Essay Database

“The ordinary practitioners of the city live “down below” the thresholds at which visibility begins…they are walkers “wandesrmaenner”, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an urban text.” In “Modern Times” Charlie Chaplins character is the quintessential “walker” .His home is the public places of the city .In this sense he could be easily compared to Walter Benjamins “Flaneur”. However his role as a working class laborer, searching for money, food and shelter …

…of the streets. This is because he is a self made Flaneur. A man who came from the working class and strived to become a member of the affluent upper classes. It is for this reason that his mechanical comic rhythm and style seem so authentically to come from the crowded city. It is also the reason why the Flaneurs fear of this bustling, faceless mass and his need to escape it pervade his film.