{"id":381,"date":"2012-10-06T16:00:53","date_gmt":"2012-10-06T20:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.briancroxall.net\/lit-tech\/?p=381"},"modified":"2012-10-06T16:00:53","modified_gmt":"2012-10-06T20:00:53","slug":"its-all-about-time-and-efficiency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.briancroxall.net\/lit-tech\/2012\/10\/06\/its-all-about-time-and-efficiency\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s all about time and efficiency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although Charlie Chaplin\u2019s silent film, Modern Times, <\/em>appears on the surface to be just a satirical comedy about a little man with a funny mustache, it efficiently demonstrates the detriments of industrialization and technology. The viewers are first introduced to this film by the vision of a large clock. This immediately sets the main idea for the film that time is essential. To the factory, time is of utmost importance and the sole purpose of technology is to reduce time and increase efficiency. The large display of the ticking clock in the opening of the film emphasizes this notion. Consequently, the only words spoken in this silent film are the factory owner\u2019s voice telling the workers to speed up their production. Again, the factory is only concerned with the time it takes to get tasks done; it does not care about the individuals attending these machines. The factory worries about efficiency, and the workers, especially Chaplin, are subjected to a time full of monotony. Although the factory is saving time and increasing efficiency, the factory becomes torturous and the workers are driven into a blank state. Chaplin is so focused on his assembly line of tightening bolts that when the line stops, he keeps continuing on the women\u2019s buttons behind him. Chaplin is no longer thinking; the repetitiveness of his job has made his mind vacant. He keeps continuing once the job is done, as that is all his brain processes.<\/p>\n

The importance of time is shown shortly again in the film when businessmen come to sell the factory the Billows Feeding Machine. This machine reduces the time it takes for the workers to eat lunch and will allow for more efficient industrialization. However, this machine cuts out the time for the workers to be humane. Lunch hour gives the workers a time to converse, clear their brains of the factory, and actually think. Lunch hour provides the workers the opportunity to actually portray human qualities, and this machine, although making the factory better off, again reduces the workers\u2019 brains to nothingness. Modern Times <\/em>clearly demonstrates how the factory, obsessed with only time and efficiency, dehumanizes their workers and solely cares about the best production possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although Charlie Chaplin\u2019s silent film, Modern Times, appears on the surface to be just a satirical comedy about a little man with a funny mustache, it efficiently demonstrates the detriments of industrialization and technology. The viewers are first introduced to this film by the vision of a large clock. This immediately sets the main idea<\/p>\n