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Political and social nature of the weimar republic
Political and social nature of the weimar republic
Weimar germany social
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How does the composer Fritz Lang represent contextual issues and concerns in his film Metropolis? Fritz Lang’s 1927 didactic film Metropolis explores the ramifications of mankind’s hubris and hunger for power, and its consequences on humanity. Fritz Lang excoriates Weimar Republic Zeitgeist; its industrialised and capitalist values: humanity’s willingness to sacrifice basic human rights (e.g. personal freedom) in exchange for power and materialistic wealth, and Weimar’s dictatorial totalitarian regime. Lang emphasises the requirement for equilibrium between the working class and the elite to prevent a cataclysmic milieu, based on observations of his own Weimar epoch. Class struggles become adamant as humans become dehumanised and valued as functional mechanisms, rather than individuals. The juxtaposed representation of machinery extreme close-ups (cogs and pistons), and high angle long shots of the workers en masse in the prelude captures the absence of characterisation and subordination of the workers. The extreme close up of the cogs and pistons, coupled with the frenetic music’s accelerating pace expounds the overwhelming omnipresence of machinery, while simultaneously establishing a social hierarchy between capitalists and industrialists. Additionally, the workers apathetically position their heads towards the …show more content…
The military-like Stimmung evokes a bureaucratic approach to the management of workers, linking back to the autocratic leadership style of the Weimar Republic epoch, and representative of dystopia and Hitler’s
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,
...ter the film has been released the issues that Metropolis are still relevant. While the critics of the 1920s where quick to harshly criticize the film, new generations have found it inspiring and even prophetic, rightfully guessing the course of history. Even H.G Wells founder of modern science fiction and a harsh criticizers of Lang’s Metropolis, responded to the film by creating its own version of it (Testa 182). Whether today or eighty-years ago, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis resonates with the public due to similarities this society has with our own. Fritz Lang does not argue that technology will generate a regressive society, Lang argues that not only an unstable human mind, but also an unstable society, that is not in touch with all the parts of the psyches, the ego, the superego and the id, might be easily lured by the ornamentations technology bring to a society.
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 common, there emerged more heated debates between the working class and business owners. The struggle between the two opposing classes of labor was the embodiment of the argument for national identity, according to Trachtenberg. His attention to detail of the divide between the lower class workers and the rich upper crust industrialists, serves to illustrate the varying changes which occurred across the country.
...ering the thoughts and opinions of their employee. On the other side, despite the hash and dangerous working environment, the workers could not quit. The jobs at the factories were their main source of income and without it they would suffer form hunger and poverty. Hence, the workers at that time were tangled in the system that only supports a small proportion of the population, the upper class.
With this in mind, some perspective on the society of that time is vital. During this time the industrial revolution is taking place, a massive movement away from small farms, businesses operated out of homes, small shops on the corner, and so on. Instead, machines are mass-producing products in giant factories, with underpaid workers. No longer do people need to have individual skills. Now, it is only necessary that they can keep the machines going, and do small, repetitive work. The lower working class can no longer live a normal life following their own pursuits, but are lowered to working inhumane hours in these factories. This widens the gap between the upper and lower class-called bourgeois and proletariat-until they are essentially two different worlds. The bourgeois, a tiny portion of the population, has the majority of the wealth while the proletariat, t...
John Herz writes that the civil servant was therefore recognised by the Nazi Party as the ideal candidate for the role of ‘political soldier’—a corp envisioned to use their positions of influence to ‘positively and enthusiastically promote the specific ideologies and policies of the new regime’. The promulgation of the April 7 ‘Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service’ in 1933 accordingly presents one of the first precedented steps in Nazifying the civil service through enforcing the removal of the so-called ‘undesirables’; that is, primarily, those deemed unreliable to the Nazi regime due to their previous political affiliations or on the basis of being ‘non-Aryans’. Consequently, as a result of the law, around 1.2 percent of all civil servants were removed from their posts. The effect of these purges on the level of Nazification in the civil service, however, is thought to be rather minimal. Although there was a monumental surge in applications from civil servants to join the Nazi Party in the months following April, it is difficult to ascertain what percentage of applications were mere superficial gestures done as a way to ensure the retention of position and prospects in career advancement.
Ruppert, Peter. “Technology and the Constructions of Gender in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” (2000) [Accessed 18 December 2012]
Through a comparative study our understanding of the way in which the key values incorporated into Fritz Lang’s German expressionist film “Metropolis” and George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1984) are shaped by their context. Lang’s dystopian city “Metropolis” reflects the revolutionary political and social control of the Weimar Republic of early 20th century Germany, similar to the manner that Orwell’s “1984” represents the power present during the totalitarian regimes of Hitler and Stalin during the second world war. Our contextual understanding allows us to heighten our understanding of the control inflicted through the degradation of core human values to gain power and the differing perspectives of the composers on the effects of rebellion
The expression of values which surpass temporal boundaries and transcend through their contemporary relevance are shaped and moulded by a composer's context. Specifically, the differences between the dystopic perceptions represented in Fritz Lang's expressionist film Metropolis (1927) and George Orwell's politically critical novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948) captures the manner in which a shift in compositional milieu can influence composers' perspectives on the degradation of human agency through the dehumanisation perpetuated by the rise of technological use within society. The alterations in values reflect the shift in context from the culturally flourishing but socially hierarchical Weimar Germany to the fear of totalitarian control in
In this paper I will be writing about the German film, “M” directed by Fritz Lang. I will be looking at Fritz Langs techniques of mise-en scene and montage editing connecting them to the police and criminals in 1930s Germany, as well as the overall corruption of the society. I will also be writing about how director fritz Lang uses cinematography to create a sense of subjectivity, suggesting that Hans Beckert has a dual personality. Terror and hysteria takes over the town when a sign offering 10,000 dollars goes up about a child murder and a child named Elise goes missing and the story ends up in the paper.
appeal to people in their 20’s and 30’s because they are more. concerned and aware of fears in society. In Metropolis, Fritz Lang portrays how he thinks the future would be. which is that the city is divided into two, upper city for the rich. and lower city for the poor.
The result of this is that the working class pit themselves against one another in order to compete for predetermined, limited shares of power and wealth without questioning what is allotted to them by capitalist society at large. While certainly dark and depressing Cranes novella shines a light on the legitimate and destructive issues of class. By doing so, Crane acts as an advocate for social justice and ultimately as an agent of
The film I watched is Metropolis, which is a silent science-fiction movie, released in 1927 by Fritz Lang, a master of German Expressionism. Metropolis describes a society where there is a select elite that lives in luxury while a dehumanized mass work and live in like cattle. The political problems going on in Germany in the 1920’s were apparent in the film: that of the conflict in relation to the state of contemporary Germany, where the nation was heading towards modernization. The 1920’s did indeed see the rise of conflicting political ideas in a pre-Hitler Weimar Germany.
This theme of the working class always having the power to destroy the Bourgeoisie intertwines itself with the story of Frankenstein, bringing to light the deeper problems of a
Fritz Lang’s M is very much a product of its time, receiving huge influences from German Expressionism during the 1930s. After World War I, this form of presenting film became very prominent in Germany reflecting the cynicism and disillusionment that encapsulated the country. As a result of Lang’s expressionist approach to the film along with his own unique take on the genre, M is also a very early example of film noir.