Chaplin on War
Nov. 6th, 2024 07:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo M. Verdoux (1947) is Charlie Chaplin's weirdest film- a mix of slapstick comedy, sentiment and rage against the war machine. He plays a serial killer who romances rich old women, gets them to make him their heir, then murders them. Arrested and put on trial for his life, he makes this speech before sentence is passed. He has been branded a monster- and so he is, but....
"As for being a mass killer, does not the world encourage it? Is it not building weapons of destruction for the sole purpose of mass killing? Has it not blown unsuspecting women and little children to pieces? And done it very scientifically? As a mass killer, I am an amateur by comparison."
And then a little later, to the reporter who has been granted the privilege of a final interview he says,
"Wars, conflict - it's all business. One murder makes a villain; millions, a hero. Numbers sanctify, my good fellow!"
M. Verdoux on his way to the guillotine- one more state sanctioned killing.
"As for being a mass killer, does not the world encourage it? Is it not building weapons of destruction for the sole purpose of mass killing? Has it not blown unsuspecting women and little children to pieces? And done it very scientifically? As a mass killer, I am an amateur by comparison."
And then a little later, to the reporter who has been granted the privilege of a final interview he says,
"Wars, conflict - it's all business. One murder makes a villain; millions, a hero. Numbers sanctify, my good fellow!"
M. Verdoux on his way to the guillotine- one more state sanctioned killing.
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Date: 2024-11-06 12:46 pm (UTC)