Frame study- The Modern Times

This blog is a response to the blog task assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir. It deals with understanding of 20th century socio- political- economic- religion conditions. For better understanding of any literary text films or documentaries play a very vital role. And Charlie Chaplin's films 'The Modern Times' and 'The Great Dictator' serve a great purpose of better understanding of 20th century scenario. This blog concerns the setting of 20 century, demonstrating it through Chaplin’s films ‘The Modern Times’ and ‘The Great Dictator’ And few frame studies from the movie.

FRAME STUDY- 'THE MODERN TIMES'

Read my blog on the 20th century setting. CLICK HERE.

Charlie Chaplin:

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen , and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and composed the music for most of his films. Through the films of Chaplin we can learn many things about the 20th century. If films are watched for the sake of fun it's mere comedy; it brings out the reality of Chaplin is a comedian but not a comedian.

Let’s discuss his films which are distinctly presenting the 20th century.

Study of ‘The Modern Times’

'The Modern Times' is a 1936 film directed by Charlie Chaplin. The movie talks about the little Tramp trying to adjust in the industrialized world. The movie is a complete comedy film but it shows the reality of an industrialist capitalist world. It is a silent movie but as it is said by Rumi, Persian poet 'Listen to silence, it has so much to say.’

What is frame study?

A frame is a single image of film or video. Framing (a shot) involves composing the visual content of a series of frames as seen from a single point of view, i.e., a fixed camera. When framing a shot, the filmmaker creates a visual within the dimensions of the lens just as a painter creates a visual within the dimensions of a canvas. A frame study is the study or understanding of the frame by a camera which is describing or indicating a lot of things to actually understand the meaning behind the fixed camera image.

Frame 1: Time Boundaries

The movie begins with this frame of a clock, the clock is a suggestion of a mechanical life. We hear from elders, people used to work with the rotation of the sun; they used to start their work with the rising of the sun and end their day with the setting of the Sun. so it was usually heard that not much work was completed in the winter as the days were short but today our life works on the hands of the clock. We wake up with an alarm, we sleep with the clock, we work according to the timing. The rising of the sun and setting of the sun doesn't bother, so the clock is a symbol of mechanical life. The frame of clock in the movie also suggests the industrialization that with the increase of industries the life of people has also turned like a machine and they work in a 9;00 am to 5:00 pm job, in a monotonous routine.

Frame 2: Sheep + people= sheeple

In the beginning of the movie there comes a frame of a herd of sheep running towards the pen and in a fade in transition comes the frame of a people who are moving in a crowd with one destination that is industry. This frame of people moving in a crowd shows that people don't have a different ideology, a direction they are running behind one man where society is taking to them. It can also be read as a sheep or animal following the order given by Shepherd similarly a crowd of people follows the order given by their head or industrial, mechanical world. We can call them ગાડરિયો પ્રવાહ, no direction, no individual ideology just following the orders.

Frame 3:

These three frames of the movie show how an aristocratic class, the head of the industries, are spending their leisure time by playing a Jigsaw puzzle which can also be interpreted as the industrialist is playing with the life of the working class people. In the second image we see that the president of an industrial industry is reading a newspaper, a cartoon Section of the newspaper and on the other side of the working class is working hard to run the industry. it indicates the difference in the life of upper class society and the working class society. Working class society have to do a lot of physical hard work while the upper class society do have their leisure time even being the head of the industry, they have their own power and there is no one to control them.

Frame 4: Muscle Power vs Mind Power

This frame suggests the mind power ruling over muscle power. In monarchy muscle power was force, strength with its help kings ruled their nation but in the 20th century mind power ruled to muscle power.

Frame 5/6: Man Vs Machine

The above frame of the movie shows how a man in an industrial world lives a life according to the machine. The president of the industry ordered to increase the speed of a section 5 where our hero the Tramp is tightening the bolt. as the machine speeded the tramp had to increase his speed of tightening the bolt, again and again he is falling behind but he is trying his best to cope up with the speed of a machine and this directly symbolizes how human beings are trying to cope up with the machine and have to run with the machine.

Through this we can also conclude that it is necessary to be smarter than technology. If technology gets smarter than us it will start dominating human beings as here the tramp had to work according to machines which demonstrate machines dominating the tramp. Technology has an ability to enslave human beings if human beings skip following the one direction.

It is a surreal (unreal, unusual) image. But it shows how humans are running according to the machine, working on the fingertips of the machine.

Frame 7: Control

These two frames of the movie suggest how the upper plus society in people had a control over the working class. The working class had to work on the order of their head. They didn't even get a time to freshen up, they had to completely work as a machine. As Josiah Bounderby of the novel 'Hard Times’ considered his workers to be emotionless, faceless “hands”. Here we can clearly see that technology, science, and machines are used to control life. while the main motive of the advancement in technology is to make the life of the people easier but here instead of giving freedom its controlling life.

Frame 8: Mechanization of Man

This video shows how the mechanical life of The Tramp came under the influence of machines and industrialization that he himself couldn't control his body and this resulted Into nervous breakdown of the Tramp in the movie. And he kept on tightening the bolt wherever he could, whether the buttons in the skirt of a lady or the buttons of the men's dress.

Frame 9:

This frame shows the rise of advertisement in the 20th century. A few people from the company came with a feeding machine and with an opinion that if the industry buys this feeding machine workers will work even in recess time the time will not be wasted for lunch. Again we see, technology is not used to make life easy but to increase the physical workload of the workers. When the machine malfunctioned no one was worried about the worker, everyone was busy repairing the machine. The industry was not ready to purchase this machine because it is not practical, not because it is dangerous.

Frame 10:

These frames of the movie show how industrialization was at the peak in the period that the unemployed working class people had to fight for their Liberation, for their employment. And the newspaper shows the strikes and riots and it shows the social condition of the 20th century. The Tramp was happy that at least he is getting food and a place to sleep because outside the jail he was unemployed, riots were going on, strikes were going on. He had no food to eat, no shade to live in which shows the image of the 20th century; the working-class didn't have even the basic amenities of life like Roti, Kapda, Makan.

Frame 11: Hunger

This frame of the movie shows the scenario of the 20th century, socio economic condition of the society. This child, Gamin, is stealing the food she has no mother and her father is unemployed. they don't have anything to eat and the condition is the people had to steal the food for their living. Comparing it with contemporary times we can see that even today, a crore of people need to give free food for their living because they are not employed and don't have money even for buying food.

Frame 12: Fact vs fancy

These images this frames of the movie shows that every working class people unemployed people have their dream life of having a basic necessities like Roti, Kapda, Makan but in real life they didn't had a house to sleep. They found a small house which was breaking now and then and the Tramp was being hurted by it. This clearly shows the socio economic condition of the society that the people were unemployed, there were riots in the society, strikes were going on for liberty and they were deprived of the basic necessities like food shelter and clothes.

Frame 13:

These images show that the Gamin was dancing in the street and then was selected by a bar owner for dancing in his cafeteria. This shows that time didn't permit anyone to follow their hobbies. Everything was to be done within economical insight, financial Insight. Everything done was only for money and The Gamin also started dancing in the cafeteria for money.

Frame 14:

This is the last frame I would like to discuss. In this scene officers were taking The Gamin to the Orphan house forcefully . After the death of Gamin's father her two younger sisters were taken to the orphanage house. This was the idea of the welfare state but the Gamin Escaped from this officer, this cruelty of taking a Orphan child forcedly to the orphanage also seems like enslaving the human being. It is the idea for the Welfare of the human but doing anything forcedly is not for the Welfare through this we can interpret that it even in the name of the Welfare human were enslaved or can be said are forced to follow the rules of the State, Authority or officers. Indicates dictatorial 20th century. 

Reflecting Over the process:

This is the first time where I had tried the frame study of the movie. watching a movie for the means of entertainment and watching the movie for the understanding of the literary text makes a great difference. Charlie Chaplin movie ‘The Modern Times’ is a comedy but watching this movie After studying about the setting of the twentieth century we realize That it is not just mere comedy but it is the reality of the society which prevailed sometime. Watching movies has always been entertaining but studying movies and understanding the framework of the movie seems interesting. It turned out to be a difficult task which needed a lot of thinking and understanding but was delightful.

I hope this blog was useful to you thanks for visiting.

Cited work:

Dickens, Charles. “Hard Times, by Charles Dickens.” Accessed January 30, 2022. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/786/786-h/786-h.htm.

“Framing in Filmmaking - Hollywood Lexicon.” Accessed January 30, 2022. http://www.hollywoodlexicon.com/frame.html.

Guerra. Charlie Chaplin Tempos Modernos Modern Times 1936 Legendado, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Blz8AWQXA.

News, A. S. V. “Study Frames of Charlie Chaplin’s Films The Modern Times and The Great Dictator - Asvnews.” Accessed January 30, 2022. https://asvnews.in/study-frames-of-charlie-chaplins-films-the-modern-times-and-the-great-dictator/.

For reading about the framework of the movie ‘The Great Dictator’ by Charlie Chaplin please CLICK HERE

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