Chaplins Time Traveller

[Dagless]

Interesting...

Obviously there were no cell towers back then, but there are many other ways a phone could be made to work.

 

[Alpha Dude]

The video's only a few weeks old on youtube and already has 3 million hits.

 

[Woodrow]

That movie was made only 12 years before I was born. It was still popular during the time I was a kid. Chaplin while being an extraordinary actor was also a very dominating director, producer and editor. He was very scrutinizing about who and what was in the films he had any part in. I believe he would have been aware of the woman which we see with an object in her hand. I am reasonably certain Chaplin would have had that done deliberately. Now I am trying to visualize what subtle joke Chaplin would have intended. Noticing the woman's hands and the way she is holding the object it looks like the woman is trying to play a harmonica with her ear and sing to the tune.

GADS could that be typical Chaplinesque Humor showing a woman "Who has an ear for Music" In 1928 that would have brought about considerable laughter to those who noticed that.

 

[marwen]

It's weired ! I really can't have a clear explanation of it. May be someone who lived with the people who did the movie (or their children) could have an idea. I dunno, may be also the people who watched the movie in that time (1928) directly understood what the act means.

But there is one thing that should be mentioned : we have to remember that it was just a movie. So may be it's not meant to have a real meaning. We can't base our reasoning on a movie scene which is not real and probably not realistic, and may be a coincidence. A movie needs interpretation by its creator, to know the real meaning of its acts, not like an act of reality which is directly understood and admitted. May be if it was a reality/documentary film we could have serious thoughts about it.
May be the director wanted to represent a crazy person who talks to himself, or who is stupid enough to talk to/into a piece of something (a piece of wood or a rock), and it was meant to look funny may be. I suppose the idea of talking through a small thing was a crazy idea in that time (not like today lol) and it was just used as a joke (who knows how did jokes look like in the past LOL).
So we don't need to seriously think that one person in that time used a mobile phone/device, or really knows what mobile phones are.

Another unlikely possibility is that : it could be that, in the twenties of the last century, it was a dream that people can invent one day in the future a "wireless phone", as the wired phone was invented years ago (since the 1870s) and may be they were dreaming to have one day a wire independent (mobile) phone as an improvement to the wired phone. You know people always dream of new inventions, like the space cars or teleportation that we see in sci-fi movies. May be Chaplin wanted to present a science fiction scene in his movie. It could be his own scientific prediction of what could happen in the future, as he was a very intelligent person. And maybe that dream of mobile phones stayed untill today when people achieved that dream.

Another possibility which is unlikely to happen too is, that a malicious person collected all the original copies of that movie and changed it with a scene newly made.

 

[Woodrow]

OOOps, most logical explanation. the woman was using a 1924 Sieman's Hearing aide, like the man in this picture is doing.

Check this Sieman's page: http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924

 

[Dagless]

But there is one thing that should be mentioned : we have to remember that it was just a movie. So may be it's not meant to have a real meaning. We can't base our reasoning on a movie scene which is not real and probably not realistic, and may be a coincidence. A movie needs interpretation by its creator, to know the real meaning of its acts, not like an act of reality which is directly understood and admitted. May be if it was a reality/documentary film we could have serious thoughts about it.
May be the director wanted to represent a crazy person who talks to himself, or who is stupid enough to talk to/into a piece of something (a piece of wood or a rock), and it was meant to look funny may be. I suppose the idea of talking through a small thing was a crazy idea in that time (not like today lol) and it was just used as a joke (who knows how did jokes look like in the past LOL).
So we don't need to seriously think that one person in that time used a mobile phone/device, or really knows what mobile phones are.

Another unlikely possibility is that : it could be that, in the twenties of the last century, it was a dream that people can invent one day in the future a "wireless phone", as the wired phone was invented years ago (since the 1870s) and may be they were dreaming to have one day a wire independent (mobile) phone as an improvement to the wired phone. You know people always dream of new inventions, like the space cars or teleportation that we see in sci-fi movies. May be Chaplin wanted to present a science fiction scene in his movie. It could be his own scientific prediction of what could happen in the future, as he was a very intelligent person. And maybe that dream of mobile phones stayed untill today when people achieved that dream.

Another possibility which is unlikely to happen too is, that a malicious person collected all the original copies of that movie and changed it with a scene newly made.

It was not a movie scene. The footage was taken outside the theatre before the premiere.

OOOps, most logical explanation. the woman was using a 1924 Sieman's Hearing aide, like the man in this picture is doing.

Check this Sieman's page: http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924

This was mentioned in the comments for the youtube video too but does not explain why the woman was talking into it or the size and shape difference.

 

[marwen]

OOOps, most logical explanation. the woman was using a 1924 Sieman's Hearing aide, like the man in this picture is doing.

Check this Sieman's page: http://hearing.siemens.com/sg/10-about-us/01-our-history/milestones.jsp?year=1924

^^ True ! I think it's the most close explanation. Although the hearing device is used to hear sounds not to talk in it lol, but the woman in the movie was talking in the device. May be she was trying if it works properly ;D. Or may be she was a crazy lady talking to herself : A crazy lady with hearing problems too, so she needs a hearing aid device even when she talks to herself ;D lol

 

[marwen]

It was not a movie scene. The footage was taken outside the theatre before the premiere.

Ah ok. That keeps only few possibilities.

This was mentioned in the comments for the youtube video too but does not explain why the woman was talking into it or the size and shape difference.

May be she was reciting a song or trying to memorize some text, so she needs to hear herself.

 

[Woodrow]

While it is impossible to prove a negative, I can not prove time travel is impossible. But physics does prove that matter can not be created nor destroyed through natural laws and the same object can not be in the same place at one time. A person traveling from one time to another would violate those laws as the atoms the person is made of would be in existence at the time traveled to, but in different locations. To have time travel you would have to find a way around the problem of having the same matter in 2 places at the same time.

As for the woman talking she could be speaking to somebody not in view. The object she is holding is not distinctly visible, hard to tell what it's actual size and shape is. I think the hearing aide is the most probable explanation. Just my opinion.

 

[Woodrow]

Also they were other makes of hearing aids at the time which were different shape from the Siemans, such as this 1924 Ardente, the earphone could be held in place by hand or a removable head band.

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