Film review: "Modern Times"

Title: The better the education, the better the money.

In this essay, I am going to make a review of the film “Modern Times”. Then, I am going to link this review to the reflection about what we can get from this movie in order to give it a good use as future teachers in the classroom. Finally, I am going to conclude this topic by highlighting the most important idea of this report.

This film was directed and written by Charles Chaplin and was released on February 25th, 1936 in the United States. This movie is about the way of living of the working class people during the Modern Times. Men working hard and fast in factories in order to beat the competition. Employers taking advantage of them to earn more money themselves. Furthermore, in this film it is shown a development of technology and the influence of consumerism on people. However, all this is seen from a comical perspective. Charlie, Chaplin’s character, is used as a guinea pig for an experiment in which he is fed through a special machine while working not to stop with his work when eating. This experiment ends up failing making him spit his food. Moreover, Charlie gets bored due to the hard work pressure on employees so he starts joking around which disturbs his other colleagues. He goes to jail where he prevents an attempted escape of convicts and then leaves jail, finds love and is chased by the police again.

According to my personal opinion about the film, I may say that I did like it. I found it entertaining and funny. The story was original and hilarious. Chaplin did a great job by giving such an important and complex period as the Modern Times a comical air by being joking around in the factory acting as a rebel against the system when everybody should be working. On the other hand, not everything was comical or amusing. There were parts in the movie that showed the sort of drama experienced by the working class people at that period of time like when the girl had to steal food to feed her little sisters and unemployed father which contrasted with Chaplin’s cheerful role in the film.

Because of this movie, we can realize the great value of education. During the Modern Times, a lot of people belonging to the working class were not educated. That’s why they could not have a chance to apply for better jobs, were exploited and also became unemployed. It is very likely that used to happen due to the fact that their families could not afford good schools for them so they had to be prepared for working since very little. However, the kinds of jobs they could apply for were really bad. They had to work pretty hard with no vacation, unemployment benefit, life assurance, nor all-risks insurance so they could easily be exposed to danger and it would not matter. Besides, they did not earn so much money either. Nevertheless, their employers could receive a good education at school and even at college which gave them the right to do whatever they wanted with their employees like exploiting them by making them work harder and faster to make money but for these educated people not for the employees. As these workers did not know this because they did not have a good level of education, these other people took advantage of their ignorance. That’s why it is so important as future teachers to let our students know about what happened during the Modern Times and link the reality of that time to the one of nowadays because it is not so different. The better the education, the better the money. This way, it is more likely that our students want to attach importance to their education.

To conclude, I may say that the film “Modern Times” shows us the way how employers (educated people) take advantage of their employees’ ignorance by in a certain way taking part of their salary because they do not have enough level of education to realize or demand about this kind of injustice. That’s why it is essential to let our students know about what happened during this period due to the fact it is not so different than it occurs nowadays.

Modern Times

Modern Times were characterized by changes in society because of certain phenomena that affected people's way of life like industrialization and modernity. Industrialization was an economical phenomenon which consisted of the creation of industries along the city in order to promote a better and faster productivity. Labor force was made to work hard and fast many hours a day but did not earn so much money. Their employers just exploited them to earn more money themselves. Due to this issue, working class people were becoming poorer and thereby many people started to lose their jobs.

In contrast to this latter, modernity was realized through the creation of certain technological devices that were intended making people's way of life easier such as telephone, automobile, light bulb, etc. Furthermore, commerce became an important and attractive thing during this period. That's why many kinds of malls began to be created. Nevertheless, this latter contributed to the apparition of a new popular phenomenon known as consumerism that also shaped people's way of life.

Elizabeth: "The Golden Age"

With Elizabeth's reign, the freedom of thought started to influence British people. They could have different ideas and opinions and would not be punished by that. Nevertheless, the Spanish considered everybody should follow the same religion, Catholicism, and how they descended from people belonging to the former Roman Empire, they had an important influence on the British and thereby had a non-distant relationship with them in terms of culture, economy and obviously religion. However, this relationship broke up after the triumph of England over Spain in a naval war. Elizabethan period meant a significant change for British History. From that time on, economy began developing until becoming the modern system we know nowadays and so did English language.

Elizabeth was known as the "Virgin Queen" because she never got married, had children or even had a sexual encounter with anybody. She assumed herself as a devout woman of God and her people. She knew due to this reason she possessed God's grace and with that she could give newborn babies her blessing.

The formation of the United Kingdom

The formation of the United Kingdom was a complex process which took many years to be carried out. At the beginning, around seven thousand years ago, roving bands of hunters inhabited some areas of what is now England. They could survive through hunting, fishing and crop. Then, these people were joined by other groups of immigrants from either the same continent or other parts of the world making this community increase in number. During this formation process, the native hunters were influenced by the immigrants' different kinds of cultures. This way, these hunters' way of life was changed and shaped into a different and more civilized one. However, this process was not always peaceful, there were many wars and therefore many people died. Other civilizations wanted to take and dominate the territory of Britain like the Romans or the Saxons which also changed and shaped the already established culture of this territory.

At the end, the increase of population, wars and different mixes of cultures made the British civilization be regarded as the modern United Kingdom we know nowadays.

Culture, civilization and critical thinking

The concept of culture corresponds to everything that belongs to a certain group of people who live within a community. This community can be as small as an indigenous tribe or as big as a country or even countries which may share a kind of similarity between them like: China, Japan or Korea. Culture is the way of behaving, thinking, creating, celebrating and expressing ideas this group of people have. It is also related to the sort of art and religion of a certain community, which vary according to the different kind of community they belong.

The concept civilization is connected to the one of culture. Civilization has to do more with the development of a big advanced group of inhabitants, that is called society, than what belongs to this group though. A civilization is a community in which many people live in so in this case a small indigenous tribe could not be regarded as an entire civilization but only part of it. Moreover, this community is divided into social classes and its people have the possibility to work in many kinds of jobs.

Critical thinking is the capacity every normal human being has in order to analyze, criticize and give an opinion about a specific topic, thought, creation or theory. This capacity must be developed, improved and fomented, by someone toward others, while this person gains more experience and knowledge in general.

Culture and civilization

What I expect for this class is getting a more detailed point of view about this subject main topics. I mean, during this course I would like to find out more about part of the process which entitles civilization such as: war, conquest, formation of nations, creation of identities, etc.

I would also like to learn and understand how to define better such a broad and subjective concept like that of culture is. I consider it is really interesting to expand our minds by studying in depth the history of culture and civilization in the important Anglo-Saxon areas of Europe and their surroundings, because this way I think we will not only become good teachers but good historians too.

I have always believed English speaking culture has been a so influential group world wide, that I think it is totally worthy to know its roots in a better way.