Charlie Chaplin is said to have added his 4 1/2 minute final speech to The Great Dictator (1940) only after Hitler’s invasion of France. The speech both showcases the actor’s considerable dramatic gifts and makes a prescient, eloquent plea for human decency. So the idea of adding any kind of extra music, especially a composition by the frequently bombastic Hans Zimmer, might seem like first gilding the lily and then dousing it with lysol and neon paint. But we think this Zimmer track from the 2010 sci-fi head trip hit Inception actually kinda works. Give it a look/listen and let us know what you think.
You can find The Great Dictator and many other Chaplin films in our collection of Free Movies Online.
via @stevesilberman
Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly.
That was pretty powerful stuff.
And…you got Zimmer’s permission to use his music did you?
Being intentionally ironic are we?
http://www.openculture.com/2011/06/youtubecreative_commons_partnership.html
I agree that it works but I don’t think it was mixed properly. There were sections where the music was almost so loud that you couldn’t hear what Chaplin was saying and I think the real power is in his words.
Music is too loud.
Brilliant idea to mix these two but poor balance – music to loud in second half.
Whoever created the video seems to have produced another version with better sound. So we have updated the video…
Whoever created the video seems to have produced another version with better sound. So we have updated the video…
Curiously, a well written post