'Metropolis- Film Review (1-2)

'Metropolis'- Film Review (1-2)

[1041 words]

As the 500th year of robotics approaches- courtesy of  ‘The Science Museum's’ latest exhibition; ‘Robots’-  the subject of ‘Metropolis’, a film that explores the role of machine and the worker, and visualises the concept in film, seems more appropriate than ever.
Fig. 1
The film came out in 1927, seven years after the term ‘Robot’ (born from the Czech word ‘Robota’, meaning ‘forced labour’) emerged to describe organic people enslaved in Karel Capek’s play “Rossum’s Universal Robots”. During which,  ‘Robots’ successfully captured humanities fear of being replaced, or ‘enslaved’ in light of the Industrial Revolution, and later, during Germany’s Weimar Republic; a quickly formed government in post WW1, born in times of frustration and social/economic depression. 
Incidentally there are parallels between Germany’s Weimer period, to the sci-fi universe of ‘Metropolis’, as we see high-rise towers, and the pleasure garden- a seemingly perfect utopia for the rich and wealthy industrialists, perched on the top of the unstable, grim underbelly of the workers city. 
To give an idea of said troubles, one needs look no further than the “Dolchloss Legende” (‘Stab in the back’), a conflict between the soldiers returning from war, and the politicians in power- who’d gave disproportionate ideas of Germany’s inevitable victory, before signing the ‘Treaty of Versailles’ and surrendering to the Allies.War reparations hit Germany’s economy hard, as locals passively resisted ‘the occupation’, and indirectly triggered the hyperinflation (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
The idea of ‘Robot’ therefore, could be drawing links to German people’s fear and anger towards higher politicians/power (whether that be the Weimer Government who were seen to oppose the soldiers, and The Allies in WW1 who they’d surrendered to… or the fascist right-wing groups that’ll take control with extremist actions), and those in working class struggling to earn enough money to live during the ‘War Reparation’. 
Attract right-wing policies, began seeing intellect as undesirable. Robotics role dated back to the 18th century, as automaton, such as ‘Turk’, built to play chess beat all human challengers. With the essence of humanity summed up solely as our species intellect, controversy was sparked.  People argued as to whether this ‘thinking machine’, exceeded man-kind, and could potentially devalue humanity. 
Fig. 4 An 18th century automaton.
Robotics is antagonised in this film; with machines/intellect being the heart of the problem (and emotion being its saviour). False Maria, the instigator of conflict, encourages the working class to indirectly abandon their children, while characters, (such as Jon Fredersen) and the workers, are seen as emotionless- with the main characters; Freder and Maria extremely emotionally driven, whom we can empathise with. This is observed by ‘UFILM ANALYSIS BLOG’ (2013), in working with the fascist idea (in 1920’s Germany) that intelligence cannot be trusted. Robotics is the epitome of ‘intellect’, as they are developed with the idea of humanity only being established with intelligence (rather than emotion/empathy).
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Nazi Germany’s values oriented around ‘non-intellectual’ virtues such as patriotism, loyalty and blood. IQ was even linked by an SS paper to male infertility, claiming that educational pursuits brought down the countries birth rate.
Other parallels include issues with ‘class’; and Germany’s attempt to remove said tensions to create a “peoples community” (Volksgemeinschaft). This Fascist/communist ideal was “beginning to take shape in Europe at the time of the film’s airing”, and was captured in the film’s ‘theme of the struggle between the working class and the rulers” (‘UFILM ANALYSIS BLOG’, 2013). 
Then there’s Maria binary opposite. We see Maria, a gentle priest, idolised by the exhausted workers trapped in the inescapable depths of ‘Metropolis’, arrive on Freder’s doorstep.
Her role in keeping the cities precarious balance of peace, compared to ‘False Maria’s’ captures the two distinct types of women expected in Weimer Germany. First we see “The New Woman”; independent, and apart from other workingwomen in her focus to herself, and rejection “of the current systems of power and influence” (‘torimaher’, 2012), i.e. being ‘the housewife’. Then we have ‘The Future Mother’, a representation that was quick to overwhelm ‘The New Woman’, as “promises of economic gains and a stronger voice in politics were fulfilled slowly” (‘Facing History And Ourselves’, No date), and soldiers began returning to civilian life, to reclaim their jobs and “role as family breadwinner” (‘Facing History And Ourselves’, No date) - pushing women back to more traditional roles as ‘wife’ and ‘mother’.
That, and Germany’s economic uncertainty, saw women turn to new conservative parties, (i.e. Nazis), who believed that “reinforcing the traditional roles of women and men in the family ‘would provide stability in a social world that seemed to be rapidly slipping from their control”.
Fig. 7   Policies like ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche, and the ‘Young Girls League’, actively saw girls as “future mothers” in the Nazi’s “grand plan for the Reich to exist for 1000 years”.

As ‘False Maria’ captures the ‘promiscuous’ side of womanhood, independent and set on fulfilling shallow needs, rather than the greater populace i.e. Germany, (while we see she’s a greater plan in play… the plan itself see’s destruction of the greater plan of ‘Metropolis’, akin to ‘Babylon’), the true Maria has “children grasping at her when they are in peril”. ‘UFILM ANALYSIS BLOG’ (2013) also claims, “these two vastly different characters portray how women were viewed in the Weimar Republic; either as very virtuous or promiscuous with little in between.”
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Could it be, then, that ‘Metropolis’ once enforced ideas around passion and patriotism, evident later in German history? Or was it against it, with empathy and emotion being to main prevention to conflict and death?
With the Weimer government fundamentally flawed on creation (despite intentions to be democratic), people felt like ‘Robots’- enslaved by ‘enemies’ and by their own people who’d ‘sold them out’. As economic depression run riot, and extreme right-wing groups emerged promising freedom, people began enforcing said policies, while others began opposing these strict/prejudice ideas; feeling enslaved by fascist beliefs of their own people (evident later, when it came to a head in WW2). Čapek, himself made “subversive writings against the rising Nazi party”, and his invention of robots was yet another form of opposition against Nazi ideals. As we see his play claim victory for Robots over humanity, and bring light our inhumanity in our use of forced labour. However, its introduction in Metropolis, had demonized capitalism, but enforced new, fascist and communist ideologies around ‘intellect’ and ‘emotion’.
Whatever, and whoever, seemed to be doing the enslaving- ‘Metropolis’ acted as a mirror; fitting in and reflecting whatever ideas each viewer had at the time. 

References

Illustrations


Fig. 1 Holyhead, Rachael (2017), ‘Science Museum Exhibition ‘ROBOTS’: The Maschinenmensch’, [Photograph]. Unpublished photograph.
Fig. 2 ‘Woman Feeding Her Furnace With Banknotes’, (1923), [Online Image]. Available at: https://www.noteworthy-collectibles.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/woman-feeding-her-heating-furnace-with-banknotes1.jpg [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig. 3 ‘An anti-Semitic cartoon suggesting that the German army was stabbed in the back’, (1919), [Online Image: Austrian Postcard]. Available at:  http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-nazi-rise-to-power/effects-of-ww1-on-germany/stabbed-in-the-back/#.WYxh2bpFyUl [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig. 4 ‘Jaquet Droz The Writer Automaton From 1774 In Action: Inspired Hugo Movie’, (2012), [Film Still, 1:41]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux2KW20nqHU [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig. 5 ‘Metropolis’, (1927), [Film Still]. Available at: https://finzi22l.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/5.png [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig. 6 ‘Metropolis’, (1927), [Film Still]. Available at: https://thesouloftheplot.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/elevator_metropolis.png [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Fig. 8 ‘Metropolis’, (1927), [Film Still]. Available at: http://www.nybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/The-brothel-Yoshiwara.jpg [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]

Websites

‘BBC’, (No Date), ‘Weimar, crisis of 1923’, [Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/crisis1923rev_print.shtml [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘BBC’, (No Date), ‘Weimar- Strengths and Weaknesses’, [Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/germany/weimarstrengthweakrev2.shtml [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Bohan, Donna-Marie, (2012), ‘Gender as a destabilising factor of Weimar Society’, [Online]. Available at: http://ulsites.ul.ie/historystudies/sites/default/files/historystudies_13_bohan_gender_0.pdf [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘Facing History And Ourselves’, (No Date), ‘Joining the Hitler Youth: Holocaust and Human Behavior, Chapter 6’, [Online]. Available at: https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-6/joining-hitler-youth [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘Facing History And Ourselves’, (No Date), ‘Primary Sources: Weimar Society’, [Online]. Available at: https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-democracy/primary-sources/weimar-society [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘Facing History And Ourselves’ (No Date), ‘Women in the Weimar Republic: Holocaust and Human Behavior, Chapter 4’, [Online]. Available at: https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-4/women-weimar-republic [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
 ‘Film Education’, (2010), ‘Metropolis: Themes and Context’, [Online]. Available at: http://www.filmeducation.org/metropolis/pdf/Metropolis_Themes_and_context.pdf [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
French, Lawrence, (2010), ‘The Making of Metropolis: Creating the Female Robot’, [Online]. Available at: http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/2010/05/the-making-of-metropolis-creating-the-female-robot/ [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘Science Friday’, (2011), ‘Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word ‘Robot’, [Online]. Available at: https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/science-diction-the-origin-of-the-word-robot/ [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘The Wiener Library: THE HOLOCAUST EXPLAINED’, (2016), ‘Was the German army stabbed in the back?’, [Online]. Available at: http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/the-nazi-rise-to-power/effects-of-ww1-on-germany/stabbed-in-the-back/#.WYxY87pFyUk [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘The Lost Years’, (No Date), ‘The Weimar Republic- Rise of Fascism’, [Online]. Available at: http://historyhaters.weebly.com/the-weimar-republic-rise-of-fascism.html [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
‘torimaher’, (2012), ‘The Roles and Representations of Women in the Weimar Republic’, [Online]. Available at: https://makinghistoryatmacquarie.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/the-roles-and-representations-of-women-in-the-weimar-republic/ [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]
Trueman, C. N (2012), ‘Young Girls League’, [Online]. Available at: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/young-girls-league/ [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]

 ‘UFILM ANALYSIS BLOG’, (2013), ‘Is The Film Metropolis A Reflection Of The German Culture During The 1920’s?’ [Online]. Available at: https://ufilmanalysisfall13.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/is-the-film-metropolis-a-reflection-of-the-german-culture-during-the-1920s/ [Accessed Date: 10/08/2017]

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