Modern Metropolis, By Fritz Lang

This weekend I watched on Netflix the film Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang) and from the film I have found some detailed examples about how the movie itself expresses the German Expressionist theme of alienation/dehumanization resulting from the industrial revolution that moved laborers from agriculture/farm life to factory life in the city. The first example that relates to this theme would be when the movie begins and the underground-dwelling workers toil to operate the underground machines that power the city while the higher class people are living better lives. This stands out to the theme because it provided a vivid visual of the underground-dwelling workers working very hard to keep the city going and in return they weren’t appreciated

Though the film's titular city is a gleaming landscape of technological advancement it is through the hands of the arcane inventor Rotwang that the film's most stunning creation comes into being. Like Frankenstein revisiting “outdated” natural philosphers for his inspiration, Joh Frederson, the figurehead of Metropolis and the man to whom technology means the most, turns to the aged inventor in hopes of pushing technology even further. The visit to Rotwang is like a visit to the past: his house is the only edifice we see that is in no way modern (in fact it has such a clapboard appearance when held against the rest of Metropolis that ir

Confidence is the key people think to be a modern person is dressing some certain or people need to look some type of way. Don’t compare being a women is hard when there is lots of competition and “hate”. Don’t follow popularity don’t follow the crowd that only destroys the soul. People don’t have to be “modern” even when it was the 1920’s people weren’t modern and even now in 2016 there isn’t no modern because no one is

Person faces now like for example in the Great Gatsby those were the good old hard working days that a modern person had to face. In the Great Gatsby,Nick,Tom and Gatsby are all hard working modern people well Nick is anyway but my point here is to be a modern person you

I’m not against society in certain aspects, but I’m very optimistic that one day what C. Wright Mills calls the “sociological imagination” will be achieved. Something that I do like about our society and future metropolis is the order it keeps. The smaller parts. I liked kept order. Having regulated rules against things like rape and murder are a good thing. Because you know, we really do need the law against murder, because “it’s the number one thing preventing murder”. But I draw the line when it comes to ordering us around and everything erupts, and we’re run down into the ground like lifeless beings. That don’t fly. I still feel like the metropolis is an unreachable goal though, because of milieu. The fact that our social environment revolves around living in this so called “system”. I don’t see the metropolis as a society but more or less as some sort of quasi future nazi camp. It all reminds me of “Brave New World”. I see everybody taking their SOMA, living it up(but really society has just tricked them into thinking their living a true life but really they’re being controlled) and having pretty boring ass life. I think of the metropolis as more of a symbol. But not as a symbol for something like “a better future” or having the metropolis be something to strives towards. I think that society itself created the idea and we lie to ourselves, thinking that oh maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to get

In order to establish a form of governance in which the society benefits, citizens are oppressed and personal freedoms are restricted. The oppression of citizens can be seen in the movie Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang. Two social classes exist in Metropolis: thinker and workers. The thinkers are restricted to the upper world and the workers are restricted to the underground. The thinkers live a seemingly carefree life whereas the workers toil consistently to provide electricity to the upper world. The workers have long shifts, work in ceaseless and dangerous conditions, are stripped of individuality, walk slowly

According to Garcia de Leon the film unequivocally affirms “Modernity is licentiousness. The city is disorder, chaos. The village is proper, the just. The urban man is an errant man. The rural man is a wise man”.

This loss of identity inherent within the lower class of ‘Metropolis’ is evident through the prevailing social hierarchies that mirror the Marxist ideology within the Weimar Republic. Emphasised through the composition of clocks in the opening montage, the geometric idiosyncrasy of the 10-hr clock representing the worker's shift, directly contrasts the smaller 24-hr clock, placed above to demonstrate upper class superiority. This social division is further enhanced through the contrast in soundtracks, featuring stylistic elements of the Romantic Era in symbolism of freedom and expression of those within the ‘Eternal Garden’. This is juxtaposed against the solemn anthem accompanying the worker’s descent into the depths, using a minor key to reflect their somnambulant state and lack of individuality. Evidently the proletariats, rendered to mere extensions of the machine, are subjugated for commercial and political gains of the bourgeoisie, paying the price with individuality to uphold their utopia. This exploitation reflects the growing value of technology over humanity, reinforced through the religious iconography of ‘Moloch’ and the worker’s willing sacrifice to feed the machine. Thus, Lang’s portrayal of worker exploitation in reflection of the class struggles of 1920’s, reveals

Who is Fritz Lang? Fritz Lang is the most accomplished and renown director of his time. He only had begun as a scriptwriter, his form of work was romantic, sentimental and lyrical. Fritz Lang dealt with a man’s inevitable work out of destiny that I considered to be a masterpiece of visual art style and poetic fear. One of his works Metropolis was a tale of the future with special effects that caught many viewers attention, this film not only was a success but it did have a down spiral for being an outrageously cost that almost bankrupted UFA because the high quality of mise-en-scene. UFA was a large film production in Europe that owned thousands of theaters. What I truly enjoyed about Metropolis (1927) was the doubling, it showed two parts

Humanist ideas, the declination of the Catholic Church, and the printing press are all events and creations that began the “Modern Era” of Europe. They come together and intertwine to lead to the “Modern Era” because they all had to do with the people, and humans themselves. Humans started to evolve in the way they thought because they broke away from the Church, they were able to learn, and they created a pathway for themselves that lead to different things. These are all reasons of how the “Modern Era” began.

Modernity, it is a macro process of transition from traditional to modern society. “Formation of a modern political map of the world began in early 1800 in Western Europe and maybe characterized as the product of the twin revolutions.” European colonization of the New World, the economic and political development of new territories led to significant changes in the political map. Modernity it is a complex of multi-faceted process that took a place in Europe during the 18th century and had covered all aspects of society. The modernity of the production meant the industrialization - is constantly growing use of machines. In the social sphere modernization is closely linked with urbanization, an unprecedented growth of cities, which led to prevailing in the economic life of society. In the political sphere modernity meant the democracy of political structures, laying the preconditions for the formation of a civil society and rule of law. In the spiritual realm associated with secularization -: the release of all spheres of public and private life from the separation of religion and the church, their worldliness and intensive development of literacy, education, scientific knowledge. All of these are inextricably linked to each other processes of change emotional attitudes of man,

Metropolis (1927) is a movie that should be described as a technical marvel, or a film as soulless as its story’s manufactured woman. The movie scenes are characterized with cinematic imagination, an astounding stage and hordes of women and men. However, it is seldom to judge the film based on its narrative due to the factor that it is unconvincing and also extremely theatric at times. The narrative is based on the novel about an inventor who creates women from a real woman without harming the latter. Mary who is created seems to be under control not until she mobilizes workers to rebel against a wealthy man in Metropolis. The movie clearly indicates the different lifestyles of the laborers. As we can see on the beginning of movie, they are

The term modern changes over time in order to correlate with the change of time and to always stay parallel to the impermanent present. Modern relates to the present but is interpreted differently by individuals throughout time. The definition has always stayed the same over time, but the reality behind word changes. As time progresses, “ What's considered modern changes”(Samantha Craigin). The problem with using the word modern is that it doesn't cover a specific, but a subjective span of time. Unlike terms like decade, century, millennium, etc, which cover a fixed amount of time (ten years, one hundred years, one thousand years), modern doesn’t cover a designated amount of time but only vaguely defines the present time. This leaves how long

There are many different perspectives on the growth of modernity. Society is constantly changing as more time passes by. People like Emile Durkheim and Max Weber both offer their own individual perspective on how the growth of modernity came about and how we have come to understand today’s society. In the 1890s period Emile Durkheim a sociologist, in France watched the transformation of society go from a ‘primitive’ stance into something more complex also known as ‘organic solidarity’. Max Weber a German sociologist on the other hand, his view was in regards to how the growth of government was a driving force in modernity to maintain order, organisation and administration of specialised functions. Both theses sociologists’ theories are

The term Modernity was coined by Charles Baudelaire. It also refers to post medieval, post traditional historical period which is marked by a move from feudalism towards modernization (capitalism, industrialisation, rationalisation). But conceptually, it also relates to the modern era and to modernism, but forms a distinct concept.