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Rear View Mirror – My Week In Review

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Over 70 years ago, Charlie Chaplain wrote, directed, produced, and scored a film titled The Great Dictator.

Released in 1940, Chaplin’s film advanced a stirring, controversial condemnation of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis. At the time of its first release, the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin plays both leading roles: a ruthless fascist dictator, and a persecuted Jewish barber.

The Great Dictator was popular with audiences, becoming Chaplin’s most commercially successful film.Modern critics have also praised it as a historically significant film and an important work of satire. The Great Dictator was nominated for five Academy Awards – Outstanding Production, Best Actor, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Supporting Actor for Jack Oakie, and Best Music (Original Score).

In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin stated that he could not have made the film if he had known about the true extent of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at the time.

Below is a clip and the text of a speech from the film called A Message for Mankind. It is as fresh and powerful today as the day it was spoken. Take a moment to watch/read it and remember what is important to you. If you have time, I have attached the entire film below as well.

I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.” The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

Let us all unite. 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 fulfill their promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

grace-kelly-rear-window

This week on Waldina, I celebrated the birthdays of Georgia O’Keeffe, Claude Monet, Dick Powell, Louise Brooks, Sherwood Schwartz, Veronica Lake, Jean Seberg, Madeleine Sherwood, and Grace Kelly.

The Stats:

Visits This Week: 2,480
Total Visits: 423,176
Total Subscribers: 795
Total Posts: 2,297
Most Popular Post Last Week: Happy 70th Birthday Sally Field

pjimage

This week over on Tumblr, I created a lot new photo blogs. I am doing my part, trying to flood the internet with beauty. I created new blogs: Andy Warhol, Buster Keaton, David Rakoff, Interview Magazine, Judy Holliday, Keith Haring, Ramon Navarro, Rudolph Valentino, and Who Said That. They all feed into my main one: The Real SPA.

The Stats:

Posts This Week: 108
Total Posts: 20,662
Total Subscribers: 700

Instagram Photo

This week at @TheRealSPA on Instagram, I deleted almost every photo I have posted over the last six years. I also stopped following a lot of dead weight accounts. I have added a few new photos since then.

The Stats:

Total Posts: 5
Total Followers: 432
Total Following: 248

Instagram Photo

This week on @SenorScraps Instagram, he posted a photo of him sleeping in and worrying if Trump is going to fuck up the supply of dog bones.

The Stats:

Total Posts: 65
Total Followers: 292
Total Following: 497

This week @TheRealSPA on Twitter, I deleted all my tweets and started clean.

The Stats:

Total Tweets: 176
Total Followers: 87
Total Following: 203

 

Source: The Great Dictator – Wikipedia

Source: The Great Dictator (1940) – The Criterion Collection

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Filed under: read, Uncategorized, Watch Tagged: A Special Day, Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Adolf Eichmann, Adolf Hitler, Air-raid shelter, Alan Watts, Albert Einstein, All Souls' Day, Alzheimer's disease, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, American Jews, Associated Press, Benito Mussolini, Black people, Brain Pickings, Braunau am Inn, Charlie Chaplin, Democratic Party (United States), Donald Trump, Germany, Government of Austria, Great Dictator, Hans Zimmer, Hillary Clinton, Human, Italian Fascism, Italy, Kingdom of God, Luke the Evangelist, Nazi Party, Nazism, Neo-Nazism, politics, self help, Sophia Loren, United States, Vladimir Putin, World War II

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