Note: Ok, after a dose of Chaplin movies, I can honestly say - How the hell did I miss his movies? They are incredible! Each one of them. But this one stands out on its own. The Great Dictator is a genius satire on the Nazi era - only Chaplin can combine comedy with an intense subject like that. This is what cinema should be like! Available on YouTube here (yay!)
IMDB Entry: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032553/
Genre: Comedy, Drama
This movie is laugh-out-loud, poignant, sad - all rolled into one. You take a serious topic - as intense as the holocaust and the anti-Semitism - and turn it into a political satire/comedy? Well, who but Chaplin can put a fictional spin to it and delight us with a such a piece of art! This is the greatest risk ever taken by a filmmaker in my opinion (the movie was released when the Nazis were in prominence and during World War II!)
Chaplin stars in a dual role as a bumbling Jewish barber and a ruthless dictator (a direct satire on Hitler). After returning from war (World War I), the Jewish barber is admitted into a hospital and loses memory of the war. He is released from the hospital during the time when Jews are persecuted, only to be mistaken as the dictator himself (due to his resemblance to the dictator)
The best part of the movie? The impassioned and powerful speech given by the Jewish barber at the end of the movie. And just for that, this movie should be elevated to the status of a cult classic.
I'm sorry but I don't want to be an emperor.
That's not my business.
I don't want to rule or conquer anyone.
I should like to help everyone: Jew, gentile, black man, white.
We all want to help one another.
Human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other's happiness, not misery.
We don't want to hate one another.
In this world, the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into bloodshed.
We have developed speed but have shut ourselves in.
Machinery has left us in want.
Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness, hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little.
More than machinery we need humanity.
More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost...
The airplane and radio have brought us closer.
These inventions cry out for the goodness in man, cry out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all.
Even now my voice is reaching millions, millions of despairing men, women and children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me I say, do not despair.
The misery upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took will return to the people.
So long as men die liberty will never perish.
Soldiers, don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, regiment your lives, tell you what to think and feel, who drill you, treat you like cattle and use you as cannon fodder.
Don't give yourselves to these men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts.
You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in you.
Don't hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural hate.
Soldiers, don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty! St Luke says, "The Kingdom of God is within man." Not in one man nor a group of men, but in all men. In you! You have the power to create machines, the power to create happiness.
You have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
In the name of democracy, let us use that power.
Let us all unite, let us fight for a new world, a world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age security.
Promising these things, brutes have risen.
But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.
Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to the happiness of all. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us unite!
