[Hac-announce] Fw: Conversations Sept 05

[L.M.C. Harvey]

         You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the mailing list of 
         the  Humanist  Association of Connecticut.  To unsubscribe follow the link below. 
___________________________________________________________________________
 
 
 
>From Conversations Coordinator Cynthia Harvey:    To enjoy as well as honor Labor Day we'll watch Charlie Chaplin's 1936 film "Modern Times"  co-starring Paulette Goddard.  
  
Notes on "Modern Times" from the Official Charlie Chaplin website cited below. 
  
"Simplicity is a difficult thing to achieve”, a quote from the master. 
  
            Modern Times marked the last screen appearance of the Little Tramp – the character which had brought Charles Chaplin world fame, and who still remains the most universally recognized fictional image of a human being in the history of art.  The world from which the Tramp took his farewell was very different from that into which he had been born, two decades earlier, before the First World War. Then he had shared and symbolized the hardships of all the underprivileged of a world only just emerging from the 19th century. Modern Times found him facing very different predicaments in the aftermath of America¹s Great Depression, when mass unemployment coincided with the massive rise of industrial automation. 
            Chaplin was acutely preoccupied with the social and economic problems of this new age. In 1931 and 1932 he had left Hollywood behind, to embark on an 18-month world tour. In Europe, he had been disturbed to see the rise of nationalism and the social effects of the Depression, of unemployment and of automation. He read books on economic theory; and devised his own Economic Solution, an intelligent exercise in utopian idealism, based on a more equitable distribution not just of wealth but of work. In 1931 he told a newspaper interviewer : 
            “Unemployment is the vital question . . . Machinery should benefit mankind. It should not spell tragedy and throw it out of work.” 
            [ The original sad ]  ending was filmed, but was finally abandoned in favour of a more cheerful finale. “We¹ll get along”, says a title; and the couple, arm in arm, set bravely off down a country lane, towards the horizon 
            …Modern Times survives as a commentary on human survival in the industrial, economic and social circumstances of the 20th century society. It remains as relevant, in human terms, for the 21st century. 
  
http://www.charliechaplin.com/biography/articles/6-Modern-Times 
           >>=====================================================<< 
  
            See you Saturday, Sept. 05, 2009 at 2:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Society of New Haven campus in Hamdon.  
  
Please send any suggestions, requests or comments to conversations at cthumanist.org 
  
  
       To unsubscribe click on this link and follow the instructions:

                https://woodlark.elirion.net/mailman/options/hac-announce/ 
                                            
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cthumanist.org/pipermail/hac-announce/attachments/20090902/0335ff8d/attachment.html>