The Challenges of Immigration and Freedom in Charlie Chaplin's Work

Everyone has heard of Charlie Chaplin once in their lives. There’s no way one hasn’t seen at least a clip from one of his many films or come across a work inspired by him throughout the decades. The character Chaplin created, The Tramp, has made its mark in the film industry due to him being very relatable. The public saw themselves in this character and were convinced that their everyday life was being portrayed on screen which led to them cheering on this character. Despite the genre of his films being comedy and him always using gags to fulfill that, Chaplin still managed to shed light on various political and social problems and send a powerful message to his audiences with just using actions to tell the story and people were able to connect with it.

The Immigrant (1917) opens with a compressed framing of a ship full of Europeans immigrants heading to New York City. Chaplin uses this framing to display the ship as an unbearable environment even before introducing the different circumstances on board. Right away, Chaplin is bringing sympathy to these individuals by keeping the shot in a tight frame as the camera pans onto each person as the ship is dramatically rocking back and forth to show what they have to deal with the whole trip. The Immigrant was filmed and released during a time where anti-immigration was high and this movie really strived to show the humanity of these newcomers that the public were so against. Eventually the immigrants in the movie arrive to America for the first time and everyone looks in awe at the State of Liberty as they pass the island as they believe they finally reached freedom. The Tramp, along with the other passengers, are then pushed behind a rope as if they were sheep being rounded up by farmers as soon as the ship has been docked. This action shows how immigrants are seen as anything but human beings and this affected the way they were treated when they step foot into this new country. The American dream continues to be shattered when the next scene begins with a tile card that reads, “hungry and broke” which reveals that these immigrants completely arrive with nothing and aren’t helped whatsoever to get settled in. The Tramp searching for fallen change on the ground to be able to afford a meal shows the sad reality of what a person like him had to go through.

Modern Times (1936) was Chaplin’s transition from the silent era to the sound era and he continued to write narratives that revolved around real life issues in his unique comedic way. In this film, Chaplin focuses on the abuse the working class face at their jobs and most importantly the influence technology has on society. The theme of technology being in control of men is stressed in the opening of the film where it’s revealed that the story will take place in a factory and all workers are monitored by a gigantic monitor. The individuals are forced to work at the fast pace the machines are pushing at which results in the Tramp experiencing a breakdown and rapidly starts to wrench anything that he views as a nut to him due to how quick the machines are producing. While this scene works nicely to make an audience laugh, it also reveals how such boring labour that demands no imagination makes people feel less human and reduces them to nothing but gears in a machine. The Tramp is forced fed at one point by a machine because the goal is to let the technology do everything while the humans end up simply being a thing. It’s ironic how Chaplin had to change with the times to stay relevant within the cinema world and he made a movie where he focused on how technology can bring harm to a society.

The Great Dictator (1940) was Chaplin’s statement towards the dictatorship that was beginning in Germany. This was a little before America entered WWII and they didn’t care about what was happening overseas. Chaplin shared his doubts about fascism in the film and hoped the American public would see a react. Chaplin created a movie where he had a dictator act like a child who must be put to a stop before he gets too much power and a scene that best portrays that is the one where dictator Hynkel does a dance with a globe made out of a balloon.