The Bedroom Bard

Quite possibly one of the most powerfully evocative videos that I have seen in a very long time. The video takes a speech from a scene in Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator and combines it with video footage of the turbulent uprisings currently sweeping North Africa and the Middle East. To be honest, I’d never given much thought to Chaplin before - instead passing him off as an unfunny comedian, excessively dependent on juvenile slapstick. Boy was I wrong. Despite realising that I’m teetering over the edge into the dangerous world of hyperbole, I would venture to argue that his speech (the film was written, directed and produced by Chaplin) is one of the finest ever given. Who would have thought that Chaplin, aside from being a 20s clown, was an amazing speech writer? Despite being seventy years old, the speech is just as relevant today as it was then. Essentially The Great Dictator was a parody of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi ideology, with Chaplin playing the role of dictator Adenoid Hynkel (hardly subtle!). It’s also worth keeping in mind that his film was released in 1940, at a time when nobody knew what the outcome of the war would be — and seeing things in this light, it was quite a gutsy thing for him to do. Anyway, enough rambling, please watch this and enjoy!

myheartbeatatattoo: My first University. Such good memories. I...

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:32:01 +0000

myheartbeatatattoo:

My first University. Such good memories. I would love to go back one day.

ohmygah: Nothing we have is worth hurting anyone else for....

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 18:18:35 +0000

ohmygah:

Nothing we have is worth hurting anyone else for. It’s all fleeting people. Stop seeing race, colour, sex, religion, etc… They are all just people, and if you try to love them you won’t lose anything.

These are the words of a dying man on reddit.com. I don’t think I’ve ever been so moved.