The Great Dictator's Comedy And Message Of Unity Are As Timeless As Ever

As the 1940's began, the world as people had known it was changing rapidly. In the world of entertainment, the advent of color and sound in cinema was altering everything people knew was possible in this medium of storytelling. Films like The Jazz Singer, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs and The Wizard of Oz would ensure that the future of cinema would look radically different from what had come before it, and what had come prior to this age of colorized cinema was a world of movies dominated by Charlie Chaplin, a guy known for making a silent movies even into an age where sound had become the default standard for movies.


Though The Great Dictator would keep Chaplin firmly in the world of black-and-white cinema, here was where a man known for redefining the age of silent movies got to flex his vocal muscles and take advantages of the opportunities offered up by non-silent motion pictures as a way to comment on another more pressing even occurring as the 1940's began; Adolf Hitler's immense power gripping Nazi Germany. Chaplin would satirize Hitler in the role of Adenoid Hynkel, who rules over the fictitious land of Tomania but carries over numerous distinct traits of Hitler including that iconic facial hair and a hatred for Jewish people.

At the same time, Chaplin would also play a character simply called in the opening credits as The Jewish Barber, a man who bears some resemblance in attire and personality to Chaplin's then-retired Tramp character. The Jewish Barber is put into a coma after he suffers great injuries fighting in World War I and awakens only to find, as he tries to return to his normal life, that his home country of Tomania is being overrun by the cruel dictator Hynkel. Though he gets some help from fellow Ghetto resident Hannah (Paulette Goddard), The Jewish Barber finds himself being constantly harassed by the stormtrooper officers Hynkel commands, the barbaric rule of this man seems ceaseless.

Concentrating on an explicit homage to the plight of Jewish individuals living under the tyranny of Hitler means The Great Dictator carries over appropriately far more serious elements than Chaplin's previous works. There's still time for the trademark slapstick that the man was appropriately famous for of course but it's smart that Charlie Chaplin, as a writer/director of this project, knows just how to handle this story in a manner that feels like it doesn't at all trivialize the experiences of the persecuted in Nazi-occupied Germany. Actually, The Great Dictator serves as a great example of how one should approach satire directed at cruel leaders specifically targeting and harassing a minority population.

While The Great Dictator gets in many jokes at the expense of its overt Adolf Hitler stand-in, it also keeps the majority of its concentration on The Jewish Barber and the plight of fellow Jewish individuals suffering in the Ghetto. Today's deluge of Donald Trump parodies that repeat the same jokes about this orange-skinned monster while ignoring the people he and his administration actually persecute could take a cue from The Great Dictator, which actually highlights the people affected by tyrannical rulers instead of solely focusing on said tyrannical rulers. Plus, putting aside all of that insight into how to approach satire of cruel leaders, The Great Dictator, like oh so many of Chaplin's movies, is just incredibly funny.

Even with the aid of pervasive sound by his side, Chaplin doesn't forget about the command of physical oriented humor that made him so famous in the first place. Watching him to attempt to outwit Stormtrooper officers in the streets of Tomania results in some heightened slapstick humor that Chaplin excels at while also offering a chance for Paulette Goddard to get involved with her frying pan to offer some slapstick-coated assistance in bonking stormtrooper officers on the head (wow, so much for the tolerant left, huh?). Typing it all out, you'd think mixing an overt allegory for the experiences seen in the Holocaust with trademark elements of a Charlie Chaplin film would result in something like The Day The Tramp Cried, but instead it results in a comedic masterpiece that crescendos with an exemplary ending.

Ah, the end, the most significant part of the movie devoid of Hynkel who is captured by his own officers mistaking him for The Jewish Barber and then vanishes from the rest of the movie, another clear sign of Chaplin's script making sure his movie focuses on the persecuted instead of those doing the persecuting whenever possible. With Hynkel out of the picture, commanding officers of Tomania believe The Jewish Barber is, in fact, their glorious dictator, who is now scheduled to give a speech that will be broadcast across the world. With nerves racking every fiber of his body, The Jewish Barber walks up to the mic and delivers an outstanding speech that might just be the greatest movie speech of all-time.

Here, in this moment, the man known for being the face of silent cinema utters a string of words that start out as softer in tone but quickly increases in urgency and in no time flat, Chaplin is delivering a call to action. He looks directly at the camera as he calls out the atrocities being perpetrated against the Jewish people and other disenfranchised groups under Hitler's rule at the time of this movie's release as well as how people are misusing glorious new advents in transportation for human cruelty instead of trying to better each other's lives.  It's a glorious call to unity that shows what a true leader should be; not one who instills fears and hatred in others, but one who instills bravery, courage, and unity. It's a speech that rang true then and still rings true today. Thank God for priceless pieces of art like The Great Dictator that demonstrate the phenomenal talents of a man like Charlie Chaplin, a guy who could deliver laughs and hope for the future in times of turmoil with equal levels of success.