Socio-Economic Crisis In The Film A Dog's Life By Charlie Chaplin

In the 1931 film “City Lights”, Charlie Chaplin “opens our eyes”, so to speak, about how society values trivial elements of people over the deeper person by using blindness. In this film, Chaplin brilliantly mixes lighthearted comedy with deep and complex ideas about problems with society. Chaplin uses music, gags, and a genuine love connection to portray this point in multiple ways throughout the movie. Chaplin also took the bold step of not making a talking movie, even though they were available at the time, making the details in the pictures and sounds he was creating that much more important. What makes “City Lights” so special, and different from other comedies, is Chaplin’s natural blend of comedic scenes with tense and serious scenes. Chaplin weaved together a masterpiece that culminates in the end with the lady seeing who she fell in love with, which is also the moment Chaplin slaps the viewer in the face with the realization that the priorities in society are misguided and that the important things cannot be seen with the eye.

The film has different thoughts then the story. Like said in the intro the man tries to kill the dog and the dog thinks the man is trying to play, but in the film the dog lashed out.

The great depression all started with the stock market crash of 1928. The president at the time was herbert hoover who promised to keep peace. He ended up winning 444 electoral votes to his opposing opponent who only had 87 electoral votes (Notes). After the stock market crashed banks started to fail and had no money to give to people. Nobody had money to pay anyone so unemployment roared all the way to 23% from 3%.

Charlie Chaplin’s (1931) City Lights, is one of the last silent films to be released in America, that was successful, as the age of the ‘talkie’ was beginning. He was one of the few great silent film stars to successfully continue his career. Chaplin uses a lot of symbolism of life in this film, using flowers, blindness, money and of course the Tramp.

During 1929, the Great Depression became the event that shook America. People lost their jobs, which resulted in unemployment and homelessness. Hobos and “Okies” tried moving to California did not accept the jobless migrations because they feared their opportunities for success would be lost. In Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men several characters experience cruelty because society outcasts them. These characters include Lennie, Candy, and Crooks. Of the three characters, Crooks has the least opportunity for success because he's African-American and handicap.

The story Seabiscuit takes place in California in a time where industries were booming. In this period the great depression also took place and threw out the movie short clips of this time period are shown. The main protagonist, Charles S. Howard is initially a successful automotive mechanic who’s main focus is wealth but his life later takes a tragic twist when his son dies in a car accident, and his wife leaves him shortly after. However not everything is bad luck for the kind hearted Charles as he later married Marcela Zabala and together they formed a new life. John M. Pollard or “Red” happens to be the antagonist and his displayed as a courageous boy raised in a middle class family but due to financial problems he is forced to leave his family. The story “Seabiscuit” depicts the life of Charles S. Howard and many other people’s life during the Great Depression.

During the Great Depression, the Western United States was a bleak and dreary place. Much of the working population at the time were migrant workers, who worked as farmhands for wealthier farm owners. These migrant workers often suffered from terrible working conditions, and horrendously low wages. As George and Lennie drift from job to job in search of liveable conditions and steady pay, they experience the cruel reality that moving up in society is near impossible. Even when George manages to find stable occupations for he and Lennie, Lennie seems to inevitably cause a disturbance, forcing them to abscond immediately. With the strength of an ox, but the mind of a child, Lennie is an oblivious destroyer, who gets little sympathy from

In 1929, tears swept the nation and gloom bestowed itself upon a once happy place. The Great Depression had started. People lost everything ,so many became migrant workers. Of Mice and Men, a classic novel written by John Steinbeck, emphasizes many sad themes, but gives us a good insight on what life was like in the 1940’s for many people. Although there are other themes, rootlessness, loneliness, and poverty are extremely prominent throughout the novel in many characters.

Charlie Chaplin’s iconic Tramp character is often someone to laugh with, or laugh at, but not necessarily someone you learn from. The Tramp character is impulsive and reckless, hardly the standard for model behavior. Despite this characterization, the Tramp’s role differs significantly in Easy Street. He is the hero that the titular street desperately needs, a place where the depraved and deprived struggle to survive. The use of social issues in Easy Street is not merely to use them for the jokes, but to lighten the burden surrounding the subjects, and in doing so providing a more hopeful perspective: one where these issues are not overwhelming and the solutions don’t seem Herculean, but instead are presented as being within the audience’s begging grasp. The film provides relief by portraying issues a general public can be dealing with, and not treating them as these daunting things to be intimidated by, but to laugh at, since they can be solved, as the Tramp demonstrates, through religion and labor.

Charlie Chaplin did not use sound to communicate to the audience in his movies. Despite the fact that there was no spoken language, his movies were sensational and the audiences loved them. Chaplin was thought of as cinema’s first genius and has been called the single most-influential artist in the history of motion pictures. I am researching Charlie Chaplin to learn how he became a sensational comedian and one of the best actors of all time.

A Dog’s life by Charlie Chaplin expresses a handful of social issues with comedy; it has filmmaking techniques and numerous comic elements. The film was made in 1918, during World War I. Chaplin demonstrates how poor people live and how certain people view them. The film takes place in a poor neighborhood. Chaplin plays as Tramp in the film, a homeless man trying to survive. The film begins with Tramp sleeping on the ground in an empty lot. In that same scene Tramp wakes up to the smell of food. He’s hungry and moneyless;thus, he steals one sausage without the seller noticing. This demonstrates what poor people do to survive.

The main aim of Marxism is to bring about a classless society, and ‘Animal Farm’ is generally considered to be a Marxist novel, as all its characters share a similar ambition at the beginning. ‘Animal Farm’ represents an example of the oppressed masses rising up to form their own classless society, whilst offering a subtle critique on Stalin’s Soviet Russia, and communism in general. Orwell is, ironically, revolutionary in his work, as contextually in 1945, communism was a ‘taboo’ subject, punishable in post-war America by arrest and even death. It is clear from the political references in ‘Animal Farm’, that Orwell considered Russia, and consequently communism as a

Karl Marx’s perfect society described in his Communist Manifesto is in direct conflict with the implementation of Soviet Communism, which was scathingly criticized by George Orwell’s book Animal Farm. Karl Marx believed that in order to form a just and equal society, the working class, called the proletariat, would have to overthrow those who owned the means of production, who were known as the bourgeoisie. This was to be known as the Proletariat Revolution where the oppressed laborers in capitalist societies, such as England, would unite under a common cause to overthrow the oppressive bourgeoisie, and establish a communist society. This would be a society where all were equal, each performing to his ability, and each receiving according

This movie follows a path between slapstick and satire and also comments the American society of 1930s as a result of Great Depression. Chaplin through his film shows how humanity is forced to work or fiddle around with machines in modernity. Most of the sources refer to Chaplin being a communist sympathizer. Though he denied these facts, his films said otherwise and shows a small leniency towards left politics. The on screen persona of tramp best shows his character who often finds himself at odds with the society but still remains cheerful and happy and hopeful of bright future. The theme of machine age enslaving man is shown in the first scene where factory workers are shown working under the supervision of the boss through a large monitor. Also men are shown working at a faster pace than machines which at sometimes is shown in comical way. The scene where Chaplin gets nervous breakdown and unplucks whatever comes in his way , though shown comically, attempts to stress how dull mechanical labour dehumanizes people and makes them slave under the shadow of machines. The film is filled with visual metaphors ; for eg: Chaplin disappearing into a machine and rotated by giant cogs. Another example is Chaplin unbuttoning whatever he sees around him after he suffers from nervous breakdown. The film moves toward human drama and starts attempting visualize the American society at the time of Great

Animal farm by George Orwell introduces real life problems using animals on a farm. The narrator focuses on leaders. This novel talks about a group of animals that overrule a farm owned by a man named Mr .Jones, but the animals face many corrupt rules, freedom rights, enemies, and arguments between one another. The farm becomes overruled by a pig named Napoleon, and the animals are afraid to go against him. Napoleon soon acts like Mr.Jones and the animals freedom is getting taken away from their hands. The novel's main message was to believe those are seeking the truth- doubt those who find it. The novel relates to the theme because between all of the animals, their was many that were not being true to each other and the main character of the story was trying to lure the animals in a plan once he found out he could takeover the farm, just like how it was in the beginning when Mr. Jones owned the farm.