'Metropolis- Film Review (1-2)
'Metropolis'- Film Review (1-2)
[1041 words]
As the 500th year of robotics approaches- courtesy of ‘The Science Museum's’ latest exhibition; ‘Robots’- the subject of ‘Metropolis’, a film that explores the role of machine and the worker, and visualises the concept in film, seems more appropriate than ever.
Fig. 1
The film came out in 1927, seven years after the term
‘Robot’ (born from the Czech word ‘Robota’, meaning ‘forced labour’) emerged to
describe organic people enslaved in Karel Capek’s play “Rossum’s Universal
Robots”. During which, ‘Robots’ successfully
captured humanities fear of being replaced, or ‘enslaved’ in light of the
Industrial Revolution, and later, during Germany’s Weimar Republic; a quickly
formed government in post WW1, born in times of frustration and social/economic
depression.
Incidentally there are parallels between Germany’s
Weimer period, to the sci-fi universe of ‘Metropolis’, as we see high-rise
towers, and the pleasure garden- a seemingly perfect utopia for the rich and
wealthy industrialists, perched on the top of the unstable, grim underbelly of
the workers city.
To give an idea of said troubles, one needs look no
further than the “Dolchloss Legende” (‘Stab in the back’), a conflict between
the soldiers returning from war, and the politicians in power- who’d gave
disproportionate ideas of Germany’s inevitable victory, before signing the
‘Treaty of Versailles’ and surrendering to the Allies.War reparations hit
Germany’s economy hard, as locals passively resisted ‘the occupation’, and
indirectly triggered the hyperinflation (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 |
Fig. 3 |
The idea of ‘Robot’ therefore, could be drawing links
to German people’s fear and anger towards higher politicians/power (whether
that be the Weimer Government who were seen to oppose the soldiers, and The
Allies in WW1 who they’d surrendered to… or the fascist right-wing groups
that’ll take control with extremist actions), and those in working class struggling
to earn enough money to live during the ‘War Reparation’.
Attract right-wing policies, began seeing intellect as
undesirable. Robotics role dated back to the 18th century, as
automaton, such as ‘Turk’, built to play chess beat all human challengers. With
the essence of humanity summed up solely as our species intellect, controversy
was sparked. People argued as to whether
this ‘thinking machine’, exceeded man-kind, and could potentially devalue
humanity.
Fig. 4 An 18th century automaton. |
Robotics is antagonised in this film; with machines/intellect
being the heart of the problem (and emotion being its saviour). False Maria,
the instigator of conflict, encourages the working class to indirectly abandon
their children, while characters, (such as Jon Fredersen) and the workers, are
seen as emotionless- with the main characters; Freder and Maria extremely
emotionally driven, whom we can empathise with. This is observed by ‘UFILM
ANALYSIS BLOG’ (2013), in working with the fascist idea (in 1920’s Germany)
that intelligence cannot be trusted. Robotics is the epitome of ‘intellect’, as
they are developed with the idea of humanity only being established with
intelligence (rather than emotion/empathy).
Fig. 5 |
Fig. 6 |
Nazi Germany’s values oriented around
‘non-intellectual’ virtues such as patriotism, loyalty and blood. IQ was even
linked by an SS paper to male infertility, claiming that educational pursuits
brought down the countries birth rate.
Other parallels include issues with ‘class’; and
Germany’s attempt to remove said tensions to create a “peoples community” (Volksgemeinschaft).
This Fascist/communist ideal was “beginning to take shape in Europe at the time
of the film’s airing”, and was captured in the film’s ‘theme of the struggle
between the working class and the rulers” (‘UFILM ANALYSIS BLOG’, 2013).
Then there’s Maria binary opposite. We see Maria, a
gentle priest, idolised by the exhausted workers trapped in the inescapable
depths of ‘Metropolis’, arrive on Freder’s doorstep.
Her role in keeping the cities precarious balance of
peace, compared to ‘False Maria’s’ captures the two distinct types of women
expected in Weimer Germany. First we see “The New Woman”; independent, and
apart from other workingwomen in her focus to herself, and rejection “of the
current systems of power and influence” (‘torimaher’, 2012), i.e. being ‘the
housewife’. Then we have ‘The Future Mother’, a representation that
was quick to overwhelm ‘The New Woman’, as “promises of economic gains and a
stronger voice in politics were fulfilled slowly” (‘Facing History And
Ourselves’, No date), and soldiers began returning to civilian life, to reclaim
their jobs and “role as family breadwinner” (‘Facing History And Ourselves’, No
date) - pushing women back to more traditional roles as ‘wife’ and ‘mother’.
That, and Germany’s
economic uncertainty, saw women turn to new conservative parties, (i.e. Nazis),
who believed that “reinforcing the traditional roles of women and men in the
family ‘would provide stability in a social world that seemed to be rapidly
slipping from their control”.
Fig. 7 Policies like ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche, and the ‘Young Girls League’, actively saw girls as “future mothers” in the Nazi’s “grand plan for the Reich to exist for 1000 years”. |
As ‘False Maria’
captures the ‘promiscuous’ side of womanhood, independent and set on fulfilling
shallow needs, rather than the greater populace i.e. Germany, (while we see
she’s a greater plan in play… the plan itself see’s destruction of the greater
plan of ‘Metropolis’, akin to ‘Babylon’), the true Maria has “children grasping
at her when they are in peril”. ‘UFILM ANALYSIS BLOG’ (2013) also claims, “these
two vastly different characters portray how women were viewed in the Weimar
Republic; either as very virtuous or promiscuous with little in between.”
Fig. 8 |
Fig. 9 |
Could it be, then, that ‘Metropolis’ once enforced
ideas around passion and patriotism, evident later in German history? Or was it
against it, with empathy and emotion being to main prevention to conflict and
death?
With the Weimer government fundamentally flawed on
creation (despite intentions to be democratic), people felt like ‘Robots’-
enslaved by ‘enemies’ and by their own people who’d ‘sold them out’. As economic depression run riot, and extreme right-wing
groups emerged promising freedom, people began enforcing said policies, while others
began opposing these strict/prejudice ideas; feeling enslaved by fascist
beliefs of their own people (evident later, when it came to a head in WW2). Čapek, himself
made “subversive writings against the rising Nazi party”, and his invention of robots was
yet another form of opposition against Nazi ideals. As we see his play claim
victory for Robots over humanity, and bring light our inhumanity in our use of
forced labour. However, its
introduction in Metropolis, had demonized capitalism, but enforced
new, fascist and communist ideologies around ‘intellect’ and ‘emotion’.
Whatever, and whoever, seemed to be doing the
enslaving- ‘Metropolis’ acted as a mirror; fitting in and reflecting whatever
ideas each viewer had at the time.
References
Illustrations
Fig.
1
Holyhead, Rachael (2017), ‘Science Museum Exhibition ‘ROBOTS’: The
Maschinenmensch’, [Photograph]. Unpublished photograph.
Fig.
2 ‘Woman Feeding Her Furnace With
Banknotes’, (1923),
[Online Image]. Available at: https://www.noteworthy-collectibles.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/woman-feeding-her-heating-furnace-with-banknotes1.jpg [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig.
3 ‘An anti-Semitic cartoon suggesting
that the German army was stabbed in the back’,
(1919), [Online Image: Austrian Postcard]. Available at: http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-nazi-rise-to-power/effects-of-ww1-on-germany/stabbed-in-the-back/#.WYxh2bpFyUl
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig.
4 ‘Jaquet Droz The Writer Automaton From
1774 In Action: Inspired Hugo Movie’, (2012), [Film Still,
1:41]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux2KW20nqHU
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig.
5 ‘Metropolis’, (1927), [Film
Still]. Available at: https://finzi22l.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/5.png [Accessed
Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig.
6 ‘Metropolis’,
(1927), [Film Still]. Available at: https://thesouloftheplot.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/elevator_metropolis.png
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig.
7 ‘League of German Girls’,
(No Date), [Online Image]. Available at: https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/image/league-german-girls?backlink=https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-6/joining-hitler-youth
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig.
8 ‘Metropolis’,
(1927), [Film Still]. Available at: http://www.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/The-brothel-Yoshiwara.jpg
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig.
9 ‘Metropolis’,
(1927), [Film Still]. Available at: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbg9EefsKIx-yPids_tYi9ABnCqXJ6AfY7ewtAn0pyZLIAX2hWVdDcxCPx6MghoxgIcgkEA5nhpP1QTtQGvUhqP0tY7vIHjJP5T3C4cAa12zV6EdzIRomu0zxh6BlLum3yQMc3Ba_uV_4/s1600/metropolis-1926-06-g.jpg [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Websites
‘BBC’, (No Date), ‘Weimar, crisis of 1923’, [Online].
Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/crisis1923rev_print.shtml [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘BBC’, (No Date), ‘Weimar- Strengths and Weaknesses’, [Online].
Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/weimarstrengthweakrev2.shtml [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Bohan, Donna-Marie, (2012), ‘Gender as a destabilising factor
of Weimar Society’, [Online]. Available at: http://ulsites.ul.ie/historystudies/sites/default/files/historystudies_13_bohan_gender_0.pdf
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘Facing History And Ourselves’, (No Date), ‘Joining
the Hitler Youth: Holocaust and Human Behavior, Chapter 6’, [Online].
Available at: https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-6/joining-hitler-youth
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘Facing History And Ourselves’, (No Date), ‘Primary
Sources: Weimar Society’, [Online]. Available at: https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-democracy/primary-sources/weimar-society
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘Facing History And Ourselves’ (No Date), ‘Women
in the Weimar Republic: Holocaust and Human Behavior, Chapter 4’, [Online].
Available at: https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-4/women-weimar-republic
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘Film Education’,
(2010), ‘Metropolis: Themes and Context’, [Online]. Available at: http://www.filmeducation.org/metropolis/pdf/Metropolis_Themes_and_context.pdf [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
French, Lawrence, (2010), ‘The Making of Metropolis:
Creating the Female Robot’, [Online]. Available at: http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/2010/05/the-making-of-metropolis-creating-the-female-robot/ [Accessed
Date: 10/08/2017]
‘Science Friday’, (2011), ‘Science Diction: The Origin Of
The Word ‘Robot’, [Online]. Available at: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/science-diction-the-origin-of-the-word-robot/ [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘The Wiener Library: THE HOLOCAUST EXPLAINED’, (2016), ‘Was
the German army stabbed in the back?’, [Online]. Available at: http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-nazi-rise-to-power/effects-of-ww1-on-germany/stabbed-in-the-back/#.WYxY87pFyUk
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘The Lost Years’, (No Date), ‘The Weimar Republic- Rise of
Fascism’, [Online]. Available at: http://historyhaters.weebly.com/the-weimar-republic-rise-of-fascism.html [Accessed
Date: 10/08/2017]
‘torimaher’, (2012), ‘The Roles and Representations of
Women in the Weimar Republic’, [Online]. Available at: https://makinghistoryatmacquarie.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/the-roles-and-representations-of-women-in-the-weimar-republic/
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Trueman, C. N (2012), ‘Young Girls League’, [Online].
Available at: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/young-girls-league/
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘UFILM ANALYSIS
BLOG’, (2013), ‘Is The Film Metropolis A Reflection Of The German Culture During The
1920’s?’ [Online]. Available at: https://ufilmanalysisfall13.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/is-the-film-metropolis-a-reflection-of-the-german-culture-during-the-1920s/
[Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
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