In the autumn of 1938, while the Munich accords were being signed in Europe, Charlie Chaplin was finishing the first draft of his manuscript in the utmost secrecy. Rumour had it that the creator of the Tramp was working on a character inspired by Adolph Hitler. Was this an act of provocation? After the long labours of writing and directing were complete, Chaplin would premiere his first ever sound film in New York, in October 1940. Reception to the film was mixed, and public opinion was reticent about entering the war, but the film was nominated for five Oscars and would go on to be seen as one of the most important cinematic masterpieces of the modern era. Tomainia was a fictional country created by Charlie Chaplin; its dictator, Adenoid Hynkel, makes speech after speech in the language of his country, which Charlie Chaplin had called Tomainien: a sort of German-sounding gobbledegook peppered with bits of English. At the time, such forms of language were a common feature in music hall and pantomime tradition. The Great Dictator was not only a caricature of Adolph Hitler’s regime, but could also be interpreted as a metaphor for the limitations of communication. In Henkel’s speeches, Chaplin brought together pantomime with a more verbal style of humour. Only an English-speaking audience – more particularly, a north-American one – would be capable of appreciating all the dictator’s linguistic and comic registers.
With The Great Dictator, Chaplin cast himself as sounding a warning bell, and professing his humanist ideals. Its most notable passage comes during the final speech by the Jewish barber who has been mistaken for the dictator, and against his will is made emperor of the world. When the barber from the ghetto, dressed in Hynkel’s uniform, has the opportunity to pour his heart out to the whole world, he professes a change of heart and issues a message of peace and tolerance:
“Greed has poisoned men's souls,
Has barricaded the world with hate,
Has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.
Machinery that gives us 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 humanity.
More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities life will be violent, and all will be lost.”
Rumour spread that Adolph Hitler, having banned the screening of the film in Germany, had acquired a copy to watch in private. When he heard this, Charlie Chaplin admitted that he would have given anything to see Hitler’s reaction. But despite Charlie Chaplin’s speech in favour of democracy, he was suspected of having communist sympathies in the post-war years of Maccarthyist America. The public were shocked, and took him for a communist, and even assumed he was Jewish. Charlie Chaplin responded: “One doesn’t have to be a Jew to be anti-Nazi. All one has to be is a normal decent human being.” In the end Charlie Chaplin opted for neutrality, residing in Switzerland until his death.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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