The Tramp is Finally Heard

This leads to the final sequence, where Chaplin is heard for the first time. We've discussed his resistance to the talking voice, and to saying that he didn't think that the Tramp could ever speak. The ways in which voices are heard in Modern Times are always less than human, and usually, one-way communication. Authority such as using mediated communication to bark orders at the little guy, or the imperative of the radio to buy stuff for your bad stomach. All of these things are the way that Chaplin thinks Modern Times is using the human voice.

Chaplin wrote of the pressure on him from the movie industry to have the Tramp speak. He said some people suggested that the Tramp might talk. That was unthinkable, for the first words he ever uttered would transform him into just another person. Besides, the matrix out of which he was born was as mute as the rags he wore.

By talking, Chaplin worried, he would become just another comedian. He would become just like one of the people who was talking, you know, the other films, and his individuality, his uniqueness as a character, this Tramp character, would be lost. Chaplin's solution to this was to introduce the Tramp talking in gibberish, his famous gibberish song. And this display is the art of pantomime in its fullness. Here is the gibberish song scene.

Video 2.31: Gibberish song scene from Modern Times.