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Metropolis

Metropolis is a 1927 German science fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang that depicts a dystopian futuristic city dominated by a wealthy elite ruling over an oppressed working class. The film follows Freder, the son of the city's powerful master, who discovers the underground city inhabited by the workers. A woman named Maria gives the workers hope for a better future. Freder's father has a scientist duplicate Maria's face onto a robot to deceive the workers. The robot leads the workers to destroy the machines powering the city, threatening to flood it. Freder and the real Maria save the children from the flood. Freder then works to mediate between the classes and bring reconciliation to Metropolis.

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367 views

Metropolis

Metropolis is a 1927 German science fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang that depicts a dystopian futuristic city dominated by a wealthy elite ruling over an oppressed working class. The film follows Freder, the son of the city's powerful master, who discovers the underground city inhabited by the workers. A woman named Maria gives the workers hope for a better future. Freder's father has a scientist duplicate Maria's face onto a robot to deceive the workers. The robot leads the workers to destroy the machines powering the city, threatening to flood it. Freder and the real Maria save the children from the flood. Freder then works to mediate between the classes and bring reconciliation to Metropolis.

Uploaded by

Georgenwosisi123
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Metropolis

(Figure 01)

Metropolis is a science-fiction black and white silent movie also noting that this movie was also the inspiration to other movies as it was the beginning of science fiction movies in cinema. Metropolis is a German expressionist science fiction movie that was created in 1927 and was directed by Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang who was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor but sadly passed away in

August 2, 1976 and was also written with him and hes wife Thea Gabriele von Harbou who also passed away on July 1, 1954. Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of Mr.Joh Fredersen who is the ruler of Metropolis. The story starts off with Freder monitoring the workers as a woman came through the door with an amount of young kids that are also workers, this woman was named Maria. Maria was the ushered to leave the premises. Joh Fredersens son, Freder was the in search of the he had just noticed. In the process there was an explosion on one of the machines which cause death and injured most of the workers. Freder was then quick to report the situation of the explosion to hes father who was the infuriated on the fact that he heard it from hes son and not from hes worker Josaphat who was then sacked for that reason. Maria is the person gives the workers hope with her prophecies for a better future in the catacombs which is an underworld city where the workers work, shes the one the workers look up to and they hope that one day the mediator would appear. Mr. Joh Fredersen, Freders father also knows about Marias influence on the proletariat and fears for his power. Mr. Joh Fredersen then orders for Rotwang who is a scientist to give Marias face to the robot in order to send it to the underground city to deceive and stir up its inhabitants for the workers. Maria was the captured and her face was then duplicated unto the face of the robot which then seemed more evil that Maria. The Robot Maria then deceived the workers to destroy the heart of the machine doing this will cause Metropolis to be tremendously flooded. The real Maria and Freder gathered the children to safety from the flood. When the workers found out that the Robot Maria was fake she was then captured and burnt, in the meanwhile Rotwang pursued Maria across the rooftop where he falls to hes death in a fight scene with Freder. In conclusion of the movie Freder devoted himself to his father, mediating between him and the workers for peace and reconciliation.

Image (figure 2) shows the transformation scene when Rotwang the scientist duplicated the face of Maria unto the one

(Figure 02) The

of the robot. This is shown to be one of the best classed and influential scenes in its era because of the use of camera and the effects that was used during the duplication of Maria, the sound and the camera angle with the close up shots give the audience the feel that something bad and evil is about to take place No accident at all, in fact, the most of the most famous moments in the film center on Maria the robot: not only because Helm gives the only performance in the movie that is particularly good, or particularly anything, but because this first robot in feature-length cinema speaks so powerfully to the dehumanisation of society that makes up the meat and potatoes of Metropolis(Tim Brayton, 2011)

(figure 03)

Another thing about Metropolis was the huge visual of its skyscraper with all the buildings and the tower of Bebel Lang was no doubt cognizant of Le Corbusier's utopian "Radiant City," and his skyscrapers represent a Futurist ideal of transcendence via machine: The city's sharp angles and vertical thrust are arrogantly anti-Nature(David Edelstein, 2002). As we could see for its era they took time adding planes and helicopter to show the richness of Metropolis. In conclusion I really enjoyed Metropolis in the fact that it was also influenced with art deco and I also came to the satisfaction of how they use the sound to narrate what was going on in the scene.

Images
Figure 01 - http://www.dbcovers.com/imagenes/posters/metropolis//metropolis_8.jpg Figure 02 - http://chanarchive.org/content/12_tv/18733667/1317764004115.jpg Figure 03 - http://davidszondy.com/future/city/Metropolis%2001.jpg

Bibliography
David Edelstein - http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2002/09/radiant_city.html
(accessed online on 4 October 2012) Tim Brayton - http://antagonie.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/blockbuster-history-robots-in-disguise.html (accessed online on 4 October 2012)

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