Critical Analysis of Metropolis - Essay Example

Metropolis Metropolis is considered as the one of the biggest budgeted movies that has ever been produced at Germany’s UFA. Conceivably, Metropolis, a Fritz Lang’s production, consumed astronomical resources that would have produced upwards of twenty traditional features. In the somewhat futurist tradition, the city Metropolis, which is accentuated by huge towers and vast wealth, is a concourse to a ruling elite living lavish lifestyles and decadence. They and Metropolis are taken care of by a much bigger populace of workers who labor as essential slaves in the machine factories. These slaves are depicted against the backdrop of the miserable life they lead which include tenement like homes; they work for over ten back-breaking hours nonstop. The star of the film, Freder, who is the son of Joh Frederson, the leader of Metropolis, is glaringly oblivious to the predicament of the workers or any element of their lives. Not until when a beautiful subterranean inhabitant known as Maria visits the Eternal Gardens, where Freder spends most of his time frolicking with numerous ladies, does he learn of their abject predicament. The group of small children who arrive along Maria from the laborers city below carry themselves with an air of sadness and despondency; they are hungry and appear absolutely wretched. In reality, their needy eyes apparently haunt Freder because it is something he has never seen amid the elite of the city who no less lead better lives (Bendel 12-14). When Freder follows Maria back to the underground depths of the city and witnesses a grueling accident in the machine halls where the worker toil in abject misery, the groveling scene haunts him much more. This, as a result, compels him to confront his father, but eventually, it downs upon him that the man loves and firmly believes that is appropriately right for men to live the way they do. Freder thinks for a while about the plight of the workers and decides do something about it. However, he is faced with inevitable challenge. Freder must first and foremost gather more information and trace Maria as well. With the assistance of Josaphat—Fredersen’s presently fired officer manager—he goes down the depths of the city and assumes the job of one of the workers with a view to locating Maria. For the moment, Fredersen is suddenly worried about the reverberations of discontent amid the workers and his son’s abrupt interest in their predicament. Fredersen is overly determined to eliminate Maria’s influence on his son as well as the workers (Mark 30-31). He also views the need to break the workers brewing resistance. Therefore, Fredersen plans with Rotwag to design the robot into replica Maria, and thus send her out amid the workers to inflame them to violence so that Fredersen can utilize force against them. However, the master of Metropolis does not at all auger well with Rotwag who detests Fredersen and his ruling elite. Additionally, Fredersen also does not auger well with his son Freder who not only accepts what Maria is propagating but also starts to believe that he is the mediator amidst the conflagration when the workers’ unrest begins. All of a sudden, hell breaks loose when fires and floods spread predisposing the children of the workers to doom. The city of Metropolis is then gripped by imminent danger. The movie starts by depicting the laborers and their futuristic city located deep beneath the earth’s surface. They are depicted donning similar garments, walking in unison, reclining their heads down in compliance, distraction and submission. All through the movie, the human donkey is shown as always being substantially and mentally fatigued, highly vulnerable and all-around slowpokes. The workers toil in an outrageous machine, a terrorizing industrial company where they have to achieve dreary desensitizing tasks. The workers live in dehumanizing underground dystopia, while the thinkers including architectures progress in a luminous utopia. Metropolis is a glimmering city that cannot, nevertheless, be continued without the survival of the hellish machine, Moloch. We learn from the film that mass media corrupts the masses perceptions and emotions almost nearly every day, hoodwinking them into liking their repression. Standard culture is the entertainment segment of mass media and popular music. All in all, Metropolis is basically a movie that deals with the issue of elite. It attacks the worries of those controlling the world and signifies a resolution that does not interrupt the status quo. The movie is also infused with masonic symbolism and permeated with many symbols referring to medieval mysteries (Mark 30-31). No doubt, Metropolis is disproportionately reverberated in popular culture, specifically in the music business. In most scenes, pop celebrities are frequently shown as the character Maria, an android designed to debase the morals of the laborers and to inflame a resurrection, offering the ruling class a pardon to resort to violence subjugation. In reality, the shots in the movie Metropolis utilize the Eugen Schufftan approach amount to special effects. The Schufftan approach provided the only probability for an applied solution and this was utilized a great deal. With the assistance of a partly completed constructions and minuscule Schufftan models not only sections of the devastating street scenes shot, but the impressive cathedral scenes altogether. Remarkably problematic were the impracticable shots of the Moloch machine created with the assistance of the Schufftan approach. In reality, the other shots happening with the sequence of the movement, whereupon the Schufftan model was not practical, were without doubt finished using structured constructions. These involved the shots of the traffic-packed primary access road, the outburst in the heart machine room and the cloud of dust (Abrams 40-42). By and large, the cameramen in the movie did a laudable job by designing the light effects for the scene in which the android is given life in the laboratory of the inventor, Rotwang. In the movie, this happens at the time when transmission of electric currents that pass within Maria’s human model and the android. Hence, electric currents for this kind remain absolutely unseen. At this point, however, to stress this fantastic secretive development, they were intended to be perceptible to the eye. Here, the photographic chemistry was, however, not fundamental at all (Abrams 49-42). Furthermore, personal filmstrips were revealed more frequently than not. The knowledge of photography was at best implicated. This kind of work, ideally, is complex, therefore, almost nearly everything relies on painstaking techniques and tools and, above all, upon the patience and guts of the cameramen. Without any shadow of doubt, shots like this, Metropolis brought into the mainstream film production something that was never experienced before. In reality, the restored version of the film has cryptograms of the lost scenes, sequences 5 and 6 which follow Feder’s going down to the Undercity. Meanwhile, these scenes are shown as still images with subtitles altogether. In effect, the subtitles are utilized to deliver dialogue with the view to making the film easier for a contemporary audience to digest. The original movie would have instead utilized dialogue plates following every important set of dialogue. As contemporary audiences, inured to synchronized visual tracks and audio, it is easy to discover the regular use of dialogue captions too disruptive. In effect, the intricate use of music is very striking. In the film, the music has been used as a narrative technique of much more significance than the music. Unique costume has also been used to produce the narrative component dealing with the variation between the two classes. The elite, for instance, don pale clothes designed not for working. The workers, in effect don ill-fitting dark garments which are apparently abrasive in appearance (Bendel 12-14). Hitherto, choreography and movement play their role in this narrative component. For instance, the worker’s march is in harmony in line four with dropped shoulders wherever they are walking. Ironically, the upper class move as they walk. For one thing, camera angles are intricately utilized to produce a feeling of disturbance, specifically in the series set the underground. In reality, Feder is normally short at eye level, however, in sequences 12 and 14, he is brought in Maria’s standpoint. In other different sequences, Federsen is shot from beneath with a view to advancing our consciousness of his strength. Further, Maria is shot from beneath for the same reason. For this case, in the film, camera slants are utilized as a narrative technique of extensive significance. Sound effects and color are brilliant superfluity by Moroder. In the film, these techniques are applied with graceful control. The deliberate use of color wash somehow restricts the temptation to build a naturalistic effect (Abrams 40-42). Conversely, audio effects are, thus, far utilized thriftily, for this case; sequences 28 and 29 are the most invincible. The lighting in the film is the powerful narrative technique and is utilized firstly in each every series. Maria, for instance, is immersed in holy sparkle. The laborers toil miserably in channels of intelligence which split through the darkness of anguish. In reality, when Maria dances, she appears to create a glittering light due to the solid back lighting and the firmly concentrated front and side lights. The presentation of the laborers as faceless lines and segments of a machine, is completely appropriate. Nevertheless, the problem with silent images is that everybody in them is predisposed to overact to communicate the feelings they are incapable of articulating. When Metropolis was being produced, film then as a medium was very fresh; for this case, the close-ups and exceeding close ups were a conception not yet known by many audiences. In reality, most actors were apparently stage coached to utilize their entire bodies so that they would throw a silent motion all through the entire theatre. Elusiveness was essentially non-existent which predisposes the most basic instants in the movie laughable to contemporary audiences since our cinematic knowledge establishes hammy acting (Bendel 12-14). The implication of machinery, specifically in the starting sequences, is now a theme convention. The gradual thaws from one picture to another depict the complication and devastating significance of technology in a futuristic society. Even so, the laborers are depicted a type of machine; for this case, Lang gives a warning that humans are more significant than machines. Further, the most explicit visual sign that this movie is a science fiction starts in the opening series. Accordingly, the styling of the clock is evidently futuristic. In all, women are shown in simplistic terms applying a captivating type of visual shorthand. The starting view of Maria depicts her with a shawl strung over her arms that are flung out to protect a group of poor workers’ children. For this case, the shawl produces the impression of light flooding from her hands. Consequent appearances focus on her apparent natural hair (Abrams 40-42). Works Cited Abrams, Simon. “Metropolis Film Review.” Slant Magazine. 8 May 2010: 40-42. Print. Bendel, Joe. “Metropolis’ Movie Restored: A Film Masterpiece Restored.” Epoch Times. 9 May 2010: 12-14. Print. Feldman, Leonard. Fundamentals of Surface Thin Film Analysis. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2003. Print. Geiger, Jeffery. Film Analysis: A Norton Reader. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Print. Mark, Robin. “Metropolis the Film.” Los Angeles. 14 May 2010: 30-31. Print. Mascelli, Joseph. The Five C’s of Cinematography: Motion Pictures Filming Techniques. New York: Scribner, 2009. Print. Rabiger, Michael. Directing, Third Edition: Film Techniques and Aesthetics. London: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print. Rabiger, Michael. Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics. London: Rutledge, 2006. Print. Sawiki, Mark. Filming the Fantastic: A Guide to Visual Effects Cinematography. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007. Print. Read More

 

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