I am sorry, but I do not want to be an emperor. That is not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone: Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other happiness, not misery. We do not want to hate one another. There’s room for everyone. The good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, and has goose-stepped us into bloodshed. We have developed speed but have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, or cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and radio have brought us closer. These inventions cry out for the goodness in man, for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions around the world, millions of despairing men, women and children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can here me I say, do not despair. The misery upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took with return to the people. So long as men die liberty will never perish. Soldiers, don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, regiment your lives, tell you what to think and feel, who drill you, treat you like cattle and use you as cannon fodder! Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men! You have the love of humanity in you. You don’t hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural hate. Soldiers don’t fight for slavery. Fight for liberty! St Luke says,’ The kingdom of God is within man.’ Neither one man nor a group of men, but all men. You! The people have the power! The power that to create machines, to create happiness. You have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. In the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite! Let us fight for a new world. A decent world that gives men a chance to work, youth a future and old age a security. By promising these things, brutes have risen. But the lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight t o free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to the happiness of all. Let us all unite!
Wherever you are. The clouds are lifting, the sun us breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into light. We are coming into a new world, a kindlier world where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality. Look up! The soul of man has been given wings. He is flying into the rainbow, into the light of hope, into the future. The glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up! Look up!
~ The great dictator : the final speech ~
這篇演詞,擇錄自 Charlie Chaplin 的電影《大獨裁者》。電影上畫時,正值二次世界大戰爆發。他飾演誰?在電影中,一人分飾兩角:猶太人理髮師和雙十字獨裁者。理髮師和獨裁者相貌相像,誤打誤撞被當成獨裁者,更要在奧地利對著千萬人民及世界發表公開演說。。這番話,是屬於理髮師的心聲,卻和獨裁者心思相違背。
獨裁者是誰?我想看了他的角色造型就清楚明白他在扮演那一位瘋狂的大人物了。據記錄,希特勒也曾看過這齣擺明車馬反對他,反納粹的電影。。這篇演講詞及電影,既是拍給世界每一個地方的人民看,也是特意拍給希特勒看的。
Charlie Chaplin 作為一個演藝界的人,竟敢公開表明他個人立場,拍出這樣揶揄希特勒的電影,也旗幟鮮明地反對戰爭,反對希特勒及納粹,是難能可貴的勇敢。
這份情操和精神,非常值得我們這一代人借鏡。