Final speech in the
movie, “The Great Dictator” – Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles
Spencer Chaplin (1889-1977), who is considered as one of the most important
figures in the history of film industry, was an English comic actor and film
maker. Chaplin received many awards and
honours. Six of Chaplin’s films have
been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United
States Library of Congress. Chaplin’s
‘The Great Dictator,’ a political satire was nominated for five academy
awards. It is the story of a Jewish
barber who is mistaken for Hitler and is asked to take his place. At the end he rejects his position as an
emperor and gives an impassioned speech that reveals the view of a selfless leader.
The very
first line of the emperor is “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor”. Instead he wants to help everyone where there
are Jews, blacks and whites. He says
that all should live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s
misery. According to him, it was greed
that has poisoned men’s souls. It was
knowledge that made all cynical. So, now
they think too much and feel too little.
The barber in disguise, is of the opinion that more than machinery the
men need humanity. More than cleverness
the men need kindness and gentleness, without these qualities all will be
violent and all will be lost.
He consoles
the suffering people by saying that the misery will pass. The dictators who have caused it will also
die and the power that they took from the people will return to the
people. Then he advises soldiers saying
that they should not give themselves to brutes who despises them, enslave them,
and control their lives. They actually treat them like cattle. The dictators are machine men with machine
mind and machine hearts. As all soldiers
are men he says that they should not hate others but love everyone. Similarly they should not fight for slavery
but for liberty.
Moreover he
says that in the chapter 17 of St Luke it is written, “the kingdom of God is
within man” – not one man, not a group of men, but in all men. That means we have the power to make this
life a wonderful adventure. So, in the
name of democracy, we should use the power and fight for a new world where all
men have a chance to work, the youth a future and old will have security. Democracy which believes that the voice of
people is the voice of God, will produce a world of reason, where science and
progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
As the people know their power they will never allow any dictators to
rule them in the future. So, he invites
all including soldiers to fight for liberty and to establish democracy which is
capable of building a world where there is no greed, hatred, intolerance and
war.
------Thulasidharan V
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