When hearing the term “science fiction” one would imagine a film filled with unrealistic gadgets, humans with super powers and even technology of the future. However, science fiction is much more than that. Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with whimsical concepts such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space and time travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. Over time, this genre has changed and thrived due to an increase in available technology and science which led to an increase in special effects and filming techniques. Viewers are transported into more believable worlds of Utopias run by shiny machines or cities being overrun by a giant, violent monsters. The films Metropolis …show more content…
Images, props, characters and sounds that are repeated again and again throughout films in a certain genre are classified as iconography. Examples of iconography in science fiction include high-tech gadgets, larger than life monsters, flying cars, aliens, etc. Similar to myths, the imagery remains the same over time, but they way it is conveyed changed. Take into consideration props: as technology evolved, the way props were made and the materials used to make them changed. For example, a UFO in an early twentieth century film may have been cheaply made from scrap metal and foil. As time goes on, UFO prop is made out more expensive and carefully crafted and detailed materials. In addition, as new discoveries in science are made, more accurate and futuristic images and plots can be thought …show more content…
Being based on technology and science, it makes sense the genre changes along with these subjects. Today, technology and science are at an all time high, allowing this genre to be at its peak. Almost anything is possible on screen; from extraterrestrial life forms to space travel, this genre allows endless possible. However, sci-fi films weren’t always as elaborate as they are today. Born in the early twentieth-century, sci-fi films first came out in the era of silent films. These silent films often featured simple background music and used simple special effects and animations. Directors were also experimenting with cinematic style and films were evolving into an art form. German cinema was popular in this early era due to its expressionism. Well-known German director Fritz Lang became popular for his 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis. In Science Fiction, Ecological Futures, and the Topography of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Andrew Hageman states that, “Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis (1927) displays a science fiction
During this decade, the film industry went through massive changes that would completely change what movies were or stood for. After the Great War, more people began considering movies as a form of entertainment. This increased attention caused change in the industry, allowing the experience of the movie goer to massively change for the better. Many new genres, ideas and technologies emerged in the 1920s that would later dominate the industry. The 1920s saw massive changes happening in the movie industry that would help it to get one step closer to what it is today.
Movies are the biggest time killers in the United States of America, where an average person watches about 20-30 movies a year. They are separated and categorized into many category, but one of the biggest category is science fiction. Science fiction is fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets. One of the biggest and most famous science fiction movie is Jurassic Park, which is a science fiction-adventure-drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, based upon the novel of the same name, written by Michael Crichton. The story involves scientists visiting a safari amusement park of genetically engineered
In this paper, I want to argue that Fritz Lang's effective use of Cinemascope and Mise-en-scène in Moonfleet, ultimately allowed him to better express his signature stylistic elements, despite the many restrictions he had to work with throughout the production process. These restrictions included but were not limited to: a new stylistic filming process; Cinemascope, and the frayed relationship Fritz Lang was speculated to share with MGM, the production company he worked with for Moonfleet.
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...
figure of the same name. The alteration of the story into the visual medium of cinema is
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.
Within every history class, English class, and even some science classes, the art of storytelling is a primary foundation for human communication and understanding. Whether it be through myths – Greek, Roman, Egyptian, you pick – or wives tales or even Grandpa telling his old war stories, stories have power. Now, through technological advancements in the last 150+ years (thank you Thomas Edison for your obsession), we have film as a mode to tell stories. Fictional or not, films tell a story; they have the power to give you not only entertainment but enlightenment too. Through continuing advancements, filmmakers have the ability to challenge and manipulate the power of the story through creative resistance; by exploring other elements of storytelling via film, filmmakers can create dramatically different films from similar ideas by using a multitude of techniques. Films are even used to create social commentary.
As long as sci-fi continues to re-invent itself, the genre will remain relevant, challenging, and entertaining, which is why it will survive as long as cinema itself.
In the textbook ‘American Film: A History’, Jon Lewis discusses the components which he believes are markers of “the end of cinema as we know it”. By Cinema, Jon Lewis is meaning the all-encompassing thing that is film-making and film-viewing, as well as the marketing, and business side of Hollywood itself. The changes that resulted from the conglomerate business model, the marketing system of the industry and the advance in technology are the major argument points discussed by Lewis, however I think that technology itself is truly the overarching cause of the changes that’ve been seen.
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.
Iconography, in art history, the study of subject matter in art. The meaning of works of art is often conveyed by the specific objects or figures that the artist chooses to portray; the purpose of iconography is to identify, classify, and explain these objects. Iconography is particularly important in the study of religious and allegorical painting, where many of the objects that are pictured—crosses, skulls, books, or candles, for example—have special significance, which is often obscure or symbolic.
Through the talkies in the 30’s little changed (except sound). The 1950’s and 60’s focused on sci-fi, B movies and Hammer horror, often known as the ‘Atomic Phase.’ Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Alien at the Arctic Circle and The Thing (1951) are good examples. Horror then switched to witchcraft and zombie films such as Night Of The Living Dead (1968) and Day Of The Dead (1985). Conventions changed, we now had more suspense, people being trapped and spiritual terror. Towards the end of the era we also saw an increase in the amount of violence and gore but this was nothing compared to what came next.
As time and people are continually changing, so is knowledge and information; and in the film industry there are inevitable technological advances necessary to keep the attraction of the public. It is through graphic effects, sounds and visual recordings that all individuals see how we have evolved to present day digital technology; and it is because of the efforts and ideas of the first and latest great innovators of the twentieth century that we have advanced in film and computers.
According to historians like Neil Burch, the primitive period of the film industry, at the turn of the 20th century was making films that appealed to their audiences due to the simple story. A non-fiction narrative, single shots a burgeoning sense
Science fiction deals with the impact of actual and imagined science on society or individuals. It mostly speculates the technological advancement that may be obtained in the near future. Although most of the story is based on fiction, different elements of science that exist in the real world are also depicted in it. Some schools show science fiction movies to the students to enhance the learning process, while others only rely on text books. Not all classroom materials can be covered by science fiction narratives. However, making this genre a part of the education system can help students learn better and become more enthusiastic about any subject matter.