The film was written, directed and acted by the master of comedy Charlie Chaplin. It was the first sound film created on the background of the rapid expansion of the German Nazi party after World War II and mass murder of Jews. It was released in the United States on October 15, 1940. It satirized the ugly act of the German Nazi leader Hitler's mass murder of Jews and expressed his desire for democracy and freedom. The film’s release date was the peak of Hitler’s slaughter of Jews, and it was also the heyday after the German occupation of France. Chaplin still insisted on creating under the double pressure of the United American company and politics. He financed himself, and spent two years from the screenwriting to the completion of the filming. Many, to mock Hitler's dictatorship, Chaplin's courage and conscience are really admirable. In the story, Chaplin plays two roles. One of them is a Jewish hairdresser. He was drafted into the army in World War I and rescued Chief Schultz (Hickler’s minister). He lost his memory after being injured and was discharged from the hospital. To be a barber again, dare to fight against the oppression of the German Nazi Party; the other is the great dictator Hickler, alluding to Hitler, who had the ambition to rule the world and killed millions of Jews; the Jewish barber in the play His girlfriend is a Jewish Hannah, kind and brave, and never succumbed to the persecution of the German Nazi Party.
The Jewish barber was a petty citizen, witty and humorous. After being discharged from the army, he was isolated and treated in the hospital for his injuries for several years. During this period, the world has undergone tremendous changes. The Nazi Führer Hickler was an Austrian. He imitated German but mixed English in his speech. The film mocked his speech style. The dictatorship of Hickler promulgated many policies to persecute the Jews, making it impossible for the Jews to live a normal life. The barber’s neighbor is a smart and capable Hannah, but because of racial discrimination, she can’t find a stable job. She can only earn a meager income from washing other people’s clothes. Once she saw a Nazi stormtrooper bullying a Jewish shop on the street. She was righteous. He reprimanded the stormtroopers for their ugliness, but was bullied by the stormtroopers. The Jewish barber returned to the barber shop and planned to reopen, but found that the Nazi stormtrooper had painted Jewish marks on the window of the store. The barber was extremely dissatisfied and fought with these stormtroopers. Hannah also came to help after finding out, and eventually charged. The team fainted, and Hannah had a good impression of the brave barber. She said to the barber that "everyone should unite to fight back against the Nazi soldiers", which reflects the Jews' desire for freedom. The Nazi stormtrooper came back to seek revenge from the barber and asked the barber to help him write the Jewish logo. The barber again clashed with the stormtroopers, but was outnumbered. A group of stormtroopers surrounded him and planned to hang him on a telephone pole. Commander Ertz discovered that the barber was the soldier who rescued him during World War I, and ordered the stormtroopers not to disturb the Jews in this area, so that the barber and Hannah’s lives were temporarily peaceful.
Hickler lives in the Hickler Palace and is busy with world domination every day. He asks people to show his greatness in portraits and statues, but the painters and sculptors are just perfunctory; he asked some officials to invent some advanced wartimes. Equipment, such as bullet-proof suits, hats, parachutes, etc., but often failed; he often summons lower-level generals to keep abreast of the situation of the war. When Hickler planned to occupy Austria, he planned to borrow money from the Jewish Epstein and therefore suspended the persecution of the Jews. The Jews on the street can walk around at will, and can boldly open their own shops. The long-lost freedom makes them seem to be reborn, rekindling their hope for life and love for their hometown. The barber and Hannah can work with peace of mind in a peaceful life, and they can also communicate emotions. The bravery, kindness, honesty, and humor of the barber attract Hannah, and the beauty, liveliness and justice of Hannah attract the barber. The two gradually fall in love.
However, the Jewish Epstein was dissatisfied with the persecution of his compatriots and refused to lend to the Nazi Party. This forced the ambitious Hickler to postpone his plan to invade Austria. The angry Hickler began to slaughter the Jews wildly. The peaceful life of the Jews was broken again. Hickler planned to let Schultz send a vanguard to wipe out the Jewish quarters, but the sensible Schultz knew that this was cruel and was not conducive to the interests of the Nazi Party and the country, so he violated Hickler’s order. As a result, he was imprisoned in a concentration camp. Before Schultz left, he warned Hickler that "your cause is doomed to fail because it is based on the stupidity of persecuting innocent people. Your policy is more than crime, and it has already made a big mistake." , This sentence further mocked Hickler's policy. Hickler issued a speech on the eradication of the Jews, shattering the hope of the Jews regaining their freedom, and they began to face a bloody massacre. Most Jews think that they can take refuge in the barber and Hannah. However, after the vanguard heard the news of Schultz’s arrest, the barber lost his umbrella, and the vanguard immediately broke their peaceful life. The barber and Hannah Hiding on the roof, looking at the sky, planning to go to the free country of Austria, pursuing a free life for the two. At this time, Schultz escaped from the concentration camp, found the barber, and held a small meeting to discuss the plan to get rid of Hickler, but he needed a sacrifice. As no one wanted to die, the plan temporarily fell through. After Hickler learned that Schultz had escaped, he quickly found the barber and arrested Schultz and the barber together. Hannah and her family couldn't bear the persecution of the Nazi Party. They all moved to the free country of Austria. Hannah lived in Austria very happily, and she often wrote to encourage the barber to come here after being released from prison to share the good things with herself.
Hickler quickly extended his claws to Austria, and he was ready for armed forces. However, at this time Italian Naparini (an allusion to Mussolini) began to deploy troops to the Austrian front, thus hindering Hickler's offensive plan. Hickler had to invite Naparini to negotiate and request his withdrawal. After Naparini arrived in Germany, Hickler made things difficult to show that his aura was stronger than the opponent, while Naparini was burly in shape and had a strong tone, showing Hickler's weakness everywhere, which greatly reduced his aura. Hickler and Naparini started negotiations while eating a buffet. Naparini asked Hickler to sign an agreement that neither side would violate Austria before they agreed to withdraw their troops. Hickler disagreed, and the two began a fierce quarrel. In desperation, Hickler planned to sign the agreement first, and then sneak into Austria when Naparini retreated. At this time, the barber and Schultz escaped from prison. Because the hairdresser and Hickler looked similar, Schultz encouraged him to pretend to be Hickler and join himself with the German army. Therefore, the two boldly walked towards the Austrian border, and the barber went smoothly. The ground was mistaken for their head of state by the German troops stationed on the border. However, the real Hickler changed into civilian clothes and was about to join the army quietly by boat, but was arrested as a fugitive. Because the barber did not understand military affairs, Schultz guided the army to successfully capture Austria. The Jewish residents of Austria were persecuted, and the Hannah family could not avoid it. At the Zhujie Conference, the barber needs to deliver a speech as Hickler. At this time, as a representative of the oppressed nation, he intends to spread his desire for democracy and freedom in every corner of the world in powerful language, so he did There was a great and heartwarming speech, which read as follows: "I’m sorry, I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not what I should do. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I want to help everyone as much as possible, Jews, Non-Jews, blacks, whites, we all help each other, and everyone should do it. We all want to live in each other's happiness instead of inflicting pain on each other. We don’t want to hate and despise each other. This world can tolerate you. I, the earth is rich, can provide for all of us, life could have been free and beautiful, but we lost our way, greed poisoned people’s souls, hatred blocked the world, let us step into the abyss of misery of cannibalism. . We are developing rapidly, but we are also self-enclosed. Big industry has brought material civilization, but it has turned people into abject poverty. Our knowledge makes ourselves perverse, our wisdom is cold and ruthless, and our ambitions are too big. Lack of feeling, we need humanity more than machines, and we need kindness and kindness more than intellect. Without these qualities, life will become cruel and ruthless, and ultimately nothing. Airplanes And broadcasting brings us closer. The original intention of these inventions is to arouse the kindness of human beings, to arouse the brotherhood of people all over the world, and to unite us together. Now, my voice can reach all over the world. Millions of desperate men, women, and children, victims of the system, and innocent people who have been tortured and imprisoned, I want to say to those who can hear me: Don’t Despair. The suffering we are now suffering is caused by greed. It is the bitter fruit of those who are afraid of human progress. The hatred between people will eventually dissipate, the dictator will eventually perish, and the power they seized from the people will also It will be returned to the people, and as long as mankind does not perish, freedom will never disappear. Soldiers, don’t let those dressed-up beasts despise you, enslave you, manipulate your life and death, don’t let people dictate what you should do, what you should think, and what you should accept, don’t let those who make you practice and brainwash you all day long and treat you like you Livestock people treat you as cannon fodder again. Don’t take orders from those mentally distorted perverts and hard-hearted war machines. You are not machines, you are not livestock, you are humans, and you all have love for humans in your hearts. You shouldn’t Resentment, only those who do not love will resent, those who do not love and lunatics are perverted. Soldiers, don't fight for slavery, fight for freedom. The seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke writes like this: The kingdom of God is in people's hearts, not one person, nor some people, but all people, that is you. You are capable people, the ability to make machines and the ability to create happiness, you have the ability to make life free and beautiful, and make life more meaningful. Then, let us use these abilities in the name of democracy to unite us and fight for a new world, a beautiful world where everyone can live and work in peace, children can look forward to the future, and old people can In An Du's later years, those well-dressed beasts climbed to the top of power with such promises, but they lied and they did not fulfill their promises and never fulfilled their promises. The dictators are free, but they have enslaved all the people. Now let us fight for the realization of this hope, let us fight for the freedom of the world, eliminate the barriers between nations, eliminate human greed, and eliminate Hatred and narrow-mindedness, let us struggle to build a sensible world, a world that can lead mankind to a happy and well-off scientific development. Soldiers, let us unite in the name of democracy! "The barber's words are impassioned, inspiring the hearts of every oppressed people, inspiring every enslaved heart, inspiring every heart with a conscience. Hannah listened to the barber's sonorous in a corner of Austria. A powerful voice, like the soul is unraveled
Although the Jewish barber and the great dictator Hickler are similar in appearance, their character and pursuit are fundamentally different. The barber, with love and kindness, yearns for a happy life of freedom, peace and mutual help, while Hickler has a conquering world. Ambition, ruthlessness and indifference, enslaved soldiers, wiped out human nature, trampled on freedom, and harmed the people. The dictatorship will be ridiculed by the people when it steps on the lives of the people to expand the land. Only a world full of love and freedom is the place that people yearn for, and it is the fertile ground for gestating happiness. For the beautiful world, for freedom and happiness, and for the sake of living and working in peace and contentment, let us replace coldness with tenderness, replace hatred with kindness and love, and replace selfishness with mutual help.
Note: The relationship between Chaplin and Hitler and the process of creating this film (from Encyclopedia)
Chaplin's idea of creating this film began with the gradual escalation of the violent suppression of Jews by the Nazis in the late 1930s, and his Jewish friends and colleagues in Europe could not escape bad luck. The similarity between himself and Hitler was the key factor in Chaplin's decision to make this film. Not only did the two have the same beard, they also had only four days of birthday, and both were born in poverty. As early as 1931, when Chaplin visited Berlin for the second time, the sluggish economy and arrogant nationalism had made him foresee a potential crisis. In Berlin, he was warmly welcomed by movie fans. One movie fan even grew a moustache like him. This man became the head of Germany two years later, and he was naturally Hitler. When talking about what he had in common with Hitler, Chaplin was always surprised. Except for the beard, they are all similar in height and weight. At that time, some film critics who were dissatisfied with Chaplin lamented that "Hitler controls the world and Chaplin creates his own world, but the world of Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" is not necessarily a democratic country." Chaplin's children found a circle of color documentaries about "The Great Dictator" in their former residence in Switzerland. It is believed that the author should be Chaplin's half-brother Sidney. In the film, there is a scene of Chaplin angering an associate director at the shooting scene, and it is said that its severity is not inferior to the performance of the dictator in the film when he reprimanded his subordinates.
As Hitler and the Nazi Party entered their heyday, Chaplin's reputation also increased. In 1931, Chaplin's trip to Berlin angered the Nazi Party. In the book "The Jews Are Looking at You" published in 1934, the Nazis described Chaplin as "an annoying Jewish acrobat." Ivor Montagu, a close friend of Chaplin, once sent the book to Chaplin and believed that the book gave birth to the "Great Dictator."
Between 1938 and 1939, Chaplin completed the script for the film, and filming began in September 1939, just a week after the start of World War II. Half a year after the filming was completed, France was captured by Germany. Due to the extraordinary period at the time, some people think that the film, "Under the Dark Clouds" and "Four Sons" and other anti-Nazi films should be temporarily suspended in order to maintain the neutral state of the United States. But this film is an independent film made by Chaplin himself with a fund of 1.5 million US dollars. If it cannot be released, it will lead to Chaplin's bankruptcy. The film finally premiered in New York in September 1940, followed by a national release in October and a British release in December. Shortly after the liberation of Paris, the film was released in France in April 1945. In a later interview, Chaplin said: “I started to receive warnings from United American about halfway through the filming of The Great Dictator, but I decided to continue shooting because Hitler was bound to be ridiculed.” According to Chaplin. An aide to Dan James said that President Roosevelt had sent his adviser Harry Hopkins to meet with Chaplin to encourage him to carry the "Great Dictator" to the end. It is also reported that Hitler watched the film twice.
"The Great Dictator" was well received in the United States and was well received by the American people. In the United Kingdom, the film attracted 9 million viewers. The comments on the film were mixed. Some people expressed dissatisfaction with Chaplin's speech at the end of the film. Some people thought that the comical description of the Nazi stormtroopers in the film was inappropriate, but Jewish audiences were all treated by the film’s Jewish characters and Jewish conditions. The description was deeply moved. During the filming, the British government once claimed to ban the film to ease relations with Nazi Germany. When the film was released, Britain was already at war with Germany, so "The Great Dictator" again had propaganda value and was hailed as a morale-boosting masterpiece by the British media. Although the film was banned in some European countries, it eventually became the box office champion of Chaplin's film.
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