The similarities between the Führer and the Little Tramp were clear to Chaplin. Indeed they were readily apparent to everyone, as the caricatures that regularly appeared in newspapers made clear. And so he committed himself to bringing a political leader to the screen while the extent of his threat remained uncertain. As an artist, he was prepared to risk everything: his security, career, fame, prestige and money…If we take into consideration the moment, the paradoxical intersections between Chaplin’s personal history and international politics, it is clear that The Great Dictator was destined to be an anomalous film for an anomalous moment. It is the filmmaker’s second ‘cubist’ film, after Modern Times, a film in which traditional dramatic structure is abandoned. A radical approach to narration gives rise to a dramatic structure that systematically breaks with every convention. The Great Dictator is a compilation of ferocious gags and, at the same time, a raw and innovative synthesis of unvarnished history, with the powerful impact of events represented at the very moment in which they areexperienced. Chaplin had such a strong grasp on that horrible time that the film has become like a photo album of one of the great tragedies of the 20th century… Even if the ending of The Great Dictator sounds like a solemn hymn to peace and equality, it is worth pointing out that it is in no way pacifist. On the contrary, it incites us to fight against tyranny in the name of democracy: “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!” He ingeniously declares that his speech draws on the very same ideals that dictators have ridden to power: “Let us fight for a new world, a decent world, that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people.” While a world war raged, this invitation to fight rang out like an absolute truth.

Peter von Bagh, Chaplin, Edizioni Cineteca di Bologna, Bologna 2021