modern times (1935)

incongruent assemblages

This classic slapstick comedy by Charlie Chaplin follows the antics of an unfortunate factory worker. Much of the humour, particularly at the start of the film, derives from the mismatch of two assemblages: machines and human bodies. Chaplin is forced to keep up with the mechanical rhythms of the assembly line to the point where he begins to resemble a machine himself. When he stops working, his body can’t stop performing the same repetitive motion and he gets completely confused as to what is a human and what is a machine. All sorts of trouble  ensues when he starts lubricating his co-workers and using spanners on women’s bodies. The ultimate mismatch between the mechanical and the organic occurs when Chaplin serves as the guinea pig for an experimental feeding machine.