Charlie Chaplin was one of the most remarkable and widely loved silent movie stars in cinematic history. He was profoundly troubled by the Great Depression and his sympathy for the working class defines all his most famous silent films. When five million men are unemployed in the richest nation in the world, he declared, "Something is wrong."
He would write a parody of contemporary industrial life called Modern Times (1936) where he depicts a factory worker who is consumed by the relentless machinery of business and has a nervous breakdown as a result of being overburdened by the industrial work.
Modern Times is now regarded as a masterpiece, yet during its initial release, it was met with ambivalent reviews and mediocre box office results. The politicization of Chaplin was not well received. Congress watched the film and concluded that Chaplin was a Communist sympathizer. Since he was a foreigner (a British citizen), the general public felt he had no right to criticize America, where he had found success and fame. Chaplin was powerless to resist.
Since he was raised in poverty in England, he identified with the hungry, the destitute, and the oppressed. He thought that the American worker was being replaced by capitalism and contemporary technology. Who would speak up if he didn't?
On October 15, 1940, The Great Dictator premiered, and for the first time, Chaplin's fans would hear him speak. And speak he did, straight into the camera, for nearly four minutes. Chaplin would launch a direct statement of hope against Adolf Hitler’s message of hate in his first speaking role ever, constructing one of the most moving and thought-provoking speeches in cinematic history. It was the first major Hollywood production to take a clear stance against fascism: with parody and satire.
Fundamentally, the conflict between good and evil, which is reflected in the harmony between the two realms, is the story's central topic. The similarity between the Dictator and the Jewish Barber, who is afterward mistaken for the Dictator, serves as the film's main source of humor.
Probably the most famous sequence of The Great Dictator is the five-minute speech that concludes the film. Here Chaplin drops his comic mask and speaks directly to the world, conveying his view that people must rise up against dictators and unite in peace.
It feels like the speech we've all been waiting for: In which the egotistical person eventually lets down his guard while in over his head and shares his true feelings.
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 - if possible - 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 by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And 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.
Listen to the speech here: