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This is Charles Chaplin. He was born in 1889 (a few days before someone named Adolf Hitler... !).
His biography on Simple English Wikipedia

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Title : the Great Dictator
written in 1938
filmed in 1939
released in the USA in 1940
Genre : political satire, comedy, parody
written, directed, produced, scored by, and starring Charlie Chaplin.

First talking movie of Chaplin (only silent movies before).

The movie was forbidden in France and in the German territories until 1945.

In this film, Hitler uses the power of burlesque to show Hitler as an aggressive, ridiculous man with uninteresting, worthless ideas.

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1938 : writing the movie
- Hitler leader of Germany
- Anschluss : Austria (Österreich) and Czechoslovakia become a German territory
- Kristallnacht in Germany

1939 : filming the movie
- Poland is invaded by Germany
- War is declared by France and Britain

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Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.

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The Jewish barber (Charlie Chaplin) is the main character. Soldier for Tomania at the end of WWI, he is wounded and loses memory for 20 years. He abruptly rediscovers his country with the new rules set by Hynkel, the dictator of Tomania.

Adenoïd Hynkel (Charlie Chaplin), dictator of Tomania. He wants to conquer the world and eradicate the Jews.

Garbitsch and Herring, ministers of Hynkel.
Benzino Napaloni, dictator of Bacteria and ally to Hynkel.
Commander Schultz, officer in the Tomanian Army and friend of the Jewish barber

The people from the ghetto : Hannah, the barber's girlfriend, Mr Jaeckel, the barber's neighbour

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Let's compare what Chaplin set in his movie with what existed in real life at that time !

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Chaplin invents and uses names that do not exist but that are close enough to the real ones : people understand who he is talking about in his parody.

Garbitsch is close to garbage, which means "détritus, ordure" in French.
Herring is a fish (hareng in French).

To double cross in English means to betray.

This way, Chaplin shows that the Tomanian characters are not to be trusted, they are not good value, and the regime set by Hynkel is not reliable.

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In this scene, Hynkel appears for the first time in the movie. He makes a speech to the population in front of his officers.
He is on a high stage, with symbols on the double-cross around and behind him. He is wearing a military uniform. This is an imitation of the big Nazi congresses.

Hynkel is very brutal in his way of speaking ; even if we don't understand his language, we feel the violence of his words. He is so aggressive that the microphones bend or turn themsleves. He is yelling very often, the rythm of his sentences show his violence and the violence of his ideas.

The language is invented : we can recognised some words borrowed from French, English or German. It sounds like a parody of the German language. Even if we don't understand the words, we understand the message, as if what Hynkel sais was not meaning much : the speech and the ideas are poor, stupid. He makes a speech which is "translated" by a journalist : Hynkel talks a lot but the translation is very short, as if Hynkel talked a lot but said nothing. The translation is even perceived as ironic for some parts, even if it's an obvious tool of propaganda.

He is also aggressive in his behaviour. He shows his closed fist, he commands the applause (when it should begin, when it should end) and people obey to him immediately. He is a ruthless dictator.

He soon shows a strange way of being : he puts water in his pants or in his ear, he groans when he talks about the Jews, he chokes on his speech, his eyes are crazy-like. Those incidents turn Hynkel into a non-reliable person, a lunatic who can't be trusted ands who shouldn't be leading a country.

The ideas of Hitler (antisemitism, rejection of democracy) are shown as ridiculous.
Extract 1 (high quality)

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The whole scene (bad quality)

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The Great Dictator - Fake German Speech Scene (No "Translations")

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In this scene, Hynkel is in his office, dealing with some situations. The office is very totalitarian, with a vertical setting, emperor's statues, sun/solar decorations and big double-cross symbols on the wall. Garbitsch is with him and they talk about the next steps in their project of domination. Then Hynkel dismiss Garbitsch and stays alone, watching the Earth globe.

Very soon, the dialog vanishes to let the music play. Hynkel dances with the globe, like a ballet. The music, with the violins, is very soft, gentle, light.

Hynkel climbs the curtains when Garbitsch compares Hynkel to God ; this comparison seems to trigger off a crisis by Hynkel. The music starts, like a cuckoo sound ; cuckoo means crazy. Then Hynkel speaks no more, he just dances with the globe. At one point he even laughs, but the laugh sounds demoniac, not reassuring at all.

Here, Hynkel is no longer in public, and his behaviour is totally different from the first scene. He is gentle with the globe, as is he was with a person he loves. It's like he is dancing with his life partner a romantic dance. He is smiling to it, he always gets it back in his arms... He dances in a choreographed but ridiculous way, he is grotesque.

Unfortunately for him, in the end the globe explodes, and he weeps on his desk over the loss of his beloved world.

The explosion of the world means the impossibility for Hynkel to fulfill his dream of conquering the world ; Hynkel is crying over the loss of his "love" and the loss of his objective, as if he had lost the war. He's behaving like a 5-year-old who was playing with his ball and broke his toy, unable to master his feelings, not like a ruthless dictator conquering the world by violence.

The scene seems unreal, with the physical impossibility of climbing the curtains like Hynkel did.

The scene products feelings of tenderness, slowliness, lightness, but also domination, passion, insanity.

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Pour aller plus loin : une troisième scène

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Pour aller plus loin : une troisième scène

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The final speech

Here, the Jewish Barber has taken the place of Hynkel as he is his look-alike. Nobody noticed the change, and the "dictator" is about to make a speech to troops and civilians at the start of the invasion of Osterlich.

Compare this speech to the first one : make your own analysis and send it to your teacher !

-> In the scene we have a totally different Dictator. We would assume that this second speech is a mirror to the first one, but it's a distorted mirror. The "new" Dictator doesn't speak Tomanian anymore, he speaks English and is understandable by everyone. He speaks quietly, calmly at the beginning, without yelling, without violence. The ideas in the speech are totally different as well : we hear nothing about conquering or domination, here we are told to help and love each other.

The setting (the stage, the officers etc) are quite the same as in the first speech but the result is totally different. Nothing violent, nothing crazy, nothing unreal.

In this scene, Chaplin sends a quite long message to the supporters of totalitarian leaders such as the Nazis, to the audience in general. Hatred and domination don't have their place in our lives, and people can get rid of this violence by themselves, by refusing such leaders. Chaplin's critics are very clear in this passage, he's asking everyone to think about what they want for their future and the future of their descendants. It's a call to rebel.

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Charlie Chaplin - Final Speech from The Great Dictator

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In the movie, Charlie Chaplin uses many techniques to depict totalitarianism, dictatorship, nazism and ant-semitism as dangerous ideas that hurt people.

Chaplin uses the art of comedy and mime to turn Hynkel/Hitler into a ridiculous, grotesque man : in the gestures, in the words, in the situations. He also uses music and dance to emphasize the improbability that their ideas may come true because they are "unnatural". The filming techniques often come close to the ones Hitler used himself (low-angle shot during the speeches to make the Dictator look taller, important) to manipulate the population. The exageration of Hitler's gestures and way of speaking makes people laugh at him, getting him out all credibility : he is not to be trusted. His ballet with the globe shows Hynkel is just a spoilt child who we can't rely on, he is not to be taken seriously.

People can consider the movie as an act of resistance against dictatorships. However Chaplin didn't know how far Hitler's project concerning the Jews would go, ad he wouldn't have done the movie like he did if he had known about the extermination camps.

You can relate the movie to many other movies depicting the abuse of Nazis over the Jews. Schindler's list, La vie est belle, the "Maus" comic book...

This movie was Chaplin's most successful in terms of commercial distribution. It is considered one of the best 100 films of all times.