Fritz Langs' Metropolis: A Contemporary Symphony of Fear
source: http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/metropolis-a-contemporary-symphony-of-fear/
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“Metropolis” is set in the year 2026, amidst the extraordinary Gothic skyscrapers of a corporate city-state, the metropolis of the title. Society has been divided into two rigid groups. One is composed of the intellectuals, planners and thinkers, who live high above the earth in comfort and luxury. The other group is made up of the laboring workers who live in a subterranean underground, a conceivable image of hell, constantly toiling in a vast workshop in order to sustain the opulent lives of the privileged ones.
The direct inspiration for Fritz Lang to make “Metropolis” in 1927 came from an earlier trip that he made to New York City. Eighty years later, as New York has actually become the grievous icon of life in the new century, suddenly “Metropolis” has become more realistic and important than ever before. Today, one of Lang’s messages to us is: “We live in fear, our minds, houses and cities became our prisons. Evil done to others turns against us.” The Metropolis, which Lang constructed in his film, is now our own contemporary world.
The film's portrayal of brutal capitalism and the importance of compassion remain hugely relevant, as does its message, “There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator.” However, those in positions of power and wealth today have grown accustomed to ignoring that social message.
Further, our world has degenerated into a fragmented series of images, the meanings of which we often cannot understand, and which we often can no longer integrate into a comprehensible whole. In a sense, we are losing the key to our mind. “Metropolis” has become a foreboding journey into the mind of contemporary man: deep down there, one discovers only fear.
This piece includes a number of vintage b&w photographs from the film and a full-length version of the movie, with music re-scored by Lucas Brode.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/metropolis-a-contemporary-symphony-o...
The direct inspiration for Fritz Lang to make “Metropolis” in 1927 came from an earlier trip that he made to New York City. Eighty years later, as New York has actually become the grievous icon of life in the new century, suddenly “Metropolis” has become more realistic and important than ever before. Today, one of Lang’s messages to us is: “We live in fear, our minds, houses and cities became our prisons. Evil done to others turns against us.” The Metropolis, which Lang constructed in his film, is now our own contemporary world.
The film's portrayal of brutal capitalism and the importance of compassion remain hugely relevant, as does its message, “There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator.” However, those in positions of power and wealth today have grown accustomed to ignoring that social message.
Further, our world has degenerated into a fragmented series of images, the meanings of which we often cannot understand, and which we often can no longer integrate into a comprehensible whole. In a sense, we are losing the key to our mind. “Metropolis” has become a foreboding journey into the mind of contemporary man: deep down there, one discovers only fear.
This piece includes a number of vintage b&w photographs from the film and a full-length version of the movie, with music re-scored by Lucas Brode.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/metropolis-a-contemporary-symphony-o...
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