Nov 23 2008
Muse and Charlie Chaplin
So, I was once advised to just consider everything on the Internet as shit until it could prove otherwise with a handy ethereal certificate of “Not Shit” or something. This is because the Internet lacks quality control. This can be easily illustrated by looking at any number of comments below the videos posted on YouTube or MySpace or, indeed, the videos themselves. I once saw a grown man dressed in a not very well fitting cat suit play piano - very terribly after drinking a cup of milk like a cat - on public television. This was before I had an Internet connection and this was also about the time that I decided that television was a massive drain on my life and decided to just not watch it anymore. I still catch glimpses of flickering squawk boxes at my friends house’s and such and am now very aware of the dangerous and hypnotic power that television has, like it’s got a plate of fresh chocolate strawberries in front of it with a sign that says “Please, sit and enjoy.”
Sorry. I’ve been falling further off the precipice of this post’s topic. My point is that there is shit all around us, like being locked in a septic tank, and it’s hard for us to find anything truly good among that sea of egesta. That’s why I feel the urge to share the good things I find with the public because I’m sure there’s at least a couple people out there that quest for something better as I do.
I’ve never been into silent movies, so I didn’t really know much about Charlie Chaplin, and I’m not really into psychedelic rock or rock in general, so Muse is news to me. It took a new Watchmen trailer for me to find this video. When I saw the trailer I thought, “That music is really cool, I wonder who does it,” and, working to answer that question, I found a not so useless comment that named the band responsible as Muse. I then searched for Muse on YouTube and eventually found the song I was looking for, “Take A Bow.” When I scrolled down the search results, I found a clip with a description that said it also included Charlie Chaplin’s “Emperor Speech.” I never knew Charlie Chaplin did anything with spoken dialogue and was further intrigued by the subsequent images from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “A Clockwork Orange,” and several other horrific and mesmerizing clips. Let me wrap this up by saying it was a very stark portrayal of the brutality of man that ended with one of the more inspiring speeches I’ve ever heard. I heartily recommend it and would like to thank Morganiser for creating such a poignant video.
