Many thinkers such as Charlie Chaplin, Fritz Lang, and James Cameron have stood against the obsession with human progress through the use of films. Charlie Chaplin specifically started and directed the film Modern Times in order to portray the struggles and conditions the working class was going through during the industrial revolution. He played a character that has a nervous breakdown because he works day in and day out in an assembly line factory. Using satire, Chaplin film portrays the notion that man has become a machine and while the blue-collar workers are trying to progress and succeed they won’t due to capitalistic needs. Similar to Chaplin, Fritz Lang, director of Metropolis, shows us that extreme measures as a society are willing
to take in order to have advancement in human civilization. The working class is exploited to a point that even though they are supporting this Utopian society, they are alienated and will never really be part of society because literally they are underground supporting the wealthy. Lastly, James Cameron, Director of Avatar showcases a futuristic view of where our “progress” will lead us. He addresses that a primitive society, where humans are one with nature and community will be simple yet fulfilling. Cameron also reflects the fact that there will be people who want to continue the western mythology of moving forward, but that shouldn’t stop the rest of the human population from choosing a less destructive lifestyle.
In the biographical film Mabo the Audience is positioned by the filmmakers to see Eddie Koiki Mabo as a hardworking, tenacious and strong man.
The presence of an overwhelming and influential body of government, dictating the individuals of contextual society, may potentially lead to the thoughts and actions that oppose the ruling party. Through the exploration of Fritz Lang’s expressionist film, Metropolis (1927), and George Orwell’s politically satirical novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948), the implications of an autocratic government upon the individuals of society are revealed. Lang’s expressionist film delves into the many issues faced by the Weimar Republic of Germany following the “War to end all wars” (Wells, 1914), in which the disparity between the upper and lower classes became distinctively apparent as a result of the ruling party’s capitalistic desires. Conversely, Orwell’s,
Literature and film have always held a strange relationship with the idea of technological progress. On one hand, with the advent of the printing press and the refinements of motion picture technology that are continuing to this day, both literature and film owe a great deal of their success to the technological advancements that bring them to widespread audiences. Yet certain films and works of literature have also never shied away from portraying the dangers that a lust for such progress can bring with it. The modern output of science-fiction novels and films found its genesis in speculative ponderings on the effect such progress could hold for the every day population, and just as often as not those speculations were damning. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis are two such works that hold great importance in the overall canon of science-fiction in that they are both seen as the first of their kind. It is often said that Mary Shelley, with her authorship of Frankenstein, gave birth to the science-fiction novel, breathing it into life as Frankenstein does his monster, and Lang's Metropolis is certainly a candidate for the first genuine science-fiction film (though a case can be made for Georges Méliès' 1902 film Le Voyage Dans la Lune, his film was barely fifteen minutes long whereas Lang's film, with its near three-hour original length and its blending of both ideas and stunning visuals, is much closer to what we now consider a modern science-fiction film). Yet though both works are separated by the medium with which they're presented, not to mention a period of over two-hundred years between their respective releases, they present a shared warning about the dangers that man's need fo...
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.
Fritz Lang’s 1931 film M, a classic thriller about a serial killer who targets children by befriending them. Trying to have compassion for Hans Beckert, might seem hard, but Fritz Lang uses his film techniques to make audiences have sympathy for the devil. The film is about a man that kills children but Lang focuses less on the crime and more on Beckert's humanity. The point of this film Lang wants the audience to see is that people are credible of understanding anyone, including a madman who killed children.
With every film, there are purposely intended details which are used that may seem unnecessary or irrelevant, but are vital components of the diegesis. For most, it can be helpful to re-watch a movie to get a better understanding for what is going on. To appreciate and completely comprehend a film to its full extent, one must look to identify the five principles of form. When analyzing the plot of Get Out, these principles must be addressed because of the significant details that captivate this entire story. When considering how the aspects of function, similarity and repetition, development, difference and variation, and unity/disunity shape the film, viewers can get a grip for why the director uses certain tactics to compose each scene for
From the silent epic of Fritz Lang Metropolis (1927) to Ridley’s Scott’s spectacular Blade Runner (1982) the connection between architecture and film has always been intimate. The most apparent concepts that connect these two films are the overall visuals of both films and their vision of city of the future. The futuristic city of both Scott and Lang are distinct in their landscapes, geography, and social structure. These two films sought to envision a future where technology was the basis by which society functioned. Technology was the culture and the cities would crumble without it (Will Brooker). Metropolis and Blade Runner uses the themes relationships among female sexuality and male vision, and technology. However, Gender roles and technology seems to be the most important part in both films.
Alfonso Cuarón’s movie “The Children of Men” depicts a catastrophic future for humanity. Although it is portrayed to show events in the future approximately the year 2027 what is interesting is that the society in which the people live in is very similar to the world we live in today. The buildings, stores, cars (although weird-looking) do not look at all fancy as one might think the future to look. Cuarón’s look on the future is not a positive, hopeful one as his movie foreshadows sorrows, miseries and gloom waiting to be welcomed into our world. His movie though does indeed go parallel with the political and societal events of today.
What do you think about when watching a film? Do you focus on the characters' good looks or the dialogue? Or do you go behind the scenes and think about what made the film? Maybe, it's even a combination of all three. No matter what comes to mind first, an important part of any good movie will be what you see. A camera and good director or cinematographer is needed to make that possible. Different directors and cinematographers will use different camera techniques to make you focus on what you see. Camera techniques show emphasis in films, because they make you focus more on situations and people. They are especially important in Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.
In the second decade of the twentieth century, a man named Charlie Chaplin achieved world fame through cinema. He did so even before the cinema had come of age. Chaplin’s contribution to the development of cinema was nothing short of enormous. The time in which Chaplin’s career was flourishing, was also a time when the world was experiencing many problems. Chaplin’s personal beliefs, in combination with the events happening in the world at the time, were a driving force in what message one of his later films carried.
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
We see street scenes of everyday life, reproductions of theatrical scenes and abstracted realities being produced in films over the years. It is rather inaccurate of Kracauer to determine that film should only resemble the limitless occurrences of life itself. Film was and is not only “a sense of observation”, but also a combination of that as well as a whole other universe.
The film “Modern Times,” directed by Charlie Chaplin, is set in the mid nineteen thirties. This time frame places the characters in the middle of the Great Depression and the industrial revolution. The film depicts the lifestyle and quality of living for people in this era by showing a factory worker who cannot take the monotony of working on an assembly line. The film follows the factory worker through many of his adventures throughout the film. The film’s main stars are Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, around 1860 after man had considerably conquered the machine, a new reality became prevalent in the lives of the newly industrialised world. “Modernism includes more than just art and literature. By now it includes almost the whole of what is truly alive in our culture”(Greenberg 1982:5) This quote can be applied to the earlier days of modernism When jobs had changed from agricultural based employment to corporate and menial based labour. Housing situations had too changed, from rural to urban, as people began to follow the money trail the industrial revolution had left behind. All this change had brought a new way of life for the western world, as things became automated and products were readily available to the con...
Films are usually developed for several reasons. Most film writers and directors come up with films that present or represent certain thematic and topical issues that they have in mind. These issues may be meant for entertainment purpose as well as educative purposes. It is essential to note that films usually carry societal connotations (Guynn 127). They depict the desires and pains of people within the society. They capture lifestyles, cultures, and political issues, social and economic issues among others. Cinematic and narrative elements of movies together with other stylistic devices help to bring out the intended meaning or outcome. Modern filmmakers have creatively used various aspects that show events that depict historical growth of particular nations. These films show the reasons why certain historical aspects have faded away or have remained and why they hold particular importance to those nations.