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02 July 2024 Dortmund (Germany)
Stummfilmkonzert: Modern Times
Dortmunder Philharmoniker conducted by Gabriel Feltz - Konzerthaus Dortmund
Program Info: Charles Chaplin - Modern Times
Charles Chaplin's Modern Times is a classic silent film that is still relevant today, uniquely balancing comedy, tragedy, bittersweet romance and horror. After an extensive restoration, the score could be brought into a version that could be performed live with an orchestra. In this form »Modern Times« comes to life in an unexpected way – far more than a movie.
In the film, which was made in 1936 after many years of preliminary work by Chaplin, the actor slips into his famous role as a clumsy, likeable tramp for the last time to accuse social misery and the automation of the world of work. The background of the film is the epoch of the "Great Depression" in the USA, which was dominated by mass unemployment and poverty in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the global economic crisis. The plot first shows us Chaplin's tramp as an assembly line worker who is mistakenly imprisoned as a labour leader before falling in love, working as a waiter in a bar and finally together with his great love, embodied by Paulette Goddard, who Chaplin married shortly after filming finished uncertain future.
»Modern Times« balances in a unique way between comedy, tragedy, bittersweet romance and horror at the conditions. Numerous scenes and images from the film, such as Chaplin trapped between the cogs of a gigantic machine or the wheelchair ride in a deserted department store, repeatedly avoiding a fall by a hair's breadth, have entered the collective memory and have gained iconic status. The effect of the film is based to a very large extent on the precisely calculated interplay between the film images and the music, which was precisely imagined by Chaplin and recorded with the help of extremely professional studio musicians. In a painstaking detailed work that lasted 14 months, this film score was restored and brought into a version that can be performed live with an orchestra. In this form »Modern Times« comes to life in an unexpected way – far more than a movie.
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