Into the Machine

In the following scene, which is the most iconic from the film, the speed of modern production quite literally pulls the Tramp into the machine. Interestingly, the machine looks a lot like the inside of a film projector, and leads to a nervous breakdown. The sequence is said to have been inspired by Chaplin's conversation with a journalist in Detroit, who had described to him how the factories lured healthy men off the farms, who became nervous wrecks after a couple of years working on the assembly lines. Here, that idea is rendered explicitly through a kind of surrealistic sequence.

Video 2.24: Modern Times into the machine.

This is one of the most iconic scenes in cinema history, and one of the most trenchant criticisms of modern society in cinema. Interestingly, when he emerges again, he's lost his sanity. He's freed from the pressures of time and work rhythms. And whereas the other men are still trying to stop him and keep production going, i.e., remain trapped in the roles as cogs in the great machine, the Tramp is graceful and playful, in the way that he's dancing around.

You can get a sense of why W. C. Fields, the great comedic actor of the 1920s and 1930s, once referred to Chaplin as that goddamn ballet dancer. You see his physical grace. It could be said that in a way, it's impossible for the Tramp's very human body to exist in the same space as a machine. One of them, in a sense, has to give. The spirit of humanity triumphs. The Tramp frees himself, begins to dance, and eventually shuts down production before being taken away.