In the film, we can only hear the voice few times. The most important languages in the film is by the president and by Chaplin. Firstly, the communication between workers and the factory president is considered language, where the president gave his order to “mechanize” Chaplin and other workers on the assembly line to increase productivity. This form of language or communication indicated the nature of Capitalism at the beginning of 20th century, which the capitalists tried to produce excessive surplus values and kill the ration of the workers at the same time. For example, Chaplin became irrational when he is continuous working on a fast speed and repetitive work. Secondly, the voice presented by Chaplin was through singing in the cafe at the end of the movie. The singing is a way of communicating, and it is also a way of expressing rationality. The singing draws a connection between the beginning and the ending. Chapin was irrational at the beginning due to overwork, and he becomes rational at the end because he can sing by using different types of language to perform. However, no matter how the job has changed, he was still the clown of the rich people.

The language can also found in the form of words appeared on the screen, which indicated the transition from one scene to the next and help the audience to understand the complete story line. The words shown on the screen are not as dramatic as the communication, but we start to know better about the life of employed or unemployed and the situation of the society. The society presented that stay in the jail is better than working in the factory, but working in the factory is better than unemployed and lose a place to stand in the society

The advantage that the silence pantomime has is to convey the meaning of the film by action and moody music. Certainly, without words, the music is the subject of the development of the plot and create the different atmosphere for different situations. Also, we can focus on the plot and action presented by characters. There are significant music and action scene that relate to the social and political issues of that time. When the workers protested, the music was more intense.  In my opinion, the strike of the labor force seems useless during that time where the police will arrest the workers and punish them. Police’s action which implicitly indicated that exploiting the workers is the mainstream culture at that time.

Modern Times is a silent pantomime directed and played by Charlie Chaplin in 1936. Even though this is a silent film, Charlie Chaplin could convey and express the plots vividly by utilizing his facial expression and body language. The setting was during the Great Depression, and this film tended to be a slapstick and satire.
The first scene of Modern Times is about the industry revolution. In the factory, workers were monitored and overseen by the president. The overuse of technology and machines forced workers to fit and keep up with machines’ pace in the modern society. The high intensive work efficiency made workers be nervous, sometimes made workers become dull and act without much emotion and thought. Such as Chaplin’s action in the factory, he tightened everything which looks like a nut, including his co-worker’s noses, the buttons on a woman’s dress and a fire hydrant. This scene not only has the purely comic effect, it also reveals the tyranny of technology and society which made labors lack creativity and though. It’s ironic because the purpose of technology has been created and people who came to the United States were both have the pursuit of happiness and get the advantage. On the contrary, technology enslaving people.
In this silent film, language appeared also several times. At the beginning of the film, language happen when the president made the instruction to his workers through the monitor. And then the language appeared when the man tried to sell and introduce his machine. Furthermore, language appeared when Chaplin was singing in the restaurant. The way we hear the voice is significant because it emphasizes the plots which have profound meaning and effect, the voice might cause audience’s attention to think. The voice happened when Chaplin was signing in the later of the film cause my attention because he forgot the lyric, and the lyric he sang made no sense for me. And based on the customers’ reaction, I think the lyric might be illogical and ridiculous which made them laugh. This scene made me think of Dadaism because it’s nonsense and unconventional, but it still might make people feel enjoyable. And I think Charlie Chaplin is also one of the supporters of Dadaism because he said that “It seems our laws are always telling us what not to do – are always keeping us from enjoying ourselves. Human beings are made just as much for having fun as goose-stepping and sweating in factories.” Breaking the normal procedure, and not just following the rational order might also be work for people.

Basically the film Modern Times deals with social and industrial issues and problems in the United Kingdom in 1936. This film describes life between unemployed and employed people. The most interesting part in this movie is that it shows audiences a written language although it is a silent movie. It normally happens to lead, join stories or to highlight something important part in the film. For instance, Charlie Chaplin goes to jail, but he gets free from jail soon. In this point, a written language happens and Chaplin says he wants to stay there more. This written language is meaningful because it shows most unemployed people have no place to live and no food to eat. So, as unemployed person, for Chaplin, jail is even better than outside. Like this, most language are written to highlight, but there is an exception.

Some parts in the film are used with a spoken language. For example, from the factory in the film, when the president orders steps for working, it is spoken. It describes power between rich and poor people and it also shows how much employees work hard. By ordering of the president, speed and steps of working among employees gets faster or slower. So, it represents power between rich and poor people and time and steps of working.

Written and spoken languages are significant in this film, but silent pantomime is also important as it describes everything, in particular social and political messages. Although actors and actresses mostly do not speak in the film, they show their feeling and social problems through their facial expression and motion. For instance, after Chaplin gets free from a hospital, he goes outside, there he meets people who have no job and who are fighting for jobs and police men come there to arrest them. There is no language at all. But, it represents how many and how people have to struggle with a society and the government for their survival.

Overall, this film is very funny, but it is a very significant movie.

Language is presented in the film in two forms, one shown on the screen without narrative and one spoken by the characters. The first form is usually used to introduce important moments or turning points as well as the passage of time. For example, after a minister and his wife comes to the jail, the warden tells Chaplin that he is free, and instead of saying it, the sentence is shown on the screen that “Well, you’re a free man.” The audience can get the message right away and avoid a situation that they are not paying much attention to the spoken words because they fully concentrate on the music and the actions. The second form is mainly used at the beginning and the end of the film to show two different forms of spoken language. At the beginning, both the president, giving out orders to his workers, and the seller, introducing a new feeding machine, use spoken words with understandability and rationality. The audience can easily figure out the logic within their sentences and understand them immediately. However, when it comes to the ending when Chaplin sings, the logic is broken. The song is composed by random works with different languages, and the whole song is meaningless, but it turns out that people in the film like it so much, indicating that getting rid of formal structure sometimes allows people to create great piece of work.

Since it is a silent pantomime, besides the actions, audience focuses on music which plays important role in the film when it creates an atmosphere for each scene. For instance, when Chaplin and Goddard are traced by the police, the music changes rapidly to create an urgent feeling. Audience may not recognize this kind of effects while watching the film, and therefore are unconsciously influenced by it.

In addition to the effect of music, a silent pantomime makes audience focus on the actions and facial expressions of the characters more. Without distraction from spoken words, the core messages can be presented clearly to the audience who is able to receive and analyze the film with full attentions. In the film, Chaplin needs to marks down the time he goes to bathroom and does not have much time in it. The president can even see what he is doing inside, indicating the loss of privacy of the workers and the strict management used by the president or factories’ owners. Moreover, Chaplin is caught and sent to the jail because he is thought to be the leader of the strike when he holds a triangle flag, demonstrating the suppression from government to labor unity and the problem of justice system.

Modern times.

The background of Modern times was happened during the time when county was facing modernization and industrial revolution. Charlie Chaplin was a great actor because he used his exaggerate body language to express his emotion, which is more powerful than voice. Body language is a universal language around the world no matter where do you come from. When Charlie Chaplin was working on product line, he was repeating the same movement. Even when he has done his work, he was still repeating the same action. His action looked ridiculous and funny but it impressed me because work has became part of his daily life. Even when he saw the fire hydrant on the street, he could not help to twist he screws. Although it is a silent movie, there still some scenes show language. At the beginning of movie, the president made order to his worker when he was supervising them. When Chaplin was smoking in the bathroom, the president found him by the camera and shout to him. Also, at the later of the film, Chaplin was singing in the restaurant, he totally forgot the lyrics but his improvised sounds beautiful to audience. This reminds me of dadalism which means nonsense and illogic, but sometimes it just works. This shows that people enjoy something is disorder and nonsense.

We felt funny because Chaplin’s body language was funny and he can express his emotion, like anger, boring and passion. However, If the audience saw bunches of machine and robots was working on the product line, it would not be funny. Robots and technology can increase productivity but their actions are stiff because they are manipulated by program and they can never have emotion like human beings. That’s why the silent movie can impress audience and it is important to our society.

The film Modern Times is a silence movie, but there are still a few times that language happens. At the beginning of each scene, there’s a sentence as an introduction of this plot. It helps the audience to know the topic of each part and understand what this plot is talking about. The first time we heard the language is the order from the president of the factory. The president gives order to the worker through a screen. He supervise his workers all the time, and in his mind, the productivity is the only thing important. Even in the bathroom, there’s a screen connected to the president. Also, there are still some dialogs during the film. These dialogs explain the details, which is hard to be expressed by behavior and expression. Besides, the language also appears at the end when the male main character sings. It’s said that this part, which has no meaning and logic, consists of different languages. This can remind us of Dadaism.

In additional to the language and dialogs we heard, we also heard other voice during the film, such as the machine noise, the belling for shift, and background music. Generally, the appearance of voice in silence movie is even more important than the voice in talkie. Because the deficiency of dialogs and voiceover, these kinds of voice have function to make the performance to be more vividly, and the voice is regarded as plot device as well. For example, the background music appearing in the factory has the same rhythm as the workers’ behaviors. Also, the machine noise shows how busy the workers are.

This film truly reflects the image of the society at that time. In the factory, workers are like to be stuck on the production line. They can’t leave their position even one second. The male main character is even crazy at the end in the first plot that he would twist any rounded stuff. Additionally, when there’s a new machine invented, the workers are chosen to make an experiment. In this way, machine is even more important than human right. Precisely, because of these conflict between machine and workers, there are many strikes happening during the movie. Another interesting point is that the jail is regarded as “heaven”. In the jail, people don’t have to work but they have a place to sleep and they won’t be hungry. For the people who is struggling in hunger and poverty, so called “freedom” is worthless like garbage, so that after the male main character getting out of jail, he tries to get back to jail.

All in all, even though Modern Times is a silence movie, the exaggerated and funny performances makes this film to be even more interesting than many talkies.

Language appeared only few times in the film “Modern Times”. First of all, language happen when the president ordered the instructions to his workers and monitored workers (when Chaplin try to loaf on the job, the president warned him). President’s voice and imagine were appeared in the monitor. In addition, language happen when the sales man introduced their machine. Moreover, language happen when Chaplin in the Warden’s office–sounds from radio. Language used in here were all related to technology, which was rational, definite, and pure logic. The way we hear the voice is significant because  it shows that our human being was rationalized by machinery. The president only cared about his profit, revenue that workers produced by using machine. Sales man only cared the feeding machine, they just wanted to sell it. Chaplin pointed out that machinery supposed to make human being’s life easier but it totally destroyed the people’s life. Workers were replaced by machine and they had to work at the speed of machine without any rest.

“Modern Times” is related to surrealism and dadaism. The character Chaplin’s actions can be described by using Dadaism idea. His actions were against everything (when he operated machine—machine stopped; when he leaned on the door—door break; when he sat on the chair—floor break; and so on…). He was the one who can not be full controlled. He was irrational, can not be described by reason. Gamine and Chaplin also represented surrealism. Their imagination about the house, they were the owner and everything had to follow their order (even foods and cow). It contradicted the reality.

At the end, Gamine prepared lyric for Chaplin to perform but Chaplin’s actions threw the rational and organized lyric away. He sang the song without looking at lyric and he performed randomly with different languages. His song means nothing, his performance was came from unconsciousness (automatic writing).

modern time is a film based on the Great Depression happened in the 90s, where many people were suffering from unemployment and difficult financial situations in their life.  The protagonist in this story played by Charles Chaplin is a factor worker who is constantly screwing machine part one after another and even become insane at a certain point when he couldn’t handle the face paced tasks in the factory. it demonstrates the social trend under an industrialized city, the creation of new machines are supposed to help workers to be less stressful and become more enjoyable at work, however, turn out these middle-class workers are suppressed by those machines even harder as they must keep up the productivity of the factory, while the owner is sitting in his office and monitoring  those employee’s task. 

one of the most intriguing facts of this film is that while the character’s dialogues are mainly silenced, there are few times where the characters actually speak out loud, and all of them is speaking with a tone of freedom and liberty.  In a time where many people are forced to work in a harsh place, it is quite necessary to get rid of anxiety and frustration on a daily basis.  As the protagonist keep experiences failure at his work, he met a girl who has lost her home and almost starving to death, and the connection of the two shows the true love humanity which the entire society was missing. the fact that everyone’s goal is trying to more productive and earn more money and doesn’t care about the any relationships with others.  It is rare for a man to take a crime blame for a stranger who has been never met before. but the film directly showcases it and even separates these two characters to embrace the cold rational society.  where the love and kindness still exist in the Depression.

The language happens when the president of the factory gives order to the workers. Also, we observe the introduction title of each part of the film and the written word of the dialogues between characters and the articles in the film, for example, the warrant for the young female character. There is also some background music with the rhythm matching the plots, for example, the fleet music plays when Chaplin works in the pipeline. And we hear Chaplin singing his improvisational song in the cafe, which to me sounds like nonsense words. Most importantly, the grim voice of the president is as cold as the machines in the factory, which expresses the oppressed working environment. It shows Chaplin’s critique on the dehumanizing impact of industrialization on society, especially the lower class people. The miserable poor families become the victims of the social and political policy under of era of industrialization. We observe the conflicts between the workers living in poverty and the sole proprietorship industry, which could be interpreted as the conflicts between people’s struggling pursuit for the better life and the unbalanced society with high unemployment. The beginning of the film that workers rush into the factory and the livestock rush into the fence impresses me a lot. Workers’ dehumanizing treatment is same as or even worse than a livestock. Like Chaplin asking the warder whether he could stay in jail for a longer time, workers’ outside “free” life is much worse than being put in jail. Only in that kind of crazy era, people would even wish them to stay in jail rather than confronting the real and outward life. Overall, Modern Times is a silent and pantomime skilled film with limited but crucial use of language and voice to let the audience pay more attention on characters’ appearance, gestures, and emotional power.

Dadaism and Surrealism are artistic and intellectual movements in the early 20^th century. They both fundamental define and sharp Modernism with their direct reaction and illogical performances.

The 1924 year vision of “Ballet Mécanique” is quite amazing me. I feel it more likes a phycology performance of art rather than just an artist piece of film. First, the file opens and ends with an animated feature which I assume it is artist Charlie Chaplin. With the machines and the industrial produce, it makes me concerned and feel anxious. Second, the cubist images stimulate my eyes and also reflect to my brain; makes me think about something which relates to my life and society. I even can’t express what my feeling is. Then the visual juxtaposition of features play a significant role. They simulate my visual sense then develop anther feeling into my mind. Overall, for me, the film embodies many values of the surrealist, which are irrational and ant- idealistic.

“Un Chien Andalou” is a short movie that really confuses me, perhaps it is a silence movie so that I cannot connect to all the scenes. There are many unreasonable transaction scenes that trouble me. In the opening of the file, the sense of a razor cuts an eye makes me scared. but it jumps quickly to a totally different scene that a man rides a bicycle in the street. The two transactions are irrational and confusing. Even on the other scenes, they all have an unrealistic connection. In other word, the film uses an illogical narration to describe the transactions and put them as a story. However, it makes the story unrecognized and chaotic, at least from my perspective they do. I believe the director deliberately narratives the story to the audiences and try to connect them with a comma sense.

Both files are perform an unreasonable, non-logical and unrealistic sense of feeling, meanwhile they also react with a physiological thinking for audiences.