Postmodern Times

Abstract

The scene has become so familiar that its novelty has long been forgotten: Charlie Chaplin frantically struggles to tighten bolts on an assembly line whose speed steadily increases until everything breaks down. Perhaps it is because we have become accustomed to viewing Chaplin's dehumanising factory through the comic eyes of Lucy, who tries to keep up with candies on an endless conveyor belt, that we tend to overlook the critical edge of 'Modern Times'.