The Film Metropolis

The film Metropolis, Fritz Lang adopts the same way of thinking as Eliot. Lang depicts the fragmented society through social stratification. He depicts the bourgeois as people who lead a callous and monotonous life in order to serve the wealthy upper class. The crescendo in the non-diegetic music with the addition of wavering vector lines in the beginning of the film forebodes the exploitation of the working class and creates a sense of chaos. The centralisation of the clock indicates that the workers literally work ‘around the clock’ therefore accentuating their arduous repetitious life as they are expected to dedicate their existence to serve the upper class by running the city underground. In the scene where Freder first discovers the underground factory, Lang portrays the workers accomplishing uniformed and repetitious tasks on a monstrous machine. Through a close up shot Lang alludes that the machine the workers operates to the Moloch where the workers are fed as human sacrifices illustrating their excruciating rewardless hard work reflective of their mundane lives. This is further seen through the mise-en-scene in the opening scene which alludes the workers to prisoners which is depicted by the dark steel bars effusing a sense that they are stranded in a hellish prison
and their costuming of unified repugnant clothing suggesting the lack of individualism. It is evident that Lang depicts that these worker’s existence holds no meaning as they are dehumanised and compelled to work not for themselves but rather for the existence of the upper class.
The film Metropolis, Fritz Lang adopts the same way of thinking as Eliot.
Lang depitcts the fragmented society through social stratification. He depicts the bourgeois as people who lead a callous and monotonous life in order to serve the wealthy upper class. The crescendo in the non-diegetic music with the addition of the wavering vector lines in the beginning of the film forebodes the exploitation of the working class and creates a sense of chaos. The centraliation of the clock indicates the workers literally “work around the clock” therefore accentuating their arduous repetitious life as they are expected to dedicate their existence to serve the upper class by running the city
underground.
The four texts, Rhapsody on Windy Night, Heart of Darkness, Preludes and Metropolis all depict T.S Eliot, Joseph Conrad and Fritz Lang’s disillusioned view of the modern industrialised world. The is depicted through the individual entrapment and repercussions of the industrialised world in Rhapsody on a Windy night and heart of Darkness where both composers highlight a sense of isolation. In Preludes and Metropolis, both composers fragment society to emphasis the true monotonous cycle of existence evident in a modern civilised society. It is thus clear Modernist composers express the radical change of contextual and social values through literary conventions to clearly communicate their values and their panorama of the industrialised world.
The film Metropolis