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Additional Features
For this edition of a comedy masterpiece, Criterion has assembled a delightful collection of supporting materials--some new, some old, all lovely. The new stuff begins with a feature-length commentary by Chaplin biographer David Robinson, who knows as much about Charlie Chaplin as any person alive. Also new are visual essays on the film's production; its special visual and sound effects (much more interesting than you might expect); and John Bengston's nifty tour of various Los Angeles locations used in the film, including the stretch of road seen in the final fade-out. Even more spectacular is an 18-minute 8 mm short called "All at Sea," created by future author and Masterpiece Theatre host Alistair Cooke--essentially a home movie of a trip Cooke took with Chaplin and Paulette Goddard aboard Chaplin's yacht, during a weekend cruise to Catalina Island in 1933. (A new interview with Cooke's daughter provides the fascinating tale behind the long-lost little film, including the fact that Chaplin directed some of the rapturous shots of Goddard.) Also seen in an interview (from 1993) is composer David Raksin, who assisted Chaplin in the devising of the score of Modern Times.
Two very brief deleted scenes from Modern Times are here, and so is Chaplin's 1916 short "The Rink," which has some great roller-skating material. Carried over from previous DVD issues: an excellent 26-minute "Chaplin Today" piece featuring the Dardenne brothers, who speak insightfully about the social concerns of Modern Times, and a 10-minute Cuban documentary, "For the First Time" (1967), which depicts a peasant village witnessing their first movie--you can guess which film it is. --Robert Horton
Amazon.com Essential Video
Charlie Chaplin is in glorious form in this legendary satire of the mechanized world. As a factory worker driven bonkers by the soulless momentum of work, Chaplin executes a series of slapstick routines around machines, including a memorable encounter with an automatic feeding apparatus. The pantomime is triumphant, but Chaplin also draws a lively relationship between the Tramp and a street gamine. She's played by Paulette Goddard, then Chaplin's wife and probably his best leading lady (here and in The Great Dictator). The film's theme gave the increasingly ambitious writer-director a chance to speak out about social issues, as well as indulging in the bittersweet quality of pathos that critics were already calling "Chaplinesque." In 1936, Chaplin was still holding out against spoken dialogue in films, but he did use a synchronized soundtrack of sound effects and his own music, a score that includes one of his most famous melodies, "Smile." And late in the film, Chaplin actually does speak--albeit in a garbled gibberish song, a rebuke to modern times in talking pictures. --Robert Horton
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
1936 looks like 1996,
By CharlieReviews "Mat Snowie" (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Modern Times (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)
Those Criterion people really know what they're doing. The box art is beautiful, and so is the booklet and the menu screen. Plenty of special features - basically what was in the 2-disc DVD put out by MK2 - that are all worthwhile, and then there is the movie itself. Chaplin's Modern Times is a classic, which is a cliche term but the only one that fits. It is still hilarious, still beautiful, still clever, and still relevant. The Hi-Def transfer that was done for the blu-ray is a piece of art in itself. The images are as crisp as any black-and-white footage shot a decade ago, but this was filmed 7 decades ago. Amazing.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
'Where's the Boss?',
By Scamp Lumm "Littlesorrel/christian zionist" (Perseus-Pisces cluster, ~100Mpc) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Modern Times (DVD)
Caught between the cog wheels???If you are suffering from work woes, this film is a great one to watch. A co-worker at my last job recommended this film to me. We worked for one of those genome companies, some of us working in a production capacity, doing the same repetitive tasks ad nauseum. The, (in real life), multi-talented Chaplin in this film is a simple-minded factory worker who spends his day going through the same motions over and over again. He does get lunch breaks, but of course his day at work is not without its mishaps. Funny that a 70 year old film about modern times is still not dated. This film was made in 1936 during the Great Depression, a time when money and bread were scarce, many people feeling the effects. The story line for this movie reveals some of these circumstances, but as Chaplin lives through them, as when he is forced to drink rum bursting out of casks shot by robbers of a department store, one of whom was a previous co-factoryworker, you can't help but laugh, and as the song says, 'just smile'.
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the golden gems of Charlot,
By
This review is from: Modern Times (DVD)
Modern times was a smart comedy in the previous years to WW2.Charlot made raptures images in several sequences. Our unlucky or disadapted little man , definitively wasn{t made for working with the industrial process. This kinetic introduction in the middle of the complex mecahnism of machine systems is a issue to develop unforgettable laughable situations. The sense of alienation in front the no ending belt , causes in him an insane loss of the reality. And the machine who feeds you without waste of time for your employers is a classic. Obviously Charlot inspired himself in Metropolis, the bitter nightmare of Fritz Lang from 1927. (Watch for instance for the employer who works around the machine control) . So our beloved anti hero goes out from this the factory to the hospital and over and over he tries to get a job but he fails , by one reason or another. In the middle of the film will appear a deep inspiration. The eternally beauty Paulette Godard represents exactly that weird mix teenager-woman who will work out as link for him later. He is a guy with good feelings. He acts always as humanity benefactor but the long arm of the fate runs behind him and the results are not succesful. The sequences in the dinner hall with the chicken that never comes to the impatient client is a masterpiece. Literally it's a funny coreography dance in the purest sense of the word. Smile ; no matter what's wrong with you. We'll keep ahead , overcoming all the possible obstacles. A remarkable film and one of the landmark pictures of this timeless genius. Haven't you seen it? Make yourself a favour and buy it as a gift for you or your wife or fiancee or kids. This film will never dissapoint you , at least in the next three hundred years.
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