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Metropolis, 1927, Director: Fritz Lang

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Metropolis, 1927, Director: Fritz Lang SOURCES 1.Kaes, Anton, *Weimar Cinema,* Columbia University Press: New York 2009. 2.Ott, Fred, *The Films of Fritz Lang*, Lyle Stuart: New York 1979. 3. "Women's Pioneer Project," Columbia University Library Services, wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pionee r/ccp-thea-von-harbou/ SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT Inspired, according to Lang, by his first impression of the Manhattan skyline in 1924, Metropolis was written in 1924 and released nine years after Germany's defeat in World War I, and like all great sci-fi films, reflects both the hopes and the fears of a turbulent society heading towards modernization. In part a meditation on the future relationship between the human and the machine in this modernity. Metropolis is "a great cinematic document of German Expressionism" which "fulfilled the expressionist Weltanschauung that a work of art should [...] finally propound the belief that through the destruction and BRIGITTE HELM, 1906-1996, star of Metropolis (along with rebirth of the world, a new and pure humanity will Gustav Frolich as Feder and Rudolf Klein Rogge as CINEMATOGRAPHY IN CHANGING OF THE SHIFT Rotwang, who also played Caligari in The Cabinet of Dr. arise: the dawn of the Kingdom of Love," while also Caligari and Dr. Mabuse in Dr. Mabuse the Gambler and reflecting that era's fascination with cubism and SCENE The Testament of Dr. Mabuse) in which she played both the futurism (Ott 124). (relationship of sociocultural context to cinematic element) good-hearted working girl Maria and her evil robot doppleganger. One of the most startling and memorable In this scene from the beginning of the film, scenes in the movie is her mesmerizing, lascivious dance in a brothel. we see the changing of the shift of the underground city workers. Dressed identically in factory overalls and caps, they Metropolis, 1927, march silently in opposing rows down a long tunnel to and from the gated elevators, their director: Fritz Lang gait synced in a dirge-like procession. Beginning with a long shot of both rows of men trudging towards one another, the camera then cuts to medium shots of the men from the back and from the side, never FRITZ LANG, 1890-1976, considered one of the greatest and most influential of all German Expressionist filmmakers, once humanizing an individual worker with a emigrated from Germany to America in 1933, where he close-up. The effect of this cinematography continued to make films, especially film noirs. Notable films is to emphasize the fear that in the future include: Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924), M, 1931, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, 1933, Fury, hyper-industrialized world, men will become 1934, Scarlet Street, 1945, and The Big Heat, 1953. faceless slaves whose work is a march to death. POLITICAL CONTEXT THEA VON BARBOU, 1988-1954, German After Germany's defeat in World War I, the Versailles Treaty forced screenwriter, novelist, film director and actress, best known as the author and screenwriter of Metropolis. Germany to relinquish land and pay billions of dollars in reparations to the Also worked with F. W. Murnau on Phantom (1922), Allied Nations. This caused the nation to spiral into a deep Depression and with Lang on Spies, 1928, M, 1931, and The and fostered a deep resentment which Fascist and Communist forces Testament of Dr. Mabuse, 1933. Married to Lang from exploited as they began to consolidate power in the German government. 1922-1933. When Nazis came to power, Lang emigrated to America, while she stayed in Germany Although later appropriated by the Nazi Party to justify a pure racial and continued to work as a successful screenwriter for community in which the interests of the individual were always the Nazi Party (Women Film Pioneers Project). subordinated to the interests of the nation, during the Weimar Republic the idea of "Volksgemeinschaft" argued for a German "people's community" that would reenergize Germany and bring about an end to the class distinctions and struggle that ravaged the country after the War. INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT With the end of World War I, the creative era of the Weimar Period ushered in a true Golden Age of German Cinema, with directors Ernst Lubitsch, Robert Wiene, Fritz Lang, F.W.Murnau, G.W.Pabst, and Joseph von Sternberg and producers Eric Pommer and Max Reinhardt all making a significant mark on this still relatively new art form. Made by UFA, Germany's greatest studio, and advertised as "a film of titantic dimensions," Metropolis was the most expensive and ambitious European film production to date, with a cost of 5.3 million Reichsmark, and more than 37,000 actors and extras (Kaes 173). Featuring the work of the great cinematographers Karl Freund and Eugene Shufftan, the film offered a level of technical "Kniffe," or photographic trickery, which Freund called "unknown to our age" (Ott 124)..
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