"Metropolis, you know, was born from my first sight of the skyscrapers of New York in October 1924… I thought that it was the crossroads of multiple and confused human forces, blinded and knocking into one another, in an irresistible desire for exploitation, and living in perpetual anxiety."
– Fritz Lang 1
– Fritz Lang 1
Peter Ruppert, the author of Reader in a Strange Land: The Activity of Reading Literary Utopias, summarises the plot as follows (http://www.genders.org/g32/g32_ruppert.html)
Set in a futuristic dictatorship in which the ruling class lives in decadent luxury above ground while slavelike workers toil in unbearable conditions below, Metropolis tells the melodramatic story of a workers' revolt. Their Luddite rebellion is actually the unanticipated result of plot hatched between the Master of Metropolis, Joh Fredersen, and a mad scientist named Rotwang. The scheme is to undermine the workers' liberation movement and to discredit its leader Maria by infiltrating the workers' ranks with an agent-provocateur, a cyborg-double of Maria. This scheme backfires when the cyborg, acting in defiance of its programming, leads the workers on a rampage to destroy the machines that enslave them. But by destroying the machines, the workers flood their homes and nearly drown their children. Stability is restored at the end of the film after the workers burn the cyborg/witch, and the ruler's son, Freder, assumes the role of mediator between the workers and the ruling class.Video clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAdQ5anhZE
Madonna's take on Metropolis (for a bit of fun :))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsVcUzP_O_8&ob=av2e
Five images sourced from online libraries
 |
| Erich Kettelhut Set design for Metropolis : 1925 Tower of Babel (Source: ECA Library Image Collection) |
 |
| Heinz Schulz-Neudamm 1926 (ARTstor) |
 |
| Werner Graul c. 1926 (Source: ARTstor) |
 |
| Erich Kettelhut Set design for Metropolis : 1925 Hall of the Machines: View from Above) (Source: http://www.kino.com/metropolis/gallery5.html#gal5) |
 |
| Erich Kettelhut Set design for Metropolis : 1925 Part of Opening Sequence (Source: ECA Library Image Collection) |
One digital photograph taken at a gallery in Scotland
In 1952, the Independent Group was formed. Its leaders included Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton and William Turnball. Reflecting the Utopianism of contemporary politics, but looking resolutely to the future, the artists of the Independent Group believed the modern world would be shaped by technology and mechanisation. (Source: Fry, A (2010) Eduardo Paolozzi - Pop goes the Easel [Internet]. Available at: http://www.scotsman.com/news/art_reviews_eduardo_paolozzi_pop_goes_the_easel_anthony_fry_1_808758 [Accessed 3 March 2012]).
I took the digital photo below of Paolozzi's (1924-2005) studio, as set up in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, as the sculpture of the robot/human head is reminiscent of the scene in Metropolis where the cyborg-double of Maria is brought to life.
One online text (pdf)
https://sites.google.com/site/theblueprussion2/expressionist-utopias (originally sourced from <http://www.jstor.org/>)One podcast
http://media.ipadio.com/98018_20110915134309.mp3 (originally sourced from http://feeds.feedburner.com/CineSci6/)
No comments:
Post a Comment