his character is not a name but a job description: “A Factory Worker”. The only other time in the film he is given an identity that isn’t a job is when he is in jail. The warden calls for him as “Number 7”. Factory Worker finds no greater joy than, as Baudelaire puts it, “the pleasure of being in a crowd…an expression of the enjoyment of the multiplication of numbers”. This character possesses what Karl Marx ironically referred to as “the soul of the commodity”. In everyone he meets he sees a potential buyer of his services. In his pocket he carries a description of his services, his worth. Because of the Factory Workers need to appeal to consumers he possesses a chameleon-like anonymity. He is flexible to take on many roles and enjoy the security and identity that each gives him because he is solely defined by his labour.

In the

Some topics in this essay:
Factory Worker, Alan Poes, Walter Benjamins, Charlie Chaplin, Chaplin Flaneur, Industrial Age, , Karl Marx, Factory Workers, Factory Worker”, factory worker, chaplins character, “modern times”, flaneur streets, walter benjamins, individual enterprise, defined labour, apart flaneur, faceless mass, threatening strangers,