Great Movie for 1940!!!

Rating: Null/10 (9 September 2004)

I couldn't believe it. Chaplin made the movie in 1940. I hardly ever watch old movies, because, no matter how great they are, it just doesn't fit my current expectations. But, Great Dictator is an exception. I borrowed the two DVD's (one DVD had extra commentaries and color footage behind the scenes taken by Sydney Chaplin, Charley's brother). The movie was well ahead of its time in terms of humour and sophistication. Chaplin in later years said that if he knew the extent of Nazi's atrocities, he would not have made the movie. What a loss it would have been. The interesting thing was that, it was reported Hitler himself saw the movie, though it was banned in Germany at that time. One of the survivors of his inner circles said that Hitler would have definitely laughed hard if he indeed had seen it. What a pity, that he learned nothing from Chaplin's closing minutes in the movie!!!
The way Chaplin portrayed the two characters (the Hynckler, or Hitler and the jew barber) was astonishing. While they were two different characters on the set, they were the same actor (Chaplin) and somehow they both related to Hitler. Hitler himself suspected he may have had Jewish blood (one of his close advisors later told him, after extensive research, that there was a 50-50 chance he might be one quarter Jewish), my gut feeling was that he was probably more Jewish that he thought or his advisors told him he was, just because he never liked to listen to what he didn't like to hear!!
Then the barber's service in the firs world war (Hitler fought in WWI), and how Germany lost that war while he was hospitalized. And at the end, Chaplin presents a scenario in which the barber, as the new Reich, is leading the country away from death and destruction to peace. I think Chaplin had a feeling that Hitler probably had this other side within him that, if nurtured, would have taken him and the world to a different direction. It was not to be. There was also the opposite forces within Hitler (my personal opinion is that the source of this force was his ultra EGO which the DEVIL itself) that fought with the forces of peace and love. He chose the other way, and became nothing at the end. The movie, in my opinion, also portrays this fact very neatly, as the real Reich sitting in Jail, with his globe balloon burst. Chaplin not only portrayed the past and present in his movie, he some how foresaw the future. It is a great movie.