The film was first publicly screened in Berlin on 10 January 1927 after having been approved by the censorship board in November of the previous year who described it as “educational” and “artistic” (Kino7). At this point the film measured 4189 meters, approximately two and a half hours. While the film was being shown around eastern Europe, a copy of the film was sent to the United States for distribution by Paramount who found the film in its current state unacceptable for several reasons and cut and reworked the film, shortening it to 3100 meters, before releasing it in New York in March of 1927. Metropolis had abysmal results at the box office in Germany and UFA’s board of directors pulled the original cut of the film from Germany and …show more content…
It is not known, whether or not Lang played a role in this rerelease, however it is unlikely given his later remarks to British journalists, “I love films so I shall never go to America. Their experts have slashed my best film…so cruelly that I dare not see it while I am in England.” (Kino 7). From 1927 to the late 1980s various version of Metropolis were released, all recuts of the original American version and second German version. From 1987 to 2010, film preservationists worked to create what they believed to be a definitive version of Metropolis, utilizing newly discovered copies of the original censorship cards and a negative duplicate film found in the Buenos Aires Museum of Cinema’s archives (Kino 8). It is this version of the film that this analysis will focus on given that it is the most complete reconstruction of Lang’s …show more content…
Foremost is the polarization of classes; the film depicts a sprawling city where hundreds of thousands of people could live, however we only see the lives of a few of this people, namely the magnates and their workers. While multiple classes could exist, Lang only shows the two, emphasizing that society in Metropolis is comprised of two diametrically opposed classes like Marx and Engels depict in The Communist Manifesto, “Society has a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps” (220). The class struggles in the film are not nearly overt as Marx and Engels depict; they cannot be because the magnates and workers are physically separated. However, Frederson indicates that for months he has been finding evidence of plans of a rebellion in his workers’ clothes, and when given the chance, the workers show no hesitation in revolting against the machine. When the workers do revolt, instead of storming the upper city where the magnates reside, they destroy the machines which keep them alive, as Marx and Engels foretold, “[t]hey direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves” (CM 228). There are some discrepancies, however for the most part, until the end of the film where the workers and magnates reconcile, Marx and
In Marx’s opinion, the cause of poverty has always been due to the struggle between social classes, with one class keeping its power by suppressing the other classes. He claims the opposing forces of the Industrial Age are the bourgeois and the proletarians. Marx describes the bourgeois as a middle class drunk on power. The bourgeois are the controllers of industrialization, the owners of the factories that abuse their workers and strip all human dignity away from them for pennies. Industry, Marx says, has made the proletariat working class only a tool for increasing the wealth of the bourgeoisie. Because the aim of the bourgeoisie is to increase their trade and wealth, it is necessary to exploit the worker to maximize profit. This, according to Marx, is why the labor of the proletariat continued to steadily increase while the wages of the proletariat continued to steadily decrease.
An obvious difference in these films is that the 1931 version played to a Depression audience and that the Coppola version played to a modern audience. (I am being extremely careful because, obviously, the 1931 audience was modern in 1931; however, we like to think of ourselves as being more modern than past generations. There are differences in the audiences which viewed the respective versions in their time, and I hope to prove this point as the paper unfolds.)
...domination. the Bokanovsky Process, in which one egg is "budded" into hundreds and thousands making a shocking number of "twins" and then the decanting process, the actual birth form the test tube, and finally, the social conditioning processes in which people are "formed" by means of shocks, sirens, and other unpleasant devices to certain stimuli so that they will always evoke certain intrinsic feelings toward those stimuli. The idea of such a "precision-made" society to accomplish work and live in happiness and virtue leaves no room for "imperfection." Such imperfections as Marx, Watson, and the savage however are no threat to the society as apparent in the novel since they are swallowed by the system-- if nobody listens to their ideas, talking does no good. Such automatic suppression of the "rebels" leaves the reader with a frigid feeling of helplessness.
Fritz Lang's Metropolis is a very powerful movie with various underlying meanings that allow the viewer to determine for himself. The movie itself is extremely difficult and hard to follow, although the essay "The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis" written by Andreas Huyssen provided many helpful insights to aid in understanding the movie. Many of Huyssen's idea's are a bit extreme, but none the less the essay is very beneficial. His extreme views include ideas of castration and how it relates with the female robot, and sexulaity and how it relates technology. Although these ideas are extreme he does also provide many interesting ideas.
One of the most important parts when using a Marxist perspective to examine a piece of literature is the investigation of the various social classes that exist within the writing. Doing so enables the reader to achieve a more globalized perspective on the story, with factors such as economic advantages and hierarchical relations being taken into consideration. The social classes that are represented in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening are the Bourgeoisie, who control every aspect of society, and the Proletariat, whose oppression supports the lifestyles of the elite.
Ruppert, Peter. “Technology and the Constructions of Gender in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” (2000) [Accessed 18 December 2012]
Metropolis: An Influential Film Masterpiece. In 1927, Fritz Lang created a place for himself in the history of cinema when he made and released the film Metropolis. This film has become a significant influence on the film industry in many ways. Metropolis is considered by many to be a landmark German film.
Fritz Lang’s film, Metropolis, portrays various themes on modernity; the film illustrates Karl Marx’s ideology of Marxism and the struggles between the bourgeoisie and the working class, as well as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which emphasizes the consequences of being committed to accomplish one’s personal interests rather than for the greater good. Other modern values, such Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, expresses the distinctions between males and females in society and the belief that women are to attain the same equal treatment as men civilly, politically, and economically. The film uses these ideologies throughout the storyline and presents the audience several themes and values that have and are still questioned today.
The film and the rest of society show that there are classes within a class system. Though, classes have changed over the years, there is conservation in the system: haves and have nots, workers and non-workers (Marx 1844). They Live shows the different classes, through employment, appearance, consumption, and dialogue. This film, though regarded as an underappreciated masterpiece, presents an opportunity for the average movie-goer (I say average regarding the catch-phrases and fight scenes, commonplace in many mainstream movies) to critically analyze the capitalistic system at play. This film introduces the audience to Marxist theory in the same gradual way a formal class would. There exist different classes (squatters, construction workers, television executives, and the city elite) and that each class has different struggles. The struggles of the working class are not the struggles of the non-working class. The non-working class does not worry about “hot food” and “showers.” Once one understands that classes exist, class consciousness is able to occur. As shown in the film, class consciousness is the “rate determining step” of social change and revolution. The five minute 24 second fight ...
Upon its theatrical release in February 1980 in Milan, the film divided the opinions of audiences and critics alike; many were shocked and appalled with the films relentless graphic nature, though others argued and cited the film for its realism as a social commentary on the depiction of a civilised vs. uncivilised society.
During the early 20th Century, around the 1920’s, Germany were no doubtedly a country in turmoil and embarrassment, struggling to cope with the aftermath of the first world war. Because this was happening, and with German’s feeling the shame and guilt, wanted a change to how things worked in Germany. The historical context that relates to Germany and when German cinema started, had an impact on the film style that films were made in. The culture of Germany grew though in the 1920’s, and cinemas were seen as a place to escape to and help restore the German’s national pride after the war. There are two films that will be in discussion throughout this essay, one is ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ (Wiene, 1920) and the other is ‘Nosferatu’ (Murnau, 1922) both being made and directed within the times of many historical events happening within Germany.
In the movie the society is shown as a split between upper class and the slave workers. There is no middle class. The upper class is shown living with all amenities while workers are working hard on the monstrous
This movie shows how poor people are treated by rich people who are considered high-class, and how they try escape their already written path that being born chooses for you. When Vinz, Hubert and Said lost the last train that would have taken them back to their neighborhood thanks to the cops aggravation and physically provocation began walking around the city for something to do while they wait for the next train. This is where they saw a small museum showing which they approach. When they entered the museum people inside begun staring at them like they were part of the showing which they noticed and started screaming at the people to stop looking at them. That they are just like them and not so different. Another example is when Vinz, Hubert and Said try talking to a group of girls who were at the museum showing and they try flirting with them. When they show their actual intentions to the girls they begun to laugh and say that they only thought it was a joke and that their only intention was conversation. It can be seen from the above analysis that, individuals who believe they are higher class status than others don’t like to interact with people are considered poor or low class. This action leads to separation of status and judgement based on presence, attitude and monetary
Karl Marx theory on class struggle is an influential concept and very relevant even in todays society. The movie Titanic (1997) serves as a perfect reflection of class struggle being it shows the division of social classes. Marx’s theory on class struggle focuses on the existence of oppression and inequality in society correlating with Titanic.
The filmmaking industry of Post-war Germany was virtually non-existent, but was in the process of being rebuilt. Firstly, the Allies dismantled the Nazi propaganda industry. Then, they used films to re-educate Germans. Hollywood jumped at the chance to distribute their films in Germany again. Without import quotas in West Germany, American films could cheaply enter the market, which subdued domestic filmmaking. The few German films that did get made had a typical hero of a “little man,” and portrayed Germans as victims of Nazism rather than as the ones responsible for it. These films weren’t artistic, and had mostly conservative messages, rarely acknowledging the country’s Nazi past. The low point of German cinema came at the 1961 Berlin Film Festival in which no Federal Film Prize was awarded because no film made was worthy of it. The New German Cinema arose under these