DRAMA ONE



INTRODUCTION TO FILM

CHAPLIN THE GREAT DICTATOR

NAME PERIOD _____________

BASED ON INFORMATION FROM THE TEXT:

1. WHAT YEAR WAS THE FILM, THE GREAT DICTATOR, RELEASED?

2. WHY IS THE FILM, THE GREAT DICTATOR, A REMINDER AS TO WHY CHAPLIN WAS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL COMEDIAN OF THE 20TH CENTURY?

3. WHO ARE THE TWO CHARACTERS PLAYED BY CHAPLIN IN THE GREAT DICTATOR, AND DESCRIBE THEIR CHARACTERS.

A.

B.

4. WHAT IS THE COUNTRY WHERE THE FILM, THE GREAT DICTATOR, TAKES PLACE?

5. WHAT COMPANY PRODUCED THE FILM, THE GREAT DICTATOR?

6. AS CHAPLIN WROTE, STARRED, DIRECTED AND PRODUCED THE FILM, THE GREAT DICTATOR, WHAT ELSE WAS UNIQUE ABOUT THIS FILM?

7. WHAT FILM WON THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE THE SAME YEAR THE GREAT DICTATOR WAS NOMINATED?

8. WHO WERE THREATS TO WESTERN CIVILIZATION?

9. WHAT SCENE FROM THE GREAT DICTATOR IS ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE ON FILM?

10. ACCORDING TO THE AUTHOR, WHY ARE THE CONCENTRATION CAMP SCENES IN THE GREAT DICTATOR CONSIDERED TO BE BENIGN?

11. WHAT YEAR DID ADOLPH HITLER BECOME DICTATOR?

12. AS A GENIUS AND POWERFUL ORATOR, WHAT WAS UNIQUE ABOUT HITLER’S POLITICAL CAMPAIGN?

13. WHAT WAS HITLER’S FIRST MILITARY ACTION?

14. HOW DID HITLER END UP?

15. WHO IS BENITO MUSSOLINI?

16. HOW DID MUSSOLINI END UP?

17. HOW DID EUROPEAN MONARCHS FINANCE THEIR WARS?

18. APPROXIMATELY HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE KILLED IN GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS DURING WWII?

19. WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE “BETTER” RACE?

20. WHAT DOES THE JEWISH BARBER ENCOURAGE US TO DO IN HIS SPEECH IN THE GREAT DICTATOR?

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THE GREAT DICTATOR

Charles Chaplin, US, 1940

12 August 2002 9.55pm-11.55pm

 

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The Great Dictator serves as an ideal introduction to Charlie Chaplin, but not because it melds his unsurpassed skill as a silent performer with his ability to engage in energetic and touching dialogue. And not simply because it is rightly cited as one of the classic anti-war movies of all time. Much more importantly, it delivers a reminder as to why Chaplin was the most successful comedian of the 20th century - it's engaging, imaginative and laugh-out loud funny.

The movie follows the destinies of two men, both played by Chaplin. Adenoid Hynkel is the dictator of a brutal, fascist country named Tomania. The other character is a benign Jewish barber whose striking similarity to Hynkel catapults him from his peaceful ghetto into the savage machinery of stateship. Like the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup the movie employs humour to attack tyranny and belligerence, but here the assault is focused on the man born within a week of Chaplin and whose physical similarities first implanted the idea of crafting this satire: Adolph Hitler.

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Engaging, imaginative and laugh-out loud funny.

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Produced by United Artists, the mighty company Chaplin established with DW Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, the star also scripted, directed, produced and co-wrote the music for this, his first talkie and biggest box-office hit. His wife, the radiant Paulette Goddard (25 years Chaplin's junior), revels in the role of the feisty Hannah whilst the incomparable Henry Daniell appears in his usual guise as the velvet voiced villain.

Although The Great Dictator was narrowly denied the Academy Award for Best Picture by Selznick's Rebecca, Chaplin was belatedly awarded a special honoury Oscar in 1972 "for the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century". Quite an achievement, and this sparkling satire forms a perfect example of how he managed it.

 

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THE TRAMP AND THE DICTATOR

 

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CAST

Adenoid Hynkel  Charles Chaplin

The Jewish Barber   Charles Chaplin

Napaloni   Jack Oakie

Garbitsch   Henry Daniell

Hannah   Paulette Goddard

Charlie Chaplin's FBI File

Excellent examination of why the FBI had a file on Chaplin

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GREAT DICTATOR CHARACTERS

Tomania (as in ptomaine poisoning)

= Nazi Germany

Adenoid Hynkel ("Heil Hynkel")

= Hitler

Bacteria

= Fascist Italy

Benzino Napaloni

= Mussolini

Garbitsch (pronounced "garbage")

= Göebbels

Herring

= Göring

The sign of the "double cross"

= Swastika

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THE STORY

Chaplin plays Hynkel, a dictator with a "Charlie Chaplin moustache" who looks and acts like Hitler. Chaplin also plays a Jewish barber who was a hero in the "Tomanian" Army during the previous war (World War I) and who looks exactly like Hynkel.

This movie is a farce but the last speech is quite serious.

The humor in this film will be appreciated most by children who have a basic understanding of World War II and of the threat to Western Civilization posed by Hitler, Mussolini, Göebbels and Göring.

This movie makes history hilarious. It will confirm the understanding of the events leading up to WW II for those children who already have a background in the history of that time. The film also contains sequences of great humor and poetry. The scene with Hitler and the globe is one of the most memorable on film. "The Great Dictator" will provide an opportunity for parents or teachers to explain many of the events leading up to World War II and the personalities of the men who started the war.

Possible Problems: MINOR. The scenes of the concentration camp are naively benign. When this movie was made most people in the United States did not know about the actual conditions in the concentration camps or that the German government planned to murder millions of people. Children watching this film should be told that the concentration camps were much worse than they are depicted in this film. The actual conditions in the camps, why Chaplin didn't know about them, and who actually did know about the treatment of the Jews and other prisoners are good topics for discussion.

Helpful Background:

• Adolf Hitler (Adenoid Hynkel in the film) was born in Austria and became the dictator of Germany in 1933. In addition to being a mass murderer and sociopath, he was a political genius, a powerful orator and one of the first politicians to understand and exploit the mass media. His Nazi party fomented a radicalism of the right which won mass support, beating the socialists and communists on their own ground. He had a maniacal hatred of the Jewish people. Hitler launched World War II by invading Poland in 1939. Under Hitler, German armies conquered more of Europe than did Napoleon. In 1945, with Russian troops closing in on Berlin, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker.

• After the First World War the Allies imposed onerous peace terms on Germany. These terms included: the loss of territory, the loss of colonies, the payment of vast sums as war reparations and restrictions on German sovereignty. Most Germans found these terms humiliating. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Germany suffered severe inflation and high unemployment. Its democratically elected governments could not cope with these problems. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party capitalized on the humiliation Germans felt over the terms of the armistice and the disastrous economic situation. During the 1930s Hitler stabilized the economy, put people back to work and restored German pride. He also re-armed the country.

• Benito Mussolini (Benzino Napaloni in the film) was the fascist dictator of Italy from 1924 to 1943. The fascist program was a blend of nationalism and socialism. Under Mussolini, Italy brutally conquered Ethiopia in 1935 - 1936 and annexed Albania in 1939. For a time Mussolini was in competition with Hitler, but soon he was overshadowed because Germany was stronger militarily than Italy. It is the period of competition between Hitler and Mussolini which the film examines.

• In 1940 Italy joined with Germany and Japan to form the Axis Powers. The Italian armies suffered defeats in Greece, Africa and at home. At the end Mussolini was reduced to heading a German occupied puppet state. In 1943 he was caught by Italian Partisans and shot.

• Paul Joseph Göebbels (Garbitsch in the film) was the Nazi propaganda chief and one of Hitler's closest lieutenants. He organized Nazi political campaigns and skillfully used the mass media to further the Nazi cause. He committed suicide with his family in Berlin in 1945.

• Hermann Wilhelm Göring (Herring in the film) organized the Gestapo and, as commander of the German Air Force, prepared the aerial Blitzkrieg campaigns of the Second World War. His power in Germany dwindled when he was unable to stop Allied air attacks. He was convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and poisoned himself in his prison cell in 1946.

• The Nazis employed young men in strong arm gangs, called Storm Troopers, to intimidate their political opponents and Jews. The Brown Shirts, as they were also called, grew into a private army for the Nazi party.

• The reference in the movie to borrowing money from a Jewish banker to finance the war, refers to a practice among European monarchs in the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries. When they needed money to finance wars, they would at times borrow the funds from consortia of Jewish bankers.

• The sign of the Nazi party was the swastika. It has become a symbol of hatred and intolerance. In the movie, the sign of Hynkel's party is the "double-cross" which looks very much like a dismembered swastika.

• The vast majority of German Jews were patriotic German citizens. Thousands fought on the German side in the First World War. Many were wounded in battle and many were decorated for valor. The Jewish barber was one of these wounded war heroes.

• Approximately 12 million people were killed in German concentration camps during World War II. Half of these were Jews. The other six million were democrats, socialists, communists, gypsies, the disabled, the religious and anyone who dared to oppose Hitler. The Germans hid what they were doing in the concentration camps from the outside world. The horrific conditions of these camps were not generally known in the Allied countries during the war.

• The Nazi party was a proponent of the theory that there was one race of people who were better than all others. They called this the "Aryan race" although the term "Aryan" properly refers to the family of languages known as "Indo-European." In Nazi propaganda the "Aryan" race was typified by Nordic, blond blue eyed people. Ironically, Hitler had dark hair and brown eyes. As Garbitsch predicts, Hynkel will rule the world after "wiping out the Jews [and] then the brunettes." See also the classroom scene in Europa! Europa!.

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Charlie Chaplin's speech from "The Great Dictator" movie | |Final Speech of "The Great Dictator" (also known as "Look Up, Hannah") by Charlie Chaplin

Schulz: Speak - it is our only hope.

The Jewish Barber (Charlie Chaplin's character): Hope... I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the 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 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 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.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions 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 throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, 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 human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish...

Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written " the kingdom of God is within man " - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, 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 all men's happiness.

Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.

The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up." | |

Discussion Questions:

1. [Standard Questions Suitable for Any Film].

2. [Quick Discussion Question:] Hitler was popular with the German people until the very end of the War. Why did they feel this way?

3. What did Chaplin want to tell us by having the "double cross" as the symbol of Hynkel's political party?

4. Would you have tried to resist Hitler if you had lived in Germany in 1940? What do you think would have happened to you? What could you have done?

5. How much of this movie is Chaplin taking revenge upon Hitler for copying his moustache?

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