...Charles Dong Cultural Foundation III Professor Bauman Essay #2 Metropolis ----The Shift From Mechanical Technology To Electrical Technology Arguably the most influential Science Fiction film of all time, Fritz Lang's “Metropolis” (1926) is one of those remarkable works that provides the audience with both visual enjoyments from its high aesthetic standard and spiritual value from the hidden significances. As one of the most widely known films of the silent era, “Metropolis” engages people to think, particularly how to resolve the fragmentation that technology has brought to society, which is also one of the themes of Marshall McLuhan develops in his book Understanding Media. Both Lang and McLuhan are revolutionary artists who are aware of the damage of technology to our society and urge unity, which McLuhan names it “Global Village.” Let’s first take a look at the opening of this movie. The film begins with a montage of the great machines of Metropolis–phallic industrial images of gears, pistons, generators–moving in inexorable rhythms and repetition. These images are followed by sequences that establish economic and technological relationships in clearly delineated spatial terms. Under ground, where the workers toil, we see the dark side of technology. Here, where the sun never shines, workers are reduced to robots, their movements dominated by the mechanical rhythms of machines. But all in a sudden, the screen is switched a charming, or even paradise-like, scene. On...
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...The Occult Symbolism of Movie “Metropolis” and its Importance in Pop Culture Fritz Lang’s 1927 movie “Metropolis” is one of those timeless classics that withstand the test of time. Rather than becoming forgotten and obsolete, “Metropolis” is increasingly relevant as many of its predictions are becoming reality. We will look at the underlying occult message of the film and the usage of its imagery in the acts of pop stars such as Lady Gaga, Madonna, Beyonce, Kylie Minogue and others. Metropolis is a silent science-fiction movie released in 1927 by Fritz Lang, a master of German Expressionism. Set in a futuristic dystopia divided into two distinct and separate classes—the thinkers and the workers—Metropolis describes the struggles between the two opposite entities. Knowing that it was produced in 1927, viewing this movie today is quite an experience as many “sci-fi” aspects of the plot are eerily close to reality. Metropolis describes a society where the “New World Order” has already taken been implemented and a select elite live in luxury while a dehumanized mass work and live in a highly monitored hell. As we have seen in previous articles on The Vigilant Citizen, Metropolis is excessively echoed in popular culture, especially in the music business. Whether it be in music videos or photo shoots, pop stars are often portrayed as the character Maria, an android programmed to corrupt the morals of the workers and to incite a revolt, giving the elite an excuse to use...
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...In Fritz Lang’s German Expressionist film Metropolis (1927) and George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), both composers express the dangerous effects of tyrannical and demagogical leadership. In exploring the quote ‘If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever,’ Lang presents a perspective that both challenges and restores our faith in humanity, where an autocratic leader falls to his knees in a cry for mercy while Orwell aims to shatter it, with the subjugation of the rebellious protagonist. Both Orwell and Lang explore this through their contextual paradigms, demonstrating it through the apotheosis of human power, where both leaders’ ‘demi-god-like’ status produces an opaque view of reality and excess materialism. It is also revealed through a distorted sense of...
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...TRACES OF MODERNISM IN ART The ancient parallel between literature and visual arts –i.e. painting, sculpture and architecture becomes newly relevant in the twentieth century. Painters were the first to explore the revolutionary possibilities of modernism, so that painting became the leading art form. Modernism refers to the style and ideology of art produced between the 1860s and the 1970s. As traditional art forms had become outdated due to industrialization, modernism emerged in Western Europe out of a need to reject tradition and embrace the political, social and economic change of the industrial age. Modernism was embodied by a new generation of artists whose work was characterized by a variety of styles and subject choices that flew in the face of accepted convention. While, generally speaking, it challenged a number of aesthetic principles, modernism ultimately gave rise to a variety of movements and styles. The great progenitor of modernist revolt was the impressionist movement in the second half of the nineteenth century in France. Impressionist painters made colorful style of painting, characterized as impressionism. Impressionism attaches great importance to our perception of contrasts and light, something that is accurately expressed through the seasons. Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral in full sunlight was a famous painting, other than this Pierre Auguste Renoi, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Henri de Toulouse Lautrec are among the most important impressionist painters...
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...this argument will undoubtedly attack the statement, by saying that: Despite the large advancements in science and technology due to robotics, many texts theorise that this sector of technology poses a massive threat to the human race. To further defend this point two key texts will be addressed, they include: I, Robot, a fictional movie that exemplifies the fact that Robots can take over humanity and an article from renowned author George Dvorsky who ponders over the possibility of Robots becoming sentient and fighting for their rights, resulting in the end of human beings. Using both the fictional and non-fictional text it will be proven beyond doubt that future robotics pose a massive threat to the human race. Ever since Fritz Lang’s, Metropolis movie, robots have been a reappearing figure in the film industry and are often represented as a threat to the future world. A prime example of this is the text I, Robot. When hitting the screens in 2004, I, Robot, brought about some opposing debates about robotics, ultimately arguing whether future robotics will be beneficial or harmful. The beginning of the film consists of the creator of robots, Dr. Lanning committing suicide. However Detective...
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...Film Noir Lighting comparison with Ridley Scott's “Blade Runner”. Menelaos Pampoukidis 3. Choose a film, TV show, music video or advertisement and discuss how the directing OR editing OR lighting style and choices inform its narrative form, genre and theme(s). Consider the film or show in its entirety and demonstrate your understanding and awareness of directing OR editing qualities. How lightning style and choices inform Ridley Scott's “Blade Runner”(1982) narrative, genre and theme. In early 1940s, soon after the second World War, a new film genre started to develop. Almost, twenty years later Nino Frank, influenced by the France “Black Book”, gave it the name Film Noir. “Product of a multifaceted interaction between developments within particular genres – the gangster/crime film and the Gothic melodrama – fluctuating conditions of production and reception within the American industry, and more diffuse cultural movements.”1 The early Film Noir was profoundly influenced by the depression of the war. Hard boiled, dark, devious and cynical, it was originally based on German expressionism and later on Italian neorealism in order to create it's individual style and unique iconography. “As expressionists motifs supplied Noir's dark undercurrents, the Neo-Realist influence that appeared after war introduced a documentary flavour to American thrillers”2 As Film Noir kept progressing many elements were added to the prime features, expanding the range of the genre...
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...Niall Martin Lit – 101 – 057 Professor Scahill April 18th, 2014 Final Paper A Splice of the Future The theme of the mega-corporation runs deep in the history of science-fiction a genre that is continually evolving to reflect today’s technology. As far back as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), and as recently as James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), mega-corporations have served as the physical embodiment of the absence of humanity. Furthermore, these films continue to generate more complex and more compelling perceptions of the relationship between humans and technology, which is often made manifest in the mega-corporation. As often as the identity of the “natural” human may be called into question, in nearly all of these films the character the audience perceives to be most human is victorious in the end. Cameron’s Avatar, for instance, sees the protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) remain on the alien world of Pandora in the body of an alien. Although not innately human in form, it is Jake’s preserved sense of morality and his ability to sympathize with the other characters that give him his sense of humanity. However, in Vincenzo Natali’s Splice (2009), the victory does not lie with the most human characters, but rather with the dehumanizing corporation, which threatens to recreate all of humanity in its likeness. Natali argues that the creation of Dren (Delphine Chanéac) represents the future of humanity in the sense that humans are becoming creatures with equal parts human...
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