Charlie Chaplin...
I watched "The Kid" by Charlie Chaplin on youtube and what a heart breaker...it didn't have any music but I put on some pandora and it was fine. Of course, being me, I listened to it with Laura Viers style music (down to earth/sad) and was crying my eyes out by the end. I swear history has decided to go on a loop as so much seems to be repeating itself...so much. In a different movie by Chaplin (can't recall the name) he gives voice to a worker that has a nervous breakdown. Basically, he goes around the company squirting people with oil and twisting various body parts of co-workers with a wrench (funny...and yet echo’s a lot of the violent stuff happening around the world and here on US soil). sigh...
I watched one film clip of Chaplin's called "The Dictator". The speech Chaplin gives is so moving and frighteningly prophetic for our times now, I can't believe I'm listening to something from the 1930's. Or then again, I can. These are the words that should have been in the film "Forrest Gump" when Gump gets cut off from speaking...and are absent from nearly all mainstream arts/films.
It's strange that so much of mainstream art and music seems to be devoid of this passion and truth. I don't think all art has a responsibility to be critical of events in the world, but I do think some should be there...and heard. If it's not being heard, then why isn't it? I know that the FCC (Federal Commission Communications) has lots of restrictions, but to the point where TV is just full of garbage to sell? This is why nobody wants to watch television...it's full of lies and meaninglessness. At least in the 1940's when a lot of bans where placed on films, the message was still there, if encoded. I sometimes think more rules would make people more creative (inregards to television).
Thank the stars for youtube and libraries! And thank goodness for those artists who stood up to speak, even though they were afraid and often where persecuted...such as Chaplin was.
I watched one film clip of Chaplin's called "The Dictator". The speech Chaplin gives is so moving and frighteningly prophetic for our times now, I can't believe I'm listening to something from the 1930's. Or then again, I can. These are the words that should have been in the film "Forrest Gump" when Gump gets cut off from speaking...and are absent from nearly all mainstream arts/films.
It's strange that so much of mainstream art and music seems to be devoid of this passion and truth. I don't think all art has a responsibility to be critical of events in the world, but I do think some should be there...and heard. If it's not being heard, then why isn't it? I know that the FCC (Federal Commission Communications) has lots of restrictions, but to the point where TV is just full of garbage to sell? This is why nobody wants to watch television...it's full of lies and meaninglessness. At least in the 1940's when a lot of bans where placed on films, the message was still there, if encoded. I sometimes think more rules would make people more creative (inregards to television).
Thank the stars for youtube and libraries! And thank goodness for those artists who stood up to speak, even though they were afraid and often where persecuted...such as Chaplin was.
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