Accessibility links
Charlie Chaplin Charlie Chaplin
Stories About

Charlie Chaplin

Hollywood and tyrants: How filmmakers take on the powerful

Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator. Roy Export SAS hide caption

toggle caption
Roy Export SAS

Movies

Hollywood and tyrants: How filmmakers take on the powerful

A look at how Hollywood has depicted authoritarians, from Duck Soup to The Last King of Scotland.

Hollywood and tyrants: How filmmakers take on the powerful

Listen · 7:59
Transcript
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1095304319/1095365267" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
On Failing To Spot Gibberish

President Barack Obama speaks at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in Johannesburg. Standing to his right, Thamsanqa Jantjie gestures as if he is interpreting the speech for the deaf community. Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images

Opinion

13.7: Cosmos And Culture

On Failing To Spot Gibberish

The case of Thamsanqa Jantjie, the "fake" sign-language interpreter at the Mandela memorial, raises lots of interesting questions, says commentator Alva Noë, including some about our perception of language.

Browse archive or search npr.org