The Cinematheque

“[The] best analysis of life in an industrial society.”

Frederick Wiseman

Charlie Chaplin’s final silent-esque comedy is a satire of working life—with a smile, or something like it. The assembly line is where we meet Chaplin’s alter ego, the Tramp, and if his bosses at the Electro Steel Corp. had their way, the assembly line is a place he’d never leave! Chaplin’s ramped-up slapstick skits show all of management’s methods of control, including mechanized lunch breaks and muscle-memory-demanding workloads. Bolts and wrenches aren’t what the ​“modern” world is made out of anymore, but Chaplin’s characters are motivated by familiar fears: hunger and unemployment. Frederick Wiseman, subject of a retrospective this cycle, counts the film as one of his favourites; the film’s youthful, rebellious spirit leaps out in such scenes as an organized march, an overnight stay in a massive department store, and a sing-for-your-dinner performance that, in keeping with Chaplin’s silent-era international reach, has lyrics requiring no translation.

“Like Chaplin’s own City Lights, it’s one the greatest early sound films, largely eschewing spoken words in favor of noises, gibberish, and music that turns comedy into something like myth.”

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Cine-File