LOS ANGELES (EFE) .- The day Charles Chaplin spoke for the first time in a movie, got serious and looked directly at the openly criticizing camera, protected by a fictional story, the real vile that shook the world 75 years ago now, a testimony that still remains in force.
The famous silent film comic that started smiles with his close Charlot, premiered on October 15, 1940 in New York his film “The Great Dictator”, a work that made fun of the totalitarian ambitions of European fascism and ended with one of the best speeches of the history of cinema art.
The case for more than four and a half minutes with Chaplin concluded that the film was a call for democracy, freedom, brotherhood of peoples and against greed, hatred and intolerance.
A message resonated as a personal statement of Chaplin, who starred, directed, wrote and financed the film that raised suspicions political and diplomatic rebukes from its production phase.
The actor, “The Great Dictator” I presumed to be qualified as propaganda contrary to US interests by US authorities, who in 1952 he came to prohibit his return to the country where he had lived for 40 years.
This artist born in London would US in a last chance in 1972 to collect his honorary Oscar.
Before its entry into World War II, USA he preferred to stay out of European tensions and the rise of belligerent nationalism that was sympathetic because they opposed what he considered the greatest threat of the time. Communism
Anti-fascism emanating from “The Great Dictator” was understood in that world as an undercover procomunismo polarized, and many tried for it to Chaplin, who went to swell the blacklist of banned by Hollywood artists.
The plot of the film focused two stories, that of a barber who lived in a ghetto in an imaginary country called Tomania, and the ambitious leader of that state, the dictator Hynkel, both characters played by Chaplin.
Tomania was an allusion To Germany; Hynkel, Hitler; and the barber symbolized the victim of tyranny.
Chaplin made Hynkel and the barber were physically similar to exchange their roles, so that an accident would cause the end of the tape the oppressor was arrested for soldiers and the oppressed take his place at the climax of the film.
The parallels do not end there. The documentary “The Tramp and the Dictator” (2002) asked about the similarities between Chaplin and Hitler, beyond the mustache.
Both were born in the same week in 1889, had a difficult childhood, the first in London and the other in Vienna, which led them to take artistic vocations, actor and painter, respectively, and both were influential figures, albeit very differently.
Whoever architect collaborator Hitler, Albert Speer, said in his last years of life that “The Great Dictator” was “the best documentary” about the Nazi leader. It is believed that Hitler had the opportunity to see the film, although it is unknown what his reaction might be.
The film was the biggest commercial success of Chaplin, but its release was limited to US, UK and Mexico before the surrender of Germany in World War II.
In France, which had been occupied by the Nazis, was shown in 1945, in Italy in 1946 and Dead, Mussolini, and Spain in 1976, Francisco Franco died.
“The Great Dictator” liked to film critics at the time, not its solemn final speech, which was seen as an extravagance that was meaningless in the history, although his message, however, does find your site for posteridad.- Fernando Mexia
Excerpt from “The Great Dictator”
Charles Chaplin
Sorry, but I do not want to be emperor. It is not mine. I do not want to rule or conquer anyone. I would like to help everyone if were possible: Jews, gentiles, blacks, whites. We all want to help each other. Human beings are like that. We want to live for happiness and not for the misery of others. We do not want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone
The way of life can be free and beautiful.; but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has erected barricades in the world with hate, he has brought us to goose step into misery and bloodshed. We have increased the speed. But we have shut ourselves in it. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical: our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The true nature of these cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions of people around the world, millions of men, women and children desperate victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say. “Do not despair”
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of progress human. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers! Do not give yourselves to these beasts, that you despise, that enslave you, that govern your lives; tell them what to do, what to think and what to feel! That you undertake to give instruction, that you are on half rations, that treat you like cattle and use you as cannon fodder. Do not give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with such intelligence and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are men!
Soldiers! Do not fight for slavery! Fight for freedom! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not a man or group of men, but of all men! In you! You, the people, have the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old people security.
Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to the happiness of all of us. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us unite
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