Understanding Modernity Through Chaplin: How Modern Times and The Great Dictator Reflect the Turbulent Zeitgeist of the 20th Century

Understanding Modernity Through Chaplin: How Modern Times and The Great Dictator Reflect the Turbulent Zeitgeist of the 20th Century

This Blog is a part of Thinking Activity assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad sir regarding the movie screening of two movies as part of the background study for  20th  Century  Literature  in English of Zeitgeist of the Time: Modern Times and The Great Dictator directed by Charlie Chaplin.

This activity helps me connect visual media to the socio-economic and cultural realities of the early twentieth century. By analyzing specific frames, I can gain a deeper understanding of the themes and settings that shaped the literature and art of the time.

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What is Frame Study?

Frame study is an analytical approach to understanding films by examining specific frames, scenes, or visual compositions within the narrative. Each frame is treated as a microcosm that encapsulates broader themes, socio-political realities, and artistic intentions. By dissecting elements such as composition, movement, metaphor, and semiotics, frame study bridges the visual and thematic aspects of cinema, offering a deeper understanding of a film's message and historical context.

In the case of 'Modern Times,' frame study becomes particularly significant as Chaplin uses visual storytelling to critique industrial capitalism and societal inequalities. For example, the juxtaposition of a factory worker trapped within a machine conveys the mechanization of human life, while the closing frame of the open road symbolizes hope and resilience.

By examining frames in relation to the socio-political realities of the 20th century, such as the Great Depression and the rise of industrialization, frame study reveals how 'Modern Times' serves as both a reflection and critique of its era. This analytical method not only enhances cinematic appreciation but also illuminates the interplay between art and history, making frame study a vital tool for understanding complex visual narratives.

Frame Study of the Film

Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936)

Modern Times (1936) is a silent film written, directed, and performed by Charlie Chaplin, released at the height of the Great Depression a time defined by mass unemployment, economic uncertainty, and accelerated industrial growth. Through the iconic figure of the Tramp, Chaplin offers a sharp critique of mechanized labor, assembly-line production, and the exploitative logic of capitalism that governs the lives of ordinary workers. Despite being produced in the era of sound cinema, the film deliberately relies on silence, gesture, and visual comedy, reinforcing its emphasis on bodily expression and cinematic imagery. By blending humor with incisive social commentary, Modern Times reveals how industrial “progress” frequently erodes human dignity and individuality, establishing the film as a vital cultural document of the early twentieth century.

Frame Study: Man and Pigs / Sheep Metaphor

Workers reduced to a herd symbolizing conformity and loss of individuality,Human labor mirrors livestock movement under industrial capitalism

The opening image of Modern Times, in which a herd of animals dissolves into a crowd of factory workers, functions as a powerful visual metaphor for the dehumanizing effects of industrial capitalism. By equating human beings with livestock driven in a single direction, Chaplin suggests that modern industrial systems strip workers of individuality, agency, and conscious choice, reducing them to obedient units of labor. The tightly packed bodies, uniform movement, and absence of personal identity reflect a world governed by routine and control rather than creativity or freedom. This frame sets the ideological foundation of the film, announcing Chaplin’s critique of mass production and mechanized life, where human dignity is sacrificed in the name of efficiency and economic progress.

Frame Study: The Assembly Line and the Mechanized Worker

Men Turned into Machines: Life on the Assembly Line

This opening factory frame shows the Tramp endlessly tightening bolts on a fast-moving conveyor belt, visually representing how industrial labor reduces humans to mechanical extensions of machines. The rigid composition and repetitive motion emphasize monotony, while Chaplin’s exaggerated gestures highlight the psychological strain of such work. The frame critiques mass production by showing how efficiency is prioritized over human well-being, turning individuality into automation.

Frame Study: The Factory Surveillance Scene from the Opening Sequence of Modern Times

Power operates remotely through constant surveillance

The opening factory sequence of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times is one of the most striking cinematic critiques of industrial modernity. Through a brief yet powerful set of frames, Chaplin condenses the anxieties of the early twentieth century mechanization, loss of individuality, and authoritarian control into a visual language that requires little dialogue. This scene functions not merely as comedy but as a socio-political commentary on the lived realities of industrial capitalism.

1. The Illusion of Privacy in an Industrial World

Invasion of Personal Space

The frames depict Chaplin’s Tramp retreating into what should be a private space the washroom for a brief moment of rest and personal relief. However, this illusion of privacy is shattered when the factory owner suddenly appears on a large screen, ordering him back to work. The washroom, symbolically associated with bodily autonomy and human vulnerability, becomes another site of surveillance.

Surveillance as a Normalized Condition

The sudden appearance of the boss suggests that surveillance is not occasional but continuous. The worker is never truly alone. This reflects how industrial systems normalize constant monitoring, making workers internalize discipline even in moments meant for rest. Michel Foucault’s idea of the panopticon becomes visually enacted here power does not need to be physically present to be effective.

Frmae Study:The Feeding Machine Experiment

Technology dehumanizes the worker in the name of efficiency.

The feeding machine frame satirizes capitalist obsession with productivity by attempting to eliminate lunch breaks. As the machine malfunctions and assaults the Tramp, Chaplin exposes the absurdity of technological “progress” divorced from human needs. The close-ups of mechanical arms and the Tramp’s helpless body turn comedy into critique, revealing how innovation can become dehumanizing.

Inside the Gears: Total Absorption of the Human Body

The worker swallowed by the machine—an iconic image of industrial modernity consuming human identity and agency.

The Tramp is literally pulled into the giant gears of the machine.

• Surreal imagery: the human body swallowed by machinery.
• Wide shot emphasizes scale tiny man vs. colossal system.
• Movement is mechanical, not voluntary.

This iconic frame visually represents Marxist alienation. The worker does not control production; production consumes the worker. Humanity is fragmented, processed, and objectified.

Frame Study: Prison as a Space of Stability

A paradox of modernity: imprisonment offers security, while freedom delivers anxiety.

Ironically, the frame depicting the Tramp inside prison presents incarceration as a space of order, predictability, and even comfort when contrasted with the chaos and precarity of life outside. The stable visual composition, slower rhythm, and routine activities within the prison sharply differ from the frantic movement, mechanical pressure, and constant surveillance of the factory world. Here, the Tramp is guaranteed food, shelter, and rest—basic necessities denied to him in the so-called free capitalist society. Chaplin uses this reversal to critique an economic system in which freedom is meaningless without security, exposing how industrial capitalism fails to provide dignity or stability to its workers. By portraying prison as a refuge rather than a punishment, the film highlights the moral contradiction of a society where institutional confinement appears more humane than economic freedom, underscoring the deep social injustice of the modern industrial order.

Frame Study: Labour Resistance and State Control 

Voices of the Workers: Protest Against Industrial Exploitation

This frame depicts Charlie Chaplin leading a group of workers in a protest against factory conditions and industrial exploitation. The placards demanding unity and freedom reflect workers’ collective resistance to injustice, unemployment, and inhuman working conditions. Chaplin’s accidental leadership highlights how ordinary individuals are often drawn into political movements during times of crisis. The police intervention represents the role of the state in suppressing labour movements and protecting industrial interests. This scene mirrors the socio-political realities of the early twentieth century, when workers’ strikes were frequently met with force. As A. C. Ward notes, industrial progress intensified class conflict, exposing the gap between economic growth and human welfare.

Frame Study: The Department Store Night Scene

Carefree motion at the edge of danger Chaplin’s roller-skating scene turns leisure into a fragile illusion within a consumerist world

Inside the brightly lit luxury department store, the Tramp and the Gamin temporarily step into a dreamlike space of comfort, abundance, and consumption that contrasts sharply with their lived reality of unemployment and poverty. The wide frames filled with polished surfaces, goods, and empty aisles create a visual irony: wealth is everywhere, yet no rightful place is reserved for them within the economic system. The stillness of the deserted store emphasizes that consumer prosperity is accessible only after hours symbolically out of reach for the working poor. Moments such as the Tramp’s carefree roller-skating and the Gamin’s playful imagining of domestic stability transform the store into a fantasy of the American Dream, one built on material comfort and security. However, this dream remains fragile and temporary, collapsing with the return of authority and daylight. Chaplin thus exposes capitalism’s central contradiction: abundance exists, but it is unevenly distributed, offering illusion rather than inclusion to those it marginalizes.

Frame Study: The Final Road Walk

Walking Toward Hope: Humanity Beyond Machines

The closing frame of Modern Times shows the Tramp and the Gamin walking together along an open road, moving toward an uncertain yet expansive horizon. Shot in a wide composition, the empty road stretching into the distance emphasizes both material instability and emotional freedom, suggesting that while social and economic systems have failed them, their human spirit remains intact. The absence of a fixed destination rejects conventional narrative closure, reflecting the modern condition of perpetual movement and insecurity during the Great Depression. Yet, the Tramp’s familiar gesture of encouragement urging the Gamin to smile and keep walking infuses the frame with quiet optimism. Chaplin affirms that dignity, companionship, and resilience can survive even in the absence of work, home, or social certainty, making the ending not a defeat but a humanist assertion that hope persists through solidarity and endurance rather than material success.

Placing Modern Times within the Twentieth-Century Historical Context

Though Modern Times is often read as a satire of industrial capitalism, its depiction of constant supervision and rigid discipline strongly reflects the political atmosphere of the 1930s. The era was marked by economic instability and the rise of authoritarian governments, allowing Chaplin’s factory to function as a symbolic space that mirrors wider systems of power and control.

Mechanisms of Power and Authoritarian Governance

The factory boss’s methods of enforcing discipline closely resemble the strategies employed by authoritarian leaders such as Hitler and Mussolini, revealing a shared structure of domination.

Absolute Authority and the Control of Everyday Life

The demand for uninterrupted labor and the monitoring of the worker even in a private space such as the washroom parallel the practices of totalitarian regimes. These regimes sought to regulate both public actions and private behavior, reducing individuals to subjects under constant observation. Such comprehensive control is a defining characteristic of authoritarian rule.

Media, Surveillance, and the Projection of Power

The screen through which the boss issues commands anticipates the growing use of media technologies for political control in the twentieth century. In a similar manner, authoritarian governments relied on radio broadcasts, cinema, and mass rallies to assert dominance, spread ideology, and condition public obedience.

Erosion of Personal Freedom and Human Dignity

The prevention of a simple rest break symbolizes the larger suppression of fundamental human rights. The loss of privacy, leisure, and dignity reflects the lived reality of individuals under both exploitative industrial systems and authoritarian political regimes, where efficiency and obedience were prioritized over human welfare.

Conclusion: From Factory Floor to Political Allegory

This sequence from Modern Times transcends its immediate industrial setting to become a broader allegory of twentieth-century power structures. The factory boss and the dictator operate on the same principle: absolute control, surveillance, and the reduction of human beings to obedient instruments. Through humor and visual irony, Chaplin exposes a chilling truth that modern systems, whether economic or political, risk losing their humanity when efficiency and authority replace compassion and freedom.

2) The Great Dictator(1940)

The Great Dictator (1940), directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, is a landmark political satire that confronts the rise of fascism and totalitarian power on the eve of World War II, using comedy as a weapon of moral and political critique; Chaplin plays a dual role as Adenoid Hynkel, the absurdly violent dictator of Tomainia modeled on Adolf Hitler, and a gentle Jewish barber, a World War I veteran whose humanity and innocence stand in sharp contrast to authoritarian brutality, and through this doubling the film exposes the grotesque imbalance between power and ethical responsibility in modern politics; the exaggerated gestures, gibberish speeches, and theatrical rallies mock fascist propaganda and reveal how emotion, spectacle, and blind nationalism manipulate the masses, while scenes set in the Jewish ghetto foreground the realities of persecution, scapegoating, and state-sponsored violence; the famous globe-dance sequence symbolizes imperial ambition as childish fantasy, reducing dictatorial dreams of domination to fragile illusion, and the film’s climactic moment when the barber, mistaken for the dictator, delivers a sincere, impassioned speech advocating peace, democracy, and human brotherhood marks a decisive shift from satire to direct humanist appeal, making Chaplin’s voice inseparable from his art; as Chaplin’s first full sound film, The Great Dictator uses language strategically to expose the emptiness of authoritarian rhetoric and to affirm the power of compassionate speech, ultimately asserting that in an age of mechanized violence and political hysteria, cinema, like literature, must defend human dignity against tyranny.

Illustration: Frame Study- The Dictator’s Oratorical Performance

Commonly identified as:

1.Hynkel’s Demagogic Speech

2.The Fascist Rally Sequence

3.The Performance of Power Scene

This sequence appears in the early part of The Great Dictator (1940) and plays a crucial role in establishing Adenoid Hynkel’s character. Through exaggerated rhetoric, violent gestures, and nonsensical language, Chaplin constructs a satirical yet unsettling portrait of fascist leadership. This scene stands in deliberate opposition to the film’s concluding speech, where the Jewish Barber speaks calmly, rationally, and humanely, directly addressing the audience with a plea for peace and democracy.

Important Distinction:

This frame must not be confused with the film’s final speech. While the ending offers moral clarity and humanist sincerity, the present scene is intentionally chaotic, loud, and aggressive, exposing the emptiness and danger of fascist rhetoric.

Frame Analysis: The Spectacle of Dictatorial Speech

The frame typically depicts Hynkel positioned at a podium, surrounded by massive banners bearing the double-cross insignia of Tomainia, addressing a vast, uniformed crowd performing the fascist salute. His body language contorted facial expressions, clenched fists, and frenzied movements creates an atmosphere of intimidation and emotional excess. The visual composition emphasizes scale and symmetry, reinforcing the dictator’s claim to absolute authority.

Frame Study: Propaganda and the Politics of Information (The Great Dictator)

Manufacturing Truth: Media, Power, and the Victors’ Narrative

This frame foregrounds a newspaper headline proclaiming “Riots in Tomainia” in the aftermath of the war, exposing the post-conflict transformation of mass media into an apparatus of ideological domination. Rather than registering civilian loss, trauma, or ethical accountability, the headline reframes disorder as a narrative that consolidates sovereign authority and legitimizes the victor’s hegemonic control. Chaplin thereby interrogates the epistemological function of journalism under authoritarian regimes, revealing how truth is not merely reported but systematically manufactured by those in power. The emphatic typography and repetitive visual emphasis underscore the ease with which public consciousness can be disciplined and redirected through print culture. This moment resonates with the early twentieth-century historical reality in which newspapers operated as instruments of propaganda, mediating reality in the interests of the state. In line with A. C. Ward’s observation, modernity’s technological and institutional “progress” simultaneously generated sophisticated mechanisms of control, enabling political power to extend its dominion beyond territory into the very construction of truth and collective perception.

Frame Study: The Globe Dance Scene (Illusion of Absolute Power)

The dictator’s dream of world domination rendered as a fragile fantasy power becomes a toy, and empire an illusion.

This iconic frame presents Adenoid Hynkel alone in his grand office, playfully dancing with an inflatable globe that represents the world he dreams of owning and controlling. The soft lighting, spacious setting, and ballet-like grace of his movements momentarily transform the dictator into a whimsical performer, masking the brutality underlying authoritarian rule. Chaplin deliberately contrasts this elegance with the political violence and oppression exercised by fascist regimes, revealing dictatorship as a performance driven by ego, fantasy, and narcissism rather than moral legitimacy. The globe becomes a symbolic toy, suggesting that Hynkel views the world not as a community of human lives but as an object for personal possession. When the globe ultimately bursts, the image shatters the illusion of absolute power, exposing the fragility and emptiness at the core of totalitarian ambition. Through this frame, Chaplin demystifies fascist authority, reducing it to a childish dream doomed to collapse.

Frame Study: Ghettoization and Threat to Human Rights 

Fear and Uncertainty: Minorities under the Shadow of Aryan Power

This frame shows two Jewish characters seated in quiet anxiety, reflecting fear and uncertainty about their safety in an increasingly hostile society. Their expressions and body language convey helplessness as they anticipate violence from the Aryan regime. Chaplin shifts from satire to seriousness, highlighting the psychological trauma experienced by minorities under authoritarian rule. The absence of action in the frame intensifies the tension, suggesting that danger is constant and unavoidable. This scene exposes how fascist ideologies create fear through exclusion and discrimination. As A. C. Ward notes, the twentieth century witnessed not only political upheaval but also the systematic erosion of basic human rights, particularly for marginalized communities.

Comparative Analysis with the Contemporary Film Dhurandhar (dir. Aditya Dhar)

While separated by nearly a century, The Great Dictator (1940) and Dhurandhar (2025) converge in their exploration of power, manipulation, and mass control, reflecting the evolving nature of domination from theatrical fascism to covert geopolitical warfare.

Both films reveal that mass allegiance is rarely ideological at its core; it is often born from hunger, fear, and a desperate need for belonging.

1. Political Connection: Propaganda, Fear, and Control

Propaganda as Statecraft

The defining visual of Hynkel’s frame is propaganda in its rawest form: a single man manipulating millions through sound, spectacle, and emotional excess. Meaning collapses into noise, and reason is replaced by spectacle. This “us vs. them” binary simplifies reality and legitimizes violence.

In Dhurandhar, propaganda has evolved. It is no longer performed only on grand stages but embedded within covert operations, terror networks, digital misinformation, and proxy violence. Terrorism itself becomes a form of propaganda designed not only to kill but to destabilize psychological and political order.

The Dictator’s Image: Hyper-Masculinity and Ego

Hynkel’s exaggerated masculinity, irrational rage, and narcissism demand absolute obedience. His body language, volume, and theatrical aggression embody fascist authority.

Similarly, Dhurandhar presents figures like Rehman Dakait and Major Iqbal as modern avatars of authoritarian power. Their dominance is localized rather than national, but equally absolute within their territories. Violence replaces rhetoric; fear replaces ideology. Hynkel’s public grandstanding finds its contemporary counterpart in the gangster-politician who governs through intimidation, loyalty, and controlled chaos.

Betrayal and Moral Ambiguity

Dhurandhar hinges on betrayal through its undercover agent, Jaskirat Singh Rangi (Hamza), who dismantles the terror network from within. His mission requires moral compromise lying, violence, and emotional entanglement.

This reflects a darker evolution of Chaplin’s narrative device. In The Great Dictator, deception (the Barber impersonating Hynkel) leads to moral clarity and humanist truth. In Dhurandhar, deception leads to psychological fragmentation. The modern world no longer permits innocence; victory comes at the cost of the self.

2. Literary Framework: Parody of Power vs. Irony of Patriotism

The Great Dictator: Satire as Moral Resistance

Chaplin employs satire and parody to dismantle authoritarian power. By reducing the dictator to a comic figure, he strips fascism of its mythic terror. The Jewish Barber an outsider and Chaplinesque Tramp momentarily acquires absolute power only to reject it, delivering a sincere, humanist appeal to conscience.

This aligns with the literary tradition of satire, where laughter becomes a weapon against tyranny and the marginalized voice exposes the absurdity of dominance.

Dhurandhar: Espionage and Existential Irony

Dhurandhar belongs to the modern spy-thriller tradition, characterized by irony, fragmentation, and moral uncertainty. Hamza must become what he despises to destroy it. His patriotism is deeply ironic: national duty demands personal corruption.

Here, the hero does not transcend power but is consumed by it. The film foregrounds the psychological cost of modern warfare, where loyalty, identity, and ethics are constantly destabilized.

Conclusion: Cinema as the Spirit of Its Time

Both films embody the literary and political consciousness of their respective eras. Chaplin confronts the visible, theatrical evil of 1930s fascism with satire and hope, believing in the redemptive power of human speech and empathy. Dhurandhar, by contrast, reflects a fragmented 21st-century world where power is decentralized, violence is covert, and morality is unstable.

Together, they reveal a grim continuity: while the form of domination has changed, its roots in exploitation, fear, and dehumanization remain disturbingly familiar.

In summary, the specific frames Chaplin created serve as cinematic metaphors for the profound and often frightening historical shifts that A. C. Ward highlighted: the move from a person-centric world to a machine-centric one, whether that machine is a factory assembly line or a totalitarian state apparatus. Both forms of control industrial and political led to the dehumanization of the individual in the 20th-century setting.

A. C. Ward's "The Setting" of the 20th Century often emphasizes the massive, disruptive forces that defined the era, particularly the shock of World War I, the speed of industrial and technological change, the rise of mass movements, and the resulting spiritual and intellectual uncertainty.

References

• Barad, Dilip. Activity: Frame Study of “Modern Times” and “The Great Dictator”. ResearchGate, Dec. 2024, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/387140957_Activity_Frame_Study_of_'Modern_Times'_and_'The_Great_Dictator'?__cf_chl_tk=j5qw9x7FH9GkaltuV36W5ncSj3UCP3VbM5HAkYcElhk-1765864391-1.0.1.1-oI.pKf0l.2vxKrGhfIu3diKxfzzud.rkjdEnpnjCK2I.
• Barad, Dilip. Charlie Chaplin Modern Times Great Dictator. blog.dilipbarad.com/2020/09/charlie-chaplin-modern-times-great.html.
• Chiu, Hsien-Yuan & Chu, Wei-Lin. (2019). Analysis of the  Narrative Types of “Metaphor”  in  Animated  Short  Films.  Art  and  Design  Review.  DOI: 10.4236/adr.2019.74017, 07. 206-224. 
•  Cross,  Karl.  "Mechanical  Laughter:  Comedy  and  Social  Issues  in  Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times." Academia.edu, 2014, https://www.academia.edu/9294576/Mechanical_Laughter_Comedy_and_Social_Issues_in_Charlie_Chaplins_Modern_Times
• Denning,  Michael.  "Charlie  Chaplin's  Modern  Times  and  the  Minstrel Tradition." Modernism/modernity, vol. 23, no. 2, 2016, pp. 217–235. 
• Dhurandhar. Directed by Aditya Dhar, Jio Studios, n.d, 2025.
• Fielding, Raymond.  "Charlie Chaplin's  Films and American  Culture Patterns." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 16, no. 4, 1958, pp. 540–550. 
• Masterson,  Kelsey.  "The  Power  of  Voice  Merging  in  Chaplin's  The  Great Dictator." Schwa, vol. 9, 2015, pp. 45–56.
• Modern Times. Directed by Charlie Chaplin, United Artists, 1936. 
• The Great Dictator. Directed by Charlie Chaplin, United Artists, 1940
• Vance, Jeffrey. "Film Essay for 'The Great Dictator'." Library of Congress, 2013, https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/great_dictator.pdf
• Ward, A. C. Twentieth-Century English Literature: 1901-1960. ELBS  Edition, 1965. Butler & Tanner Ltd, Great Britain