THE GREAT DICTATOR

The great Dictator is a 19th century movie, it is a American Political Satire Comedy-Drama. Charlie Chaplin the most credible British comedian and protagonist of  the film "THE GREAT DICTATOR"

The film begins with this title: “This is a story of a period between two World Wars—an interim in which Insanity cut loose, Liberty took a nose dive, and  Humanity was kicked around somewhat.” 

The Great Dictator is a tale of two worlds: the palace, where dictator Adenoid Hynkel rules, and the ghetto, where a Jewish barber struggles to make a living and survive.  The comedic device of the film is the resemblance between the Dictator and the Barber, who is later mistaken for the Dictator.  The theme of the story, at its basic level, is the struggle between good and evil, reflected in the balance between the two worlds.  

Ironically, one of the most beloved men in history was born within four days of one of the most despised—and that the demon, Adolf Hitler, so strongly resembled the clown, Charles Chaplin.  Some claim that Hitler deliberately chose his mustache to resemble Chaplin’s, who had enjoyed the love and respect of audiences around the world.  Contemporary journalists and cartoonists delighted in pointing out the similarity in appearance between the two men. A song about Hitler, published in Britain in 1938, asked the question, “Who is this Man?  (Who Looks like Charlie Chaplin).” 

How could Chaplin, who had reached the apogee of his popularity and influence, avoid the role that fate seemingly had thrust upon him? In many ways, the creation of “The Great Dictator” (1940) was virtually inevitable. Over a decade after the rest of the film industry had accepted talking pictures, the greatest star of the silent-film era began his first fulldialogue film. His subject was Adolf Hitler and his theme, the dangerous rise of European fascism. Despite death threats once his project was announced, Chaplin forged ahead with his satire. In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin admitted, “Had I known the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could not have made “The Great Dictator;” I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis.”   

 It is followed by a prologue, set in World War I, in which the Jewish Barber fights as a patriotic, although ineffective, Tomanian soldier.  This sequence, reminiscent of Chaplin’s World War I comedy “Shoulder Arms” (1918), contains elements of nightmarish violence as well as humor, a combination that occurs 

often in the film. The Barber must fire the enormous Big Bertha gun, is pursued by a defective gun shell, loses a hand grenade in his uniform, accidentally marches with the enemy, and later finds himself upside down in an airplane. The prologue reminds the audience of the malevolence of machines, the horror of war, and the senselessness of destruction. Within this framework, the stories of the Barber and Hynkel in their two moral universes, represented by the good “People of the Ghetto” and the evil “People of the Palace” are regularly intercut. The film concludes with an epilogue set after the start of the war in  Europe, soon to be called World War II. It shows the Barber, mistaken for Hynkel, forced to address a massed rally. The final speech, however, is not given by the Barber character but by Chaplin himself, who pleads for peace, tolerance, and understanding.  

The greatest moment of Chaplin’s satire on Hitler and the rise of dictators is the scene in which Hynkel performs a dance with a globe of the world. This scene, which stands with the very best set pieces of Chaplin’s silent films, requires no words to convey its message. Accompanied by the delicate, dreamy prelude to Act I of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” (Hitler’s favorite Wagnerian opera), Hynkel performs a graceful, seductive ballet with a balloon globe, a wonderful symbol of his maniacal dream of possessing the world for his pleasure. Yet when he believes he has it within his grasp, the bubble literally bursts. This is Chaplin’s symbolic comment on the futility of the dictator’s as

The Great Dictator By Jeffrey Vance 

Dictator Adenoid Hynkel (Charlie Chaplin) demonstrates how he plans to control the world. Courtesy Library of Congress Collection. 

pirations and reflects his optimistic belief that dictators will never succeed.  

 

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. The most enduring aspects of the final speech are its aspirational quality and tone and its underlying faith in humanity. Chaplin sketches a hopeful future in broad strokes and leaves the implementation of his vision to others, despite the fact that the more unsavory aspects of human nature may prevent mankind ever reaching his promised utopia.  Although some may find Chaplin’s message cliché, and even frustrating, one cannot help but be moved by the prescience of his words and the appeal of his powerful indictment of all who seek to take power unto themselves to the detriment of everyone else. The final speech of “The Great Dictator” remains relevant and valuable in the twenty-first century and likely will remain so as long as conflict corrupts human interaction and despots endure. 

As much as this film is about Jews, it’s much more about Americans. When you watch this film, one way you should watch it is as propaganda, designed to urge the United States to war against Fascism.It was the only contemporaneous Hollywood film to cast light on the oppression of Jews, and it did so, as critic Richard Brody argues, better than most documentaries later would, showing us the full range of anti-Semitic violence, from daily humiliations to mob violence to concentration camps. However, Chaplin underestimated the centrality of anti-Semitism to Nazi ideology, presenting it as a mere ploy to distract the German people from economic hardship: about halfway through the film Hynkel instructs his advisor Garbage (Goebbels) to call off violence against the Jews while the Reich barters a deal with a Jewish banker.

At the end of the film, the inevitable happens: in an improbable case of mistaken identities, Hynkel and the Barber switch places. Hynkel is accidentally arrested by his own soldiers, and the Barber is whisked away to Refenstahlesque rally to give a speech after the invasion of Austerlich. For four minutes, Chaplin addresses the camera neither as the Barber nor as Hynkel, but as himself, in a passionate plea for peace, understanding, and human decency. It is one of the greatest and most moving speeches in cinema.

Of course, Chaplin intended to play on the similarities between the Little Tramp and Hitler, which commentators had observed throughout the 1930s. The best-loved and most-hated men in the world were born in the same week of 1889; both grew up on the streets, knew poverty well, and eventually rose to sway millions of people through their performances.

film’s opening title card: “Any resemblance between Hynkel the dictator and the Jewish barber is purely co-incidental.” The film proceeds with two intersecting stories. Chaplin plays Adenoid Hynkel, the Phooey (Führer) of Greater Tomania (to mania), who secured power after the First World War as the Depression and riots rocked his country

Chaplin also portrays the conflict within the Jewish community about whether or not to take action against Hynkel. Since Chaplin had long been a member of Hollywood royalty and maintained close ties with the predominantly Jewish heads of major studios, he surely would have been aware of the pressure on the studios from Jewish community leaders to keep out of the anti-Nazi debate. Chaplin considers both sides, although his use of humor implies the filmmaker’s leanings. He shows the perspective of noninterventionist thinking held by many Jewish community leaders when characters in the ghetto remark, “We Jewish people shouldn’t get mixed up in such business.” Later, one of the Jewish characters says, “Our place is at home looking over our own affairs” in a line that sounds more applicable to an American Jew than someone in Tomania, in the thick of it. Chaplin pokes fun at such attitudes during a scene where several reluctant Jews try to avoid finding a coin that was baked into one of their puddings—a lottery that will determine who among them will sacrifice themselves in an assassination attempt against Hynkel. Chaplin also mocks those reluctant to engage a ruthless dictator and sentimentalizes those willing to speak up or fight back. Note the earnestness of the scene where Hannah says, “That’s what we should all do—fight back. We can’t lick ‘em alone. But we could together.”