Oh, my foot hurt so bad this morning, I called the doctor. They said they could fit me in at 2:30, so I hung in till then. We did our bird count at the house….2 Northern flickers, then we went to Hudson gardens.
We bumped into some friends there (also counting birds.) We saw 13 mallard ducks, 4 Canada geese, 4 chickadees and 1 male house finch.
We also spotted some nests, marking those for later (always good to know where you might find baby birds in the spring.)
They were working by the marsh pond, making more seating for the amphitheater.
We asked at the front if they were going to put the pond back when done (it’s where the bullfrogs raise their huge tadpoles), they said yes, so we’ll see. I dropped the girls at home and went to the doc, he said it’s most likely gout and did some blood work and gave me some meds. If my blood comes back low for uric acid, then I have to go back and get an x-ray to see if anything is broken (why not take the x-ray now? They can charge me another office visit fee if I have to come back…) So I guess I take the meds and wait till Monday to see what they say.
When I got home we started watching our other Chaplin movie The Great Dictator. The movie was released in 1941, before America entered the war. When Chaplin started working on the film, Britain wasn’t at odds with Germany yet and they were going to ban the film, by the time the movie came out they had changed their stance and welcomed a film that spoofed Hitler. Chaplin later said that had he known about all the atrocities that Hitler was doing at the time, he probably wouldn’t have made the movie. Chaplin plays the dictator Hynkel and a Jewish barber..who looks just like Hynkel. His wife at the time, Paulette Goddard, plays his girlfriend in the movie and we were surprised to see Moriarty (Henry Daniell) in a lead role – we recognized him as soon as he started speaking. Some interesting trivia about the film.
-Adolf Hitler banned the film in Germany and in all countries occupied by the Nazis. Curiosity got the best of him, and he had a print brought in through Portugal. History records that he screened it twice, in private, but history did not record his reaction to the film. Charles Chaplin said, “I’d give anything to know what he thought of it.” For political reasons in Germany, the ban stayed after the end of WWII until 1958. (In Spain the film was banned until 1976.)
-Released 13 years after the end of the silent era, this was Charles Chaplin’s first all-talking, all-sound film.
-When he had heard that studios were trying to discourage him from making the film, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a representative, Harry Hopkins, to Charles Chaplin to encourage him to make the film.
The film is funny and serious at the same time. Coming at a time when America was not yet fully involved in the war, I wonder what people thought of it. I wonder if they saw this bumbling dictator and the things that he did to Jews in the movie and thought – it’s just a movie. I wonder when they found out that Hitler was more than a dictator, he was evil. Just like Modern Times, this movie is full of sight gags, but since it’s a talkie it’s also full of spoken gags. This movie is one that makes light of the political arena of the day, but also one that pushes for a future without war, one where people strive for peace. The barber makes a speech at the very end, I won’t ruin it by showing it, but here is one tiny quote from the speech.
“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 has 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.” -Jewish Barber in The Great Dictator
I am so glad that the girls and I went to the Chaplin lecture through Active Minds. I have never been a fan of his, but seeing these two movies has shown that he was a great actor, director and writer; his work is really amazing.
In the evening we went to a Frozen birthday party for a friend in the HS group. The girls skated, Bethany got a valentine and we ate cake and got goodie bags decorated with Olaf faces. It was really busy at the skate center, I had no idea that teens thought skating on a Friday night was cool. The girls had fun, but they didn’t like the music that was playing. I’m ready to go back there on a day when there aren’t as many people trying to skate!
