Modern Times Critique - Essay Example

At the first sight, this motion picture can be perceived as an ordinary light comedy where the main hero easily makes the audience burst out laughing at ridiculous situations, that he faces all the time. But with a more critical view, it can be concluded that the mentioned work of great comedians is a powerful education tool that has managed to cover urgent socio-economic topics. This movie is a perfect combination of humor and morals.

Modern Times simultaneously depicts several important problems of society such as economic recession in the country, mass reduction of workers, low levels of salaries, unemployment, poverty, hunger, and, as a consequence, an increase in crime rate. The main hero works in the steel company where a greedy director takes advantage of a shortage of working places in the country and strives for a permanent steady raising of the rate of production. The entrepreneur orders to increase the speed of the conveyer belt while the working conditions for employees are left unchangeably inadequate. Having a nervous breakdown because of work, the main hero gets to the hospital and loses his job. Later on, due to misunderstanding and unlucky coincidence, he finds himself arrested, but after release, he wishes to go back to jail since he feels happy there and he has no other place to go. Soon he meets a girl and they together try to fight against poverty and hunger dreaming about a beautiful house and human comfort. To get by, they are forced to breach the law and commit small felonies. In the end, the heroes have left again with nothing except for a steadfast hope for their serene future.

The movie raises ethical aspects regarding the fact of making a crime in predicaments to gain food and survive. There is a question of whether pilferage committed in desperate times should be considered a crime in case a person has not seen other options on how to live on and feed their own family. The movie helps in understanding ethical dilemmas between social problems and individual actions against standard rules of conduct.

At the beginning of the movie, a shot showing a herd of sheep is sharply changed with a crowd of people in a subway hence providing a very precise juxtaposition. Indeed people are frequently treated as animals whose role is just to bring utility without any wrong complaints. As a potential and future employer, I will have to take into account the needs and comfort of employees that affect final output and profit. To make them work better and more productive, I should provide workers with adequate conditions and remuneration.

Except for the unethical behavior of the company's director, there are a lot of other ethical dilemmas like the main hero's participation in an illegal demonstration, his mischievous attempts to get back to prison, a girl's theft of bread and bananas for her sisters, her runaway from orphanage representatives, distribution of "nose-powder" in prison, the main hero's lie and irrelevant letter to get a job position in the trade center, his irresponsible behavior in a working place and repeated resistance to obeying policemen. All these ethical dilemmas have been properly resolved and unethical behavior has been treated accordingly. Hence, for the unauthorized strike, the main hero gets arrested as much as the girl gets caught for her thefts later on; the hero's efforts to get back to prison finally are complete and the man gets punished; the smuggler in jail gets revealed; the hero's irresponsible behavior soon leads to his fair lay-off; the entrepreneur's vanity and inobservance of ethical norms lead to a loss of workers due to their aggravating health condition, employee's mistakes due to overstress and stoppage of entire production with further financial damage.

Putting myself in the hero's shoes, I presume that to get money for a living, first of all, I would take my work seriously and avoid those mistakes that the hero does. I would do my responsibilities professionally and protect my rights with the help of legal methods. It is important to remember that each predicament has its possible solutions so the only thing that should be done is always to choose the appropriate and ethically right options.