A Propaganda Film: The Great Dictator

　　In 1939, Second World War broke out, Nazis and Fascist leading the war. Form Europe to Asia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, there have 61 countries and more than 2 billion people involved in the Second World War. “Nazis National Socialist German Workers' Party of Germany, which in 1933, under Adolf Hitler, seized political control of the country, suppressing all opposition, aggressive anti-Semitism, the natural supremacy of the German people, and the establishment of Germany by superior force as a dominant world power”(umich). As Nazis control all the cultural, economic, and political, feature films had been recognized as one of the most effective way which to achieve this purpose. Feature films were a mainstay of propaganda transmission concerning to Nazis and politics .

Charles Chaplin, the famous comedian in twentieth century; he is one of the founder of modern comedy film. The Great Dictator was Charles Caplin's first film with spoken dialogue; also this comedy film is starring, written, produced, composed and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The Great Dictator was produced to against Adolf Hitler and Nazism. In The Great Dictator, Chaplin is doubling the parts of a dictator Hynkel who is similar to Nazi dictator Hitler and a Jewish barber who is persecuted by the Nazis. “Barber and dictator as doubles were a metaphor representing the duality of good and evil, the reality that human nature can be tyrannical and tyrannized with equal ease” (Cold 2001 page 146). As Robert Cole mentions that Chaplin’s propaganda technique was to compare these two extremes---the good and the evil. And separation of human nature as an extension of the good and evil represented by the Barber and Hynkel(Hitler).

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