最近、「人生はクローズアップで見れば悲劇 ロングショットで見れば喜劇」なんていうチャップリンのただならぬ言葉をリトィートしていましたら「独裁者」の“あの演説”をまた観たくなりました。
「独裁者」、最後の演説。
I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an Emperor – that’s not my
business – I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help
everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one
another, human beings are like that.
We all want to live by each
other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and
despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the 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; has
goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.We
have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives
abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our
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
aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of
these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal
brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions
throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children,
victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To
those who can hear me I say “Do not despair”.
The
misery that is now 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 from the people, will return to the people and so long as
men die [now] liberty will never perish…
Soldiers
– don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you – who
regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who
drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, 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 your hearts. You don’t hate – only the unloved hate.
Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers – don’t fight for slavery, fight
for liberty.
In
the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written ” the kingdom of God is
within man ” – not one man, nor a group of men – but in all men – in you, the
people.
You
the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create
happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to
make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use
that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world
that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age
and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but
they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free
themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that
promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do
away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason,
a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers
– in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
『神の国は実にあなたがたのただ中にあるのだ』聖書 ルカ１７章２１節
マック
追伸：水を差すようですが「Reason（理性）」とか「Democracy（民主主義）」が最後の寄り所になるとは私には思えません（当時の時代背景が多分にあると思います）。しかし、それにしても１９４０年にこの映画が公開されたということを考えると、やはりチャップリンってただ者ではありません。