Modern Times (1936, USA)

Aichi Hokeni Shimbun

Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece Modern Times tells of the harshness and tragedy of life during the Great Depression.

Factory worker Charlie loses his mental balance after enduring endless days of monotonous labor and is hospitalized following a breakdown. Although he recovers, he is dismissed from the factory and warned by his doctor to avoid excitement. Wandering aimlessly through the city, he is swept up in a workers’ demonstration. Mistakenly placed at the head of the march holding a red flag, he is arrested as a presumed ringleader, though later released when proven innocent.

Charlie finds work at a shipyard but is quickly fired due to inexperience. Ironically, he begins to wonder whether returning to prison might be easier. When he sees a starving young girl arrested for stealing food, Charlie deliberately dines without paying and is taken into custody. On the way to jail, he meets the girl, and the two conspire to escape. From then on, they vow never to part.

Charlie is later hired as a night watchman at a department store and briefly believes he has found suitable work, only to be arrested again after thieves ransack the store on his first night. Upon release, he reunites with the girl, now working as a cabaret dancer. Through her recommendation, he becomes a waiter and even sings at the club. However, when a young official who had once tried to send her to a reformatory appears, the pair flee once more. The film ends with the two cheerfully setting off on a life of wandering together.

Cast aside by modern industrial production and able to secure food and shelter only in prison, Charlie embodies the tragedy brought about by the Great Depression.

At a time when prisons are expanding and public hospitals are being consolidated, we must not complacently assume that medicine is immune to economic downturns.