Charlie Chaplin is most famous for his memorable
on-screen character “The Tramp” from the silent era of movies, and when talking
movies first began, he tried to buck the trend believing that talking pictures
would undermine the artistry of acting. In
1940 though, after releasing two movies which were soundtracked but still
avoided the spoken word, he made his first true talking movie, The Great Dictator,
which features one of the greatest speeches of all time.
The movie is a political satire about two identical
characters - a Jewish barber and a dictator called Adenoid Hynkel – both played
by Chaplin, and after a series of persecutions, mix ups and confusion, the
barber finds himself in a situation where people think he is the dictator. The movie ends with the barber giving a
speech, but instead of a message of hate, it is a call for people to open their
eyes, stand up and fight oppression and dictators.
Below is a video of this wonderful speech. Charlie Chaplin may have spent most of his
life in silence, but when he did talk he had something important to say, and
even though this movie premièred in New York City on 15th October
1940, the words are as fresh and relevant today as they were 75 years ago.
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 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, liberty
will never perish.
Soldiers:
Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, 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 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, 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 you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these
things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their
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 all unite!!!
Hannah,
can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah. 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 kindlier world, where men will rise above their
hate, their greed and brutality.
Look
up, Hannah. 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, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us. Look
up, Hannah. Look up.
