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The Great Dictator is a film by Charlie Chaplin, released in October 1940. Like most Chaplin films, he wrote, produced, and directed this film...in addition to starring as the lead. |
Having been the only Hollywood film maker to continue to make silent films well into the
period of sound films, this was Chaplin's first true "talking picture", as well as his most commercially successful film. More importantly,
it was the first major feature film of its period to bitterly satirize Nazism and Adolf Hitler. At the time of its first release, the United
States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin's film advanced a stirring, controversial condemnation of Hitler, fascism,
anti-Semitism, and the Nazis...the latter of whom he excoriates in the film as "machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts".
(Text of his speech from 71 years ago below.)
"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 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's room for everyone and the good 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 man -
cries 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, 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 like cattle, use you 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 - the unloved and the unnatural!
Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St 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! You, the people, have the power - the power to create machines. The power to
create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful - to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in
the name of democracy - let us 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 youth a future and old age a security.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie!* They do not
fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to
fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to 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 unite!"
* What American political party do think Charlie Chaplin would be affiliated with today?
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