Comments on Screen Savour: The Great Dictator (1940)

I whole-heartedly agree with everything you pointe...

2009-04-05T16:35:00.000-04:00

I whole-heartedly agree with everything you pointed out. This is actually my favourite Chaplin film, closely followed by Modern Times. Good job defending The Great Dictator!

Believe it or not, I have yet to see the whole of ...

2009-03-19T03:00:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not, I have yet to see the whole of The Great Dictator (I saw half once, in a class, and enjoyed it immensely - why I never picked it up and resumed where I left off is a testament to my penchant for distractability).

Excellent review and one that will (hopefully) encourage me to finish the damn movie. (And while I'm at it, pick up the several classic books I stopped mid-stream last year, but that's another story...)

This is as fine and passionate a defense of THE GR...

2009-03-16T22:09:00.000-04:00

This is as fine and passionate a defense of THE GREAT DICTATOR that you'll ever come across. Still, I do not myself consider this one of his very greatest films. I rank them:
1) City Lights
2) Modern Times
3) The Gold Rush
4) The Circus
5) Monsieur Verdoux
6) Limelight
and then "The Great Dictator" among the feature-length films. I must say that R.D. Finch makes some valid contentions there, and I must definitely check out his review soon. That said, I just didn't find this film all that funny, and Chaplin may well be my favorite American director of them all.

T.S., I could have read your review with my "eyes"...

2009-03-16T00:03:00.000-04:00

T.S., I could have read your review with my "eyes" closed because I have watched Chaplin's The Great Dictator" so many times, but I didn't...instead, I read your review with my "eyes wide shut(open)"...

...Because you have focused on every important detail in Chaplin's 1940 film "The Great Dictator in order to let your readers know why this film is still considered a "classic."
A most excellant review by you, as usual!...(Know wonder you received so many Dardos, I think that Sam Juliano, awarded you, with another Dardos in your absent from the board.?!?)

hmm...from the you learn something new every day dept. T.S. said, "Both were short, with dark hair and the toothbrush moustache that the latter stole from the former." Wow!..that is very interesting!...being an artist, I rendered chaplin on canvas two years ago. (and recently some thumbnail portraits of him toothbrush moustache and all...)

Tks, you for sharing!
Dcd ;-D

T.S.,and T.S's readers,
I have linked a very interesting critique by
Critic A.O. Scott, discussing Chaplin's City Lights... http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/03/09/movies/1194838466249/critics-picks-city-lights.html

Hi! T.S.,
I think that your quote below "sums" ...

2009-03-15T23:39:00.000-04:00

Hi! T.S.,
I think that your quote below "sums" up both of Chaplin's films in a "nutshell."

T.S. said,Audiences knew from his previous film, Modern Times, that he had a few political bones in his body, but the difference between the degree of politics in Modern Times and The Great Dictator is as loud as the difference between silence and sound. This film blows out the doors and windows as far as satire is concerned: the world's most recognizable comedian unleashed his scorn on the world's most treacherous tyrant...."

Personally, I rank "The Great Dictator" right along side two of my favorite Chaplin films "Modern Times and "LimeLight."
Speaking of, "LimeLight" Did you know that his son (Charlie Chaplin's son) Sydney Chaplin, died recently at the age of 82?

Tks,
Dcd ;-D

T.S., thanks for such a prompt response. I'm impre...

2009-03-15T22:55:00.000-04:00

T.S., thanks for such a prompt response. I'm impressed! I actually made some of the same points about "Verdoux" as you in my double review of "Dictator" and "Verdoux." If you're interested in reading it, you can find a link at www.movieprojector.blogspot.com in the sidebar under "Charles Chaplin."

T.S.- This is a fine review,and I think you've mad...

2009-03-15T19:47:00.000-04:00

T.S.- This is a fine review,and I think you've made some excellent points in its defense. I don't love "The Great Dictator," but there are parts of it that I cherish,and the final, heartfelt speech is one of them. I'm glad to see you made a case for it.

Other parts of the film I don't find offensive so much as just uncomfortable to watch from this side of 1940, when the full extent of Hitler's evil is so well known. That scene of Chaplin scampering comically to hide when the Jews are being rounded up was particularly painful to me. But the same could be said of other films made around the same time; "Idiot's Delight," made in 1939 with Clark Gable and Norma Shearer, also features a hopeful, "new day is dawning"-type of ending that, of course, didn't come to be in reality, and it's equally difficult to watch.

@Hatter: Thanks a million. Out of curiosity, what ...

2009-03-15T16:43:00.000-04:00

@Hatter: Thanks a million. Out of curiosity, what would you say your #2 and #3 are? I could do a Chaplin top 10 (you're welcome to here if you want), but three would satiate my curiosity.

@R.D.: Thanks for the nice words. You're right on the rebuttal part; I did sort of fathom the audience here might be evenly split on the film's merits (as much of the criticism out there seems split), so I thought, well, why not turn it into an argument for why I love it? I don't think The Great Dictator is a perfect movie, but I do have great love for it. Perhaps it is sentimentality is on my part, but art just wouldn't be art if you weren't allowed to have a few obsessively sentimental favorites. (This is one of the first Chaplin films I saw, as a young fellow in world history class.)

You're definitely right on Monsieur Verdoux, which I like but don't love, but certainly think shows Chaplin's maturation in dialogue in a short time. Even the end of Monsieur goes out on the same political branch as The Great Dictator but pulls it off much better than Chaplin's irascible cry for peace at the end of this film. And thanks again for the reasoned critique of the film but such a complimentary attitude toward the review.

T.S., an extremely well-written review and well-re...

2009-03-15T16:10:00.000-04:00

T.S., an extremely well-written review and well-reasoned defense of the film against its critics. You took an interesting approach in not only pointing out the movie's strengths but also in writing an extended rebuttal of the most common criticisms of the film.

I know that many people love this movie, and you are clearly one of them. It is even on the Cahiers du Cinema's list of the 100 greatest films of all time. However, I must say that I find those criticisms for the most part justified. I want to like this movie more than I do, but I see it as a flawed movie--a good but not great film that shows that Chaplin had not yet mastered the art of using dialogue to drive narrative nor of reining in his propensity to let sentimentalism dominate ideas. I wrote a detailed explanation of my objections at The Movie Projector awhile back and compared it to "Monsieur Verdoux," (also on the Cahiers list) which I think shows how tremendously Chaplin's mastery of the use of dialogue had grown in just a few years.

Still, even though I can't fully agree with your assessment of the movie, I still appreciate the quality of your writing and reasoning.

This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and...

2009-03-15T12:55:00.000-04:00

This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and in fact my favorite Chaplin film of all.

Couldn't agree more with every word that you've written here. Very well done.