Modern Times by Charlie Chaplins

1. Please describe in detail what the major theme of the film is, expanding on what the movie is about.

The theme of this movie mainly is about the era of machines and the great depression. The movie includes the introduction of man-eating or feeding-machine. In the machine aged, machine becomes a part of our life. Workers in this movie work like they are an extension of the machine. Losing their humanity and having physical and mental problem are what the labor in the machine aged has to face with.

2. Please explain how this movie will help you understand some topics of the course.

In the first topic in this course we study some basic economics concept such as scarce resource, the law of supply and demand, and in chapter 5, we also study the meaning of efficiency and effectiveness.

In this movie, we saws one kind of scarce resources, human resources, or what the economists refer as a labor. People were hired to perform in different task regarding to their mental and physical talents. Every single employee performs their task in the very tight schedule to generate the efficiency for the factory. To achieve effectiveness, employees need to finish their job. However, to achieve efficiency, employees need to finish the job by using the minimum resources, which in this movie is "Time". The employer did their best on the time management. The workers can stop working only in the break time. The employer even thought about increasing the productivity by using man-eating or feeding machine.

The law of supply and demand was also shown in this movie, people face with the unemployment, there's a lot a labor supplied, however, no jobs available.

3. What can you take away from this movie to help you in your current or future job?

To avoid being like Charlie who works crazily until was sent to hospital, I should have a work-life balance. Nowadays, as we mostly deal with the machine more than human, for example using PCs, the machine can be said, become a part of our life. This movie reflects the problem of working too much with the machine which will affect both physical and mental of human.

At the end of the movie, I also realize that your bad day is not going to be the end of this world. There's still tomorrow waiting for you. The only thing you need to do is Do not give up and Be Optimistic!

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