Metropolis Review
Metropolis was created in Germany in 1927. The movie is black and white and only sound is created from an organ in front of the screen. It was set in the future of 2026 where the workers are separated from the rich. The workers never see the upper class due to working underneath the city all day and they live underneath where they work. The upper class doesn’t even recognize that the workers exist. That is until the leader’s son sees a worker woman who catches his attention. He goes down to the worker’s level to try and find her. To not get caught he switches with one of the workers, 11811. 11811 goes up to the upper class level to take his place and but gets distracted by the carefree life. The leader found out that his son when down to the worker’s level and sent a spy to get him back. The spy catches 11811 though and sends him back to the working level. The leader’s son finally finds the girl he is looking for in a cave, she is the holy woman. At the same time the leader visits an old friend who is a scientist. The said scientist has made a “machine man” that can take the form of anyone. The leader and scientist find out about the holy woman, who gives the workers hope, and decide to have the “machine man” take her form, but first they must kidnap her. The leader’s son heads back to the worker’s home and at that moment the scientist takes the holy woman. The “machine man” takes her form and leads the workers into an uprising. She tricks the workers into destroying all the machines and thus proving that the workers hold the key to the city. Afterwards, she leaves them to go cause chaos in the city. The leader and the scientist and leader fight and the holy woman escapes and goes down to the worker’s level, that is now slowly becoming flooded from the machines braking down. Once down there she meets up with the leader’s son and they try to save the children, who were left there when their parents got caught up in the moment of the uprising. They all make it out alive by escaping through the airshafts. The workers then realize that they have killed their kids, not knowing that their children were saved, and storm the city to kill the “machine man” holy woman. They decided the fit punishment was to burn her. When they do, they realize that she was just made of metal and try to find the real holy woman. The scientist captured the real one again when she left the school, where the children were sent to, in order to find all the workers. He takes her to the top of a church where the leader’s son meets him in order to save her. The two fight for her life and in the end the scientist falls over the edge and dies. The whole city is happy that he survived and the workers and the leader come to an understanding with the help of the leader’s son.
At the beginning of the movie we were told that many parts of the movie were taken for other films. While I watched it, I looked for what was taken. The title scroll was used in Star Wars, the words leaving the screen in a triangular motion in the middle of the screen. The upper classes’ gardens reminded me of Dr. Seuss’ settings in his books. The birds that were wondering the gardens were similar to those in Blade Runner. They symbolized the rich because only the upper class could have them. In addition, when the scientist took the girl to the top of the church; the one thing that came to mind was King Kong. The scientist was wearing black, hunched over, and waving his arms in the air just like King Kong did.
One other thing that I noticed was that the main girl was either seen as the religious figure or a witch. In the beginning she was the innocent young lady that looked out for the weak and gave them hope for better times. The moment that the “machine man” took her place, her personality was the exact opposite. The thing that struck me as odd was that even though the workers knew her so well they could not tell that someone had taken her place and when they thought she had betrayed them they automatically tried to kill her. They said she was a witch even though they knew her as the saint. It was sad that they would turn on her so quickly. That made me start thinking why women in old movies were always portrayed was either the saint or the witch.
I also began to wonder why they kept calling robot the “machine man” when it was a woman. The robot was clearly built to resemble the leader’s wife and yet it was titled a man. I think it was because in the late twenties men were seen as being the powerful sex and thus being able to transform into anyone was so powerful that only a man could do it. It might have been because calling it the “machine woman” would not seem as terrifying as the “machine man”. Having the title of a woman may present the machine as being weak or fragile.
Questions:
What was the real reason for giving the woman robot the name of the “machine man”?
What other movies took ideas from Metropolis?
What were the symbols in the movie?