The 12nd Essay: Modern Times (1936)
- Jul 27, 2022
- 1 min read
Ryoden Kouki Engineering Co., Ltd.
Company Newsletter Series: “How about Taking a Short Break?”
Now updated.
Modern Times (1936) is one of Charlie Chaplin’s most powerful satires of modern industrial society. It follows Charlie, a factory worker driven to mental exhaustion by repetitive mechanical labor, eventually pushing him to the margins of society.
The film portrays how human beings become “cogs in the machine” in a system that prioritizes efficiency and productivity. At the same time, it suggests a fundamental dilemma: the pursuit of freedom is inseparable from instability and poverty.
As in Aesop’s fable of the “road to freedom” and the “road to slavery,” humans are constantly torn between stability and liberty. Though made over 80 years ago, the film continues to question modern ideas of work and how to live.
Please read the full text here.
Kayukawa Clinic
