Metropolises has hidden meaning on the wider cultural, social and political context of the time period. Acting as a commentary on the German political situation on Weimar Germany, the text stands as a warning for the horrors of the future, the disco
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Metropolis tec 1
Using film as a medium to best reflect the machine age, the opening sequence of Metropolis displaying the ‘capitalist plutocracy’ and the subjugation of the proletariat workers conveys meaning to the audience.
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Metropolis tec 1 analysis
. The workers, shown not as individuals, but as one body, reduces the value of people to mere elements of the machine world
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Metropolis quote 2
The dialectical materialism, represented through the opening epitaph: “the mediator between the hand and the brain must be the heart” is contrasted in message to the scene of mountainous buildings and minute, non-individual humans
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Metropolis quote 2 analysis
Lang’s statement is to suggest the human cost of right wing fantasies, and that the desire for power will only seek to destroy individual freedoms.
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1984 intro
It is from the persona of Winston Smith, a name lacking in individuality much like the numbered workers in Metropolis, that the brutality of the totalitarian regime are explored
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1984 tec 1
The disintegration of personal freedom is a reoccurring theme throughout the novel, enforced and contained by the thought police under the iron grip of the ministry of truth
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1984 tec 1 qoute
“The great purges involved thousands of people”. This historical allusion to the Stalinist purges in his paranoid desire for power is a comment from Orwell on what could happen; both suppression and the loss of individuality
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Metropolis quote 2
. Indeed, the paradoxical party slogans, “Freedom is Slavery,” War is Peace”, “Ignorance is strength” display the governments control over its people in the form that the individual can have no knowledge accept that awarded by government control.
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Metropolis review
Lang criticism of capitalist values lacking in empathy and love differentiates from Orwell’s criticism of totalitarian government, though both are amplified through the creation of a dark dystopia.
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Howq man is portrayed in metropolis
Lang contrasts his construction of what humanity ultimately portrays, emotion, love and individuality, to the dehumanisation of the working class. The
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metropolis para 2 tec 1
The “under class” are simply means of production set to aid the capitalist monopoly of individuality in their quest for power. Lang’s metaphor of the mechanical reproduction of life under the “machine man” demonstrates significant greek mythology
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Metropolis para 2 tec 2
The ten-hour clock, featured by Lang both in the beginning and later half of the film symbolizes this constant feeling of time shortage as an essential component in proletarian life: "On the enormous face of the clock in the New Tower of Babel
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Met para 2 tec 2 analysis
hand. Through the quotation of the New Testament, he embodies the workers' collective desire for liberation from the ever-accelerating rhythm of labour, and their need for both identities against the rulers desire for power
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Tie to 1984
The only freedom presented to Winston is to die hating the party, but he can not do so, abandoning Julia and relinquishing his own morality and self-respect. In a paradoxical tragedy, Winston’s search for power through individuality led to himlosin b
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
Metropolis tec 1
Back
Using film as a medium to best reflect the machine age, the opening sequence of Metropolis displaying the ‘capitalist plutocracy’ and the subjugation of the proletariat workers conveys meaning to the audience.
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