“For me, cinema is a vice. I love it intimately” (Fritz Lang). This is an extremely powerful quote, showing the dedication and love for cinematography, by influential filmmaker, screenwriter, and on rare occasions an actor; Fritz Lang. Metropolis (1927) and Fury (1936) are two films both directed by Fritz Lang, with some similarities and many differences, with focus on the difference of locations (where the films were influenced, produced, distributed and exhibited). It is hypothesized that these differences in Fritz Lang’s filmmaking were influenced by the political culture of the locations, Germany or America and the time period they were made. With Fritz Lang’s two largest periods of work happening in Germany and Hollywood (America) there …show more content…
Metropolis is a silent film with intertitles, produced by German production company UFA, the film has a powerful visual design, communist subtext and religious imagery and is still currently considered one the the greatest silent films of all time. The film originally premiered in Germany but, rather quickly, edited and cut to be released in the United States and later U.K. but this will be discussed in greater detail. Furthermore, Metropolis premiered in Berlin on January tenth, 1927 and was filmed during 1925 initially with a budget of one million Reichsmarks (Minden, Michael, Bachmann, Holger 12) and finished costing five million Reichsmarks. Until this time no other movie has cost as much as Metropolis. This could be due to futuristic style set in an urban dystopian setting. UFA being so confident in the project along with a promotion campaign requested some journalist and film critics to come see scenes from the film as they were being shot (filmed) (Minden, Michael, Bachmann and Holger 16). Metropolis is also a film that used not very well known and acting talent when it came to the actors in the film. The special effects aided Metropolis a lot in creating cohesion with the setting, Some groundbreaking effects are a camera on a swing, miniatures made of the city as well as the Schüfftan process, where mirrors are used so it seems that the actors are occupying these …show more content…
First, will be reasoning for the initial negative reviews of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. When originally released there was a lot of confusion among film critics with some reviews claiming the film to be a visual masterpiece and others like H.G. Wells declaring Metropolis as “foolishness, cliché, platitude, and muddlement about mechanical progress and progress in general" (H.G. Well’s Review) although most of the reviews found err on negative side. When looking at Metropolis, the film was produced by the well known German production company UFA. UFA was originally founded as a propaganda arm for the German general staff in WWI (Kreimer 288). This gave UFA a lot of power as well as responsibility with promotion of the film, declaring Metropolis as a “national epic projected into the future” (Testa 179-183). This directly affected the film negatively as this was not the film made by Fritz Lang. When researching early reviews of the film, many discuss the disappointment of expectations, this would be caused directly from promotions and less on Fritz Lang. Metropolis was only released in its original form for two weeks, before it was edited and rereleased, and the initial bad reviews done are acknowledged by Bart Testa (2002), where he
Film Noir, as Paul Schrader integrates in his essay ‘Notes on Film Noir,’ reflects a marked phase in the history of films denoting a peculiar style observed during that period. More specifically, Film Noir is defined by intricate qualities like tone and mood, rather than generic compositions, settings and presentation. Just as ‘genre’ categorizes films on the basis of common occurrences of iconographic elements in a certain way, ‘style’ acts as the paradox that exemplifies the generality and singularity at the same time, in Film Noir, through the notion of morality. In other words, Film Noir is a genre that exquisitely entwines theme and style, and henceforth sheds light on individual difference in perception of a common phenomenon. Pertaining
Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford, 2004.
Literature and film have always held a strange relationship with the idea of technological progress. On one hand, with the advent of the printing press and the refinements of motion picture technology that are continuing to this day, both literature and film owe a great deal of their success to the technological advancements that bring them to widespread audiences. Yet certain films and works of literature have also never shied away from portraying the dangers that a lust for such progress can bring with it. The modern output of science-fiction novels and films found its genesis in speculative ponderings on the effect such progress could hold for the every day population, and just as often as not those speculations were damning. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis are two such works that hold great importance in the overall canon of science-fiction in that they are both seen as the first of their kind. It is often said that Mary Shelley, with her authorship of Frankenstein, gave birth to the science-fiction novel, breathing it into life as Frankenstein does his monster, and Lang's Metropolis is certainly a candidate for the first genuine science-fiction film (though a case can be made for Georges Méliès' 1902 film Le Voyage Dans la Lune, his film was barely fifteen minutes long whereas Lang's film, with its near three-hour original length and its blending of both ideas and stunning visuals, is much closer to what we now consider a modern science-fiction film). Yet though both works are separated by the medium with which they're presented, not to mention a period of over two-hundred years between their respective releases, they present a shared warning about the dangers that man's need fo...
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
Films are also treasures of culture, filled with clues and insights into the attitudes and perceptions of the people of the day. While documentary films obviously present a historical record of people and events, dramatic fictional movies can also reveal the same. Comparing the main characters in Hitchcock's 1934
...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.
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.
Classic film noir originated after World War II. This is the time where post World War II pessimism, anxiety, and suspicion was taking the world by storm. Many films that were released in the U.S. Between 1939s and 1940s were considered propaganda films that were designed for entertainment during the Depression and World War II. During the 1930s many German and Europeans immigrated to the U.S. and helped the American film industry with powerf...
From the beginning of cinema as an art form to cinema today, film has evolved and developed drastically. Each era of film from the Silent Film to the French New Wave was influenced by prior film generations and influenced those films that came after it. The era of Silent Film was very basic as it emerged when motion pictures had only begun. Across the sea, the age of German Expressionism, a film genre with features of the Silent Film era which conveyed the German people's struggle after World War I had started. Afterwards, the Studio Era surfaced and portrayed larger than life heroes in narratives with the gloss of a storybook. During the Studio Era, films like these were produced quickly because of success and began to appear mass produced
Films of the Hollywood genres express elements of ‘order’ and ‘chaos’ using different filmic elements in the movies. The films that will be analyzed are a pair of film noirs, The Big Sleep(1946) and Polanski’s Chinatown(1974).
From the silent epic of Fritz Lang Metropolis (1927) to Ridley’s Scott’s spectacular Blade Runner (1982) the connection between architecture and film has always been intimate. The most apparent concepts that connect these two films are the overall visuals of both films and their vision of city of the future. The futuristic city of both Scott and Lang are distinct in their landscapes, geography, and social structure. These two films sought to envision a future where technology was the basis by which society functioned. Technology was the culture and the cities would crumble without it (Will Brooker). Metropolis and Blade Runner uses the themes relationships among female sexuality and male vision, and technology. However, Gender roles and technology seems to be the most important part in both films.
During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that, examining post classical at which time the relationship between them will become evident. It is my intention to reference films from both movements and also published texts relative to the subject matter. In order to illustrate the structures involved I will be writing about the subjects of genre and genre transformation, the representation of gender, postmodernism and the relationship between style, form and content.
In this essay the following will be discussed; the change from the age of classical Hollywood film making to the new Hollywood era, the influence of European film making in American films from Martin Scorsese and how the film Taxi Driver shows the innovative and fresh techniques of this ‘New Hollywood Cinema’.
The critiques of Metropolis can be described as a commentary on the political situation that existed in Germany at the time, but also served as a warning of where Germany was heading in the future. The film was made during
‘Then came the films’; writes the German cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, evoking the arrival of a powerful new art form at the end of 19th century. By this statement, he tried to explain that films were not just another visual medium, but it has a clear differentiation from all previous mediums of visual culture.