City Lights is Charlie Chaplin’s greatest movie about Charlie Chaplin, but Modern Times is Charlie Chaplin’s greatest movie about America. From the early factory scenes—in which a hyperefficient feeding machine is introduced by corporate bigwigs to cut time wasted on employee lunches, leading to Chaplin’s mental breakdown and imprisonment—to the glitzy, that’s-showbiz faux finale, there’s never been a more American movie. It’s got it all—love, labor strife, cocaine, paranoia about Big Brother, and trouble with the law—and it’s just as relevant today as it was in the dog days of the Great Depression. (SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer St, 324-9996, 6:30 pm, $10)

4 replies on “‘Modern Times’”

  4. I recently put Modern Times on hold at the Seattle Public Library. There were 50 holds in front of me. Still relevant indeed.

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