Adenoid Hynkel – “The Great Dictator” (1940)
Comparing anyone to Adolf Hitler is a fool’s errand, an example of the kind of hyperbole that says less about the one so accused than the person doing the accusing. And so we wouldn’t dream of comparing Trump to little-known mid-century politician Hitler; we’re going to compare him to Adenoid Hynkel instead. The centerpiece of Charlie Chaplin‘s bona fide 1940 masterpiece, Hynkel is a not-at-all-veiled approximation of Der Fuhrer, right down to stupid mustache, murderously short temper and megalomaniacal desire to “Aryanize” the world (Hynkel and Goebbels proxy Garbitch plot, after dealing with the Jews, to turn their attentions to the threat posed by “brunettes”). There are many astounding things about the film. On the level of pure craft, in his first sound film Chaplin’s mastery of the medium is evident in every frame. The wordplay and fun-with-homophones is quite dazzling. And despite the anger underpinning it, “The Great Dictator” is actually funny, leaving ample space for Chaplin to indulge in whimsical physical comedy even when the backdrop is anything but —diving into barrels, skipping along sidewalks daubed with hate speak, and as Hynkel, literally playing with the world (a balloon-globe) until it bursts and he throws a tantrum. But most remarkably, this film was developed before the outbreak of World War II and long before the Final Solution was enacted, and yet it is so uncompromising and so horribly prescient, even if the full extent of the oncoming evil was inconceivable. We can’t know what anyone will do in the future, but “The Great Dictator” proves we can make a pretty good guess, based solely on the present.
The Emperor – Various “Star Wars” Films 1980-2005
The “Star Wars” prequels didn’t achieve much of anything positive, but they did at least succeed in intriguingly fleshing out the backstory of one of cinema’s most iconic villains —Just probably not the one it was intended to. While Darth Vader was only lessened by his portrayal as Jake Lloyd’s gee-whiz boy inventor and then by Hayden Christensen’s petulant dust-kicking teen, the Emperor, the biggest big bad in a galaxy far, far away, was made a rather more interesting figure than the cypher-like guy from the original films. The Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) is a shadowy figure until “Return Of The Jedi,” but we swiftly see his despotic leanings: he’s dissolved the Imperial Senate in the first film (a classic dictator power move), and tries to wipe out the threat posed by Luke Skywalker in the second. He moves front and center finally in the third, appearing in person with a second genocide-causing superweapon, and is ready to throw out his second-in-command, Vader, who’s becoming a threat to him (it ends poorly, with Vader dumping him down a shaft). The prequels show the depth and origins of his villainy, and it’s a path deliberately reminiscent of many real-world dictators: the Emperor was once Senator Palpatine, who manipulates his way into power, then stoking fears and pulling strings behind the scenes to firm up his position before in his own Galactic version of the Night Of The Long Knives, wiping out the Jedi and their allies. We might not really know what he stands for beyond ‘ruling the Galaxy’ (a common problem with “Star Wars” villains), but he’s one of the cinema’s worst dictators nevertheless.
Senator Iselin – The Manchurian Candidate” (1962)
Remember that moment a few weeks back (or in political terms, several decades) when the old chestnut “Would you kill infant Hitler?” actually became part of the discourse? Well, it’s a hypothetical that various films have dealt with. The closest is probably “The Dead Zone” (see below), but the same moral quandary issues also arise with John Frankenheimer‘s dazzlingly weird 1962 classic, “The Manchurian Candidate” (which comes to the Criterion Collection next week, btw). In a situation a little like the one we find ourselves in right now, what’s at issue is not what a current totalitarian leader is doing, but what an incipient one may do in the future, as well as the maneuvering and manipulation being employed to bring him to power. In Frankenheimer’s film (which is so much more surreally textured and creepy than the 2004 remake), it’s the relative innocent Raymond Shaw (a perfectly blank Laurence Harvey) who is brainwashed into attempting a presidential assassination so that Vice President Iselin (James Gregory) can assume the Presidency. However, the Communists behind the brainwashing are aided by the senator’s wife (Angela Lansbury) who just so happens to be Shaw’s mother, making this one of the most twisted mother/son relationships in cinematic history. Interestingly, though it’s only a small role, Iselin’s brusque manner is clearly modeled on famed commie-hunter Sen. Joseph McCarthy, despite the fact that his wife is secretly one herself, but that points to the film’s real concern not being ideological at all. Though firmly of its time, “The Manchurian Candidate” is not so much about the Red Scare as it is about the corrosive nature of the pursuit of absolute power — it’s so rotten that it can pervert the most basic human decencies, even a mother’s love.