Unexpectedly, Movie Review!
Well, okey it's not just a movie. While reading book on design history by Jonathan M. Woodham i met notion about this movie in "Contemporary Critiques of Industrial Culture" chapter. So i decided to watch the critical viewpoint on the world of 1920s, which is "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang.
Yes, yes, it's silent black-&-white movie from old 1927. The funny thing is that with really-really technogenic times of industrial dawn in the background, the cinematic language still is naive and very theatrical yet impressive. To express how people are slaves of machines director uses ballet-like movements and rhythmes of actors acting alltogether.
Fritz Lang visited New York in 1924. He borrowed city's landscape as prototype for some stages. Later on his movie got status of classics and many artists borrowed stages from "Metropolis" as inspiration for their own masterpieces. For example, "Fifth element" (Luc Besson, 1997) replicates city of air transport in layers of atmosphere. Or this particular episode was montaged in music video for Freddy Mercurie's "Radio GaGa":
Fritz Lang, as representative of his contemporary society, was puzzled about age of machinery they lived in. Many people were simply afraid of giant mechanisms, faster and physically stronger than a human. From the movie it's also obvious that society was concerned about genetic engineering as one of central figures is being transformed into a robot (image above). Not very persuasive is the line about social split to lowest class of workers (deep underground, hellish invironment) and the high class of "sons" (paradise at penthouse level). It was so in every century of human history, with or without any cars.
On the other hand, Fritz Lang foresaw nazi's tool to kill people with gas (in movie they throw them in abstract steam). In general, there are many details invented for this movie that look even more advanced than the actual ones of those times. Something like nowadays digital creeping line appears in the main office of "the evil man". Beware!
Yes, yes, it's silent black-&-white movie from old 1927. The funny thing is that with really-really technogenic times of industrial dawn in the background, the cinematic language still is naive and very theatrical yet impressive. To express how people are slaves of machines director uses ballet-like movements and rhythmes of actors acting alltogether.
Fritz Lang visited New York in 1924. He borrowed city's landscape as prototype for some stages. Later on his movie got status of classics and many artists borrowed stages from "Metropolis" as inspiration for their own masterpieces. For example, "Fifth element" (Luc Besson, 1997) replicates city of air transport in layers of atmosphere. Or this particular episode was montaged in music video for Freddy Mercurie's "Radio GaGa":
Fritz Lang, as representative of his contemporary society, was puzzled about age of machinery they lived in. Many people were simply afraid of giant mechanisms, faster and physically stronger than a human. From the movie it's also obvious that society was concerned about genetic engineering as one of central figures is being transformed into a robot (image above). Not very persuasive is the line about social split to lowest class of workers (deep underground, hellish invironment) and the high class of "sons" (paradise at penthouse level). It was so in every century of human history, with or without any cars.
On the other hand, Fritz Lang foresaw nazi's tool to kill people with gas (in movie they throw them in abstract steam). In general, there are many details invented for this movie that look even more advanced than the actual ones of those times. Something like nowadays digital creeping line appears in the main office of "the evil man". Beware!
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