Charlie Chaplin - The Great Dictator

[Botch]

Almost put this in the political thread. A speaking part from CC; I thought the "talkies" put CC out of business because he had a thick accent, but damn he's pretty good here. No idea what the storyline is here (not a speech hitler would've made). And the music is supposedly by Hans Zimmer, how could that be? :think:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HdOHrc3OQ[/youtube]

 

[Flint]

The thing about that era of western civilization is that words were very well chosen to mean things and very concise phrases meant so much with so few words. In every sentence, there was power in that monologue, but in our current culture we cannot process that much meaning. The density of the concepts are beyond us today.

 

[Deleted member 133]

Almost put this in the political thread. A speaking part from CC; I thought the "talkies" put CC out of business because he had a thick accent, but damn he's pretty good here.

It was politics that drove him out of the United States and nothing to do with the advent of sound in motion pictures. He was thought to be, at best, a communist sympathizer. He went from being beloved to hated. It was only decades later that he regained his rightful place in the pantheon.

 

[Botch]

Interesting Jeff, that goes against what I learned in school, but certainly not the first time.

 

[Flint]

Keep in mind that in those days there were MANY communists in the US and the atrocities going on in Russia were not known to the public. In fact, most of what Stalin did wasn't well known until the 60's and even then they were so horrible that few believed the stories were true (but they were).

During the same period that prohibition occurred, there was a huge movement to change society either to socialism or straight up communism. The winners write the history, and while I am a staunch capitalist and general libertarian, I can see how the communists in the US have been painted as baby killers, rapists and terrorists when they were really just intellectuals wanting something to change. Just because they think they were misguided in what change would be best, I realize they meant well, in general.