I was really lucky to watch the restored masterpiece Metropolis in BFI. Metropolis is a monumental work. When it was made in 1927, it was Germany's most expensive feature film, a canvas for director Fritz Lang's increasingly extravagant ambitions (it took sixteen months to film). The film's visual effects and set designs for imaginary future city were so nice and real that it was hard to believe that it is produced about 90 years ago.
The film is set in the massive, sprawling futu
ristic mega-city Metropolis, whose society is divided into two classes: the thinkers, who make plans (but don't know how anything works), and the workers, who achieve goals (but don't have the vision). Completely separate, neither group is complete, but together they make a whole. One man from the "thinkers" dares visit the underground where the workers toil, and is astonished by what he sees.
The film is set in the massive, sprawling futu
ristic mega-city Metropolis, whose society is divided into two classes: the thinkers, who make plans (but don't know how anything works), and the workers, who achieve goals (but don't have the vision). Completely separate, neither group is complete, but together they make a whole. One man from the "thinkers" dares visit the underground where the workers toil, and is astonished by what he sees.The director Lang, inspired by the skyline of New York, created a whole new vision of cities. His inspiration created a special image of the futuristic city that is still enough to impress modern audiences. During watching this movie, I was particularly focused on its architectural background and the scenery of the future city.
The film contains cinematic and thematic links to German Expressionism, though the architecture as portrayed in the film appears based on contemporary Modernism and Art Deco. The latter, a brand-new style in Europe at the time, had not reached mass production yet and was considered an emblem of the bourgeois class, and similarly associated with the ruling class in the film. Rotwang's Art Deco laboratory with its lights and industrial machinery is a forerunner of the Streamline Modern style, highly influential on the look of Frankenstein-style laboratories of "mad scientists" in pop culture. When applied to science fiction, this style is sometimes called Raygun Gothic.
The film contains cinematic and thematic links to German Expressionism, though the architecture as portrayed in the film appears based on contemporary Modernism and Art Deco. The latter, a brand-new style in Europe at the time, had not reached mass production yet and was considered an emblem of the bourgeois class, and similarly associated with the ruling class in the film. Rotwang's Art Deco laboratory with its lights and industrial machinery is a forerunner of the Streamline Modern style, highly influential on the look of Frankenstein-style laboratories of "mad scientists" in pop culture. When applied to science fiction, this style is sometimes called Raygun Gothic.
Metropolis's New Tower of Babel(left) and Brueghel's Painting Tower of Babel(right)
The Complete Metropolis - Official Trailer:
No comments:
Post a Comment