Film / News
President Trump greeted with Great Dictator
In a late addition to the 2017 Slapstick Festival of silent and vintage comedy, Charlie Chaplin’s brilliant satire on fascism, The Great Dictator, will be screened at the Colston Hall on Saturday, January 21. It is no coincidence that this is just 24 hours after the inauguration of the orange buffoon whom the Americans, in their wisdom, have elected as their 45th president. Those who detect a distinct whiff of the 1930s in the air are likely to be in need of a larf or two by then.
The Great Dictator was Chaplin’s first complete talkie. Capitalising on the physical similarity between Adolf Hitler and his own lovable Little Tramp character, he cast himself in two roles: as Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomainia, and an amnesiac Jewish barber who awakes completely unaware of the rise of Nazism. It’s an ever more timely plea for peace in an era of growing intolerance that is also packed with great comic moments, including Hynkel’s gibberish ranting and the barber’s upside-down flying sequence. It also climaxes with one of the all-time-great movie speeches.
When it was released in 1940, America had yet to enter the war. Despite Chaplin’s misgivings that audiences might not flock to a comedy about the Nazis, The Great Dictator went on to become his most commercially successful film, proving particularly popular in Britain. It was subsequently nominated for five Oscars. In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin revealed that he would never have made the film if he had been aware of the actual horrors of the concentration camps.
Slapstick’s screening will be introduced by film historian and Chaplin biographer David Robinson. It is also highly likely that a Very Big Celebrity, whose identity we are forbidden to disclose, will be participating in the show via Skype. Advance tickets are available here from 10am on Friday, December 23.
Read more: Slapstick 2017 programme unveiled
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