Chaplin and Social Concerns

In 1931, with the Depression already a year long and many Americans already out of work, Chaplin became acutely preoccupied with the economic and social problems of modernity, the things that he felt were the most pressing of the time. After the premiere of City Lights, he took an 18 month world tour of which we saw some footage before, where he saw the impact of economic depression, nationalism, and mechanization on mankind. He read books on economic theory and began to devise and write his own social theory. He wrote, "Unemployment is the vital question. Machinery should benefit mankind. It should not spell tragedy and throw it out of work."

Upon returning to America, and after a conversation with a journalist in Detroit about the automobile factories and the kind of work that one did there, he began working on the scenario for Modern Times, which would encapsulate all of these themes that he would worry about, economic and social problems, and what the Depression was doing to everyday people.