The relationship between film and stage has long been a complicated one. Supporters of both mediums each have their own reasons for preferring one over the other. Regardless of which is objectively superior, it is undeniable that a film adaption and a stage adaption of the same source material have numerous differences due to the utilization of different resources. Stage performances have existed for far longer than film has, but film has become exponentially more popular in recent times, largely due to its accessibility. Using Metropolis and Hedwig and the Angry Inch as my primary examples, I will explain how certain aspects of plot are better portrayed using one medium verses another. Metropolis works far better as a film rather than a play …show more content…
In this subgenre of art, “German expressionist painters typically distorted colour, scale and space to convey their subjective feelings about what they saw” (“German Expressionism”). Lang uses these motifs to enhance his idea of the future, creating a bleak and grand atmosphere to show his own personal views on dystopia. While this film was in black and white and a stage production would be able to use color to emphasize the German expressionism designs, without the ability to distort space, live theater would not be able to recapture the ambience Lang had in mind. One may even view the lack of color as a distortion as well, showing the true despair of the future presented in Metropolis: “Even in this new millennium, Metropolis offers us a disturbing parallel universe that pits tomorrow’s unknow reality against machines and artificial intelligence” (Havis 10). Since Lang’s original vision was to have Metropolis on film, it is easy to assume that no other medium would do his vision justice. It is difficult to preserve the atmosphere of watching this film, the feelings of small and inconsequential in the bigger scheme of the world, when adapting it to the stage, which is evident in the theater adaption’s altered ending …show more content…
Potentially a commentary on the terrible conditions of factory employees, the severity of the surroundings that the workers in Metropolis live through is undeniable. They struggle with the heavy machinery, with machinery more often than not winning against human effort. A notable scene featuring this struggle between man and machine involves Freder finding his way to the underground, somewhere he has never been before, and witnessing a man, so overcome with physical exhaustion, collapse dead mid-turn of the giant wheel. Freder sees the machine explode, killing all the other workers, and the brutal efficiency at which all the dead workers are collected and new ones ushered in to replace them. The way machines are portrayed in the film, large and looming and numerous, would not be well duplicated onstage. Because the monotony of the workers’ lives is crucial to the overall theme and message of the film, changing that would thus change the meaning of Metropolis. Lang employs several shots of the laborers diligently performing the same task over and over again at enormous machines, many of them working at different aspects of the same machine. The idea that workforce is comprised of little people contributing towards the bigger picture is emphasized. Such imagery
That is not to say, however, that simple staging prevented an effective presentation of a play. Basic staging could be made productive, and in some cases actually more striking and powerful. Essentially, the lack of an elaborate stage merely shifts the focus elsewhere, the focus being on the actors - their actions, dialogue and how the dialogue is delivered, how they perform, costume. In El Médico de su Honra, Calderón, therefore had to structure the `actions, text and spectacle' very carefully since there are many different settings ...
While this is a dramatized statement regarding the plight of the worker under the new machine driven industrial system, rhetoric such as this did represent the fears of the working class. Over time as industrialization appeared more commonly there emerged more heated debates between the working class and business owners.
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.
Ruppert, Peter. “Technology and the Constructions of Gender in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” (2000) [Accessed 18 December 2012]
Taking place in the jungle of meat packing factories during the early 1900s in Chicago, a journalist by the name of Upton Sinclair dissects the savage inner workings of America’s working class factory lifestyle. Sinclair portrayed the grim circumstance that workers faced and the exploited lives of factory workers in Chicago. He became what was then called a mudrucker; a journalist who goes undercover to see first hand the conditions they were investigating. Being in poor fortune, Sinclair was able to blend into the surrounds of the factory life with his poor grimy clothing. The undercover journalist would walk into the factory with the rest of the men, examine its conditions, and record them when he returned home. It is the worker’s conditions
Metropolis is the city, which is ruled by tycoon, whose son falls in love with girl a spiritual leader of the lower class. The son of the tycoon descends to the “bottom” and swaps places with one of the workers. He sees injustice of the elite over lower class and begins to fight evil. A brilliant mad scientist has learned how to construct artificial human, and at the request of the tycoon gives it appearance of the girl his son is in love with. The evil robot inflames the rebellion against the higher class and the machines, not realizing that it’s going to send Metropolis into
The film centers around the main leader of the metropolis's son, Freder. Freder is blessed with the life of luxury and comfort. Once he encounters and falls in love with a saintly woman whose name is Maria, his life and the lives of those around him are changed forever. Freder is destined to be the "mediator" between the lower class and the upper class. Freder faces many obstacles, the most prominent one being his own father. In the end, Freder completes his goal as the mediator and reunites with his love, Maria.
When audiences think of Lang's Metropolis they almost unanimously think of the same image: that of a golden, mechanical being brought to life. It is one of the most recognizable images in German expressionist cinema, on par with the spidery shadow of Max Schrek's Nosferatu creeping up the stairs in Murnau's vampire film, or that of Cesare the somnambulist sleeping upright in Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, yet what separates this i...
Run Lola Run, is a German film about a twenty-something woman (Lola) who has 20 minutes to find $100,000 or her love (Manni) will be killed. The search for the money is played through once with a fatal ending and one would think the movie was over but then it is shown again as if it had happened ten seconds later and changed everything. It is then played out one last time. After the first and second sequence, there is a red hued, narrative bridge. There are several purposes of those bridges that affect the movie as a whole. The film Run Lola Run can be analyzed by using the four elements of mise-en scene. Mise-en-scene refers to the aspects of film that overlap with the art of the theater. Mise-en-scene pertains to setting, lighting, costume, and acting style. For the purpose of this paper, I plan on comparing the setting, costume, lighting, and acting style in the first red hued, bridge to that of the robbery scene. Through this analysis, I plan to prove that the purpose of the narrative bridge in the film was not only to provide a segue from the first sequence to the second, but also to show a different side of personality within the main characters.
Metropolis is a silent film written by Thea Von Harbou in 1927, and directed by Fritz Lang. This film was very significant for its time. Although it had very mixed reviews by critics, it pioneered the work of the science fiction genre. The film also gained recognition by political leaders, such as Adolf Hitler, for recognizing the divides between the working class and the aristocracy. The divide between the working class and the aristocracy was the most significant idea I took away from this silent film.
In The Machine Stops, E.M. Forster projects life years from now where people live underground with extreme technological advances. Also, people live separated in little rooms where they find a variety of buttons they can press in order to perform any task they desire. They do not communicate with people face to face as often as we do now. Without a doubt, their society is very different from ours. All of the inhabitants are used to living along with the Machine and it is hard for them to imagine life without everything the Machine is able to facilitate. People are so caught up with technology that they find it absurd to spend time in nature. Because of the dependence people have towards the Machine, they have somewhat lost their humanity and become a machine themselves. The characters Vashti and Kuno perfectly represent how inhumane or humane a person could potentially be in such an environment.
One notable difference between William Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Julie Taymor’s film version of the play is the altered scenes that made quite a difference between the play and the movie version. This difference has the effects of creating a different point of view by altering the scenes affected the movie and how Taymor felt was necessary by either by keeping or deleting certain parts from the play. I use “Altered Scene” in the way of how Julia Taymor recreates her own point of view for the movie and the direction she took in order to make the audience can relate to the modern day film. I am analyzing the way that the altered scenes changes to make a strong impression on the audiences different from the play. This paper will demonstrate
Despite the provision of stage directions, however, a play is not simple to adapt to a cinematic form. Plays rely heavily on dialogue to communicate emotion to the reader whereas film allows for close visual representation. Filmmakers can explore creativity in adaptation in many ways unavailable and impractical in the theater. In order to maximize the emotional impact of a dramatic work, the filmmaking team can make use of several simple yet effective tools, such as the composition of frames and the variations of the camera shot. In the 1961 film adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking play A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Daniel Petrie, the filmmakers use these techniques in creative ways to communica...
The spectacle of this play is limited which is why there is such weight put on the actors themselves. Their scene and ensembles never show signs of change yet they develop and grow. There is a huge stress on the statue, which whom the Learned Ladies bow
From a scholarly point of view, the film accurately depicts the lifestyle of a factory worker in the timeframe. Workers would stand on an assembly line and repeat the same action day in and day out. The film also depicts the transition of the human dependency of machines very well. The workers would work at the pace of the machines. The film also had metaphors of humans being controlled by machines when the main actor was sucked into the pulley system of a machine. The film also has a scene where there is a machine that automatically feeds humans.