Analyze one scene to describe how the language of the film develops the thematic concerns of Metropolis.
Brief introduction of the movie, the Metropolis film was set in the future year of 2026, there’s a city called Metropolis where is home to all wealthy residents who live a carefree life, they called it a Utopian society. One day, one of the wealthy men in the town – Freder Fredersen, he had spotted a beautiful woman on the street, he then decided to follow her.
However, he was shocked when he discovered that there is an underground world exists right under the city. The uncover truth of how the city is running and supporting has surprised Freder and hard to believe that the Utopian society that everyone is living in is actually supported by a group of workers. The story then centered on how to improve the underground workers’ life and follow with another secret plan that there’s someone else actually wants to destroy the unbalance world both above and below ground.
The film was produced in the year 1927 and Lang had set the film time in the future, his vision of the wealthy live above ground and laborers live underground was a powerful vision during that historical background. One of the scenes from the film was when Freder learned that there’s a different world exists right down where he lives.
In the underground world, he had experienced a lifestyle that he could never imagine, he found the living habits and working attitude was different but interesting, however, he was also surprised how workers dealt with their emotions and how they treat themselves when he witnessed the life of those workers.
I think this is where the loss of individuality happened when those workers put the job of keeping the machine running as their priority instead of taking care of their own health first.
Last but not least, what Maria, Freder, and the scientist Grot tried to do is to break up the gap between the above and below the world in the Metropolis city. The final text had spoken of what Land was trying to convey to his audiences that the mediator between head and hands must be the heart, which could see it as a statement of telling us that even though there’s still a huge gap between the wealthy and workers, mediators would show up and help to connect these two separate groups together.
Nevertheless, Metropolis had featured some special effects and designs of the set which had turned this film from a gothic cathedral to a futuristic cityscape, for instance, it had used miniatures of the city, a camera on a swing and most impressively, he had used the mirror to create the illusion that actors are occupying miniatures sets. Even though every scene had taken longer than everyone had expected to complete it, the result had shown that Lang’s work had brought him to a different place than he could never think of.
Work Citated：Lang, Fritz, director. The Complete Metroplis, 1927, Silent Movie, German, Public Domain Movie. 29 Jan. 2018, https://youtu.be/-I9FD21k7Cs.