Final Thoughts

Modern Times argues that the free-spirited human being seems to be incompatible with modern industrial civilization. The two, in a sense, cannot mutually coexist. Yet here, Chaplin is offering a sentiment that seems to call for solidarity and companionship as the antidote for modernity. So the equality, at least in spirit, of the two characters, makes this a kind of ending onto the perpetual road of life analogous to what we might find in a buddy film, a type of genre film. But this is the last time that you would see this. For the last time, the Tramp's call for optimism and hope in the face of every problem that life can hurl his way touched audiences. Comedy and tragedy are never that far apart in the Chaplin world, and he seems to remind us of that here. It is only worldview that separates comedy and tragedy.

Though many of the critiques of modern mass media society would be leveled again a couple of years later in The Great Dictator, this was the last time the Little Tramp would be seen in a film as the Little Tramp. Chaplin seemed to be acknowledging, or at least seemed to know, in a sense, that in a filmic universe now populated by talking stars and the dialogue-driven picture, the Tramp could no longer exist.

In a sense, this has to be a buddy film between a very chaste Tramp and the gamine, because she's underage, and it would maybe be a little too creepy (it's good to remind us of this) with his modus operandi in discovering talents. He first married a sixteen year old, then married a nineteen year old, and repeated this many times.

All of these elements are in there to think about. In summation, Modern Times is arguing that, in a sense, humanity, in the form of the Tramp who allegorizes humanity in all of Chaplin's film, is incompatible with modern industrial civilization. The cinematic universe, the cinematic world, the world of Hollywood, was also being determined by that technology. The Tramp, in a sense, could no longer exist.

In leaving, something to hear would be a version of the main theme song, Smile, as done by Nat King Cole.

Audio 2.2: Smile written by Charles Chaplin, performed by Nat King Cole.