Chaplin Meets Inception: The Final Speech of The Great Dictator

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.