Metropolis Review

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Metropolis is largely regarded as the first great sci-fi film and serves as an inspiration to many films made after it. It has inspired “Blade Runner,” “The Fifth Element,” “Alphaville,” “Escape From L.A.,” “Gattaca,” and the design of Gotham City from "Batman". It is interesting to watch this film having seen these films before.Roger Ebert on his website says that "The ideas of “Metropolis” have been so often absorbed into popular culture[1]", which is a view that I support. All you need to do is watch both "Metropolis" and pretty much any sci fi film and you can make a connection. For example the design of C3PO from Star Wars bares a striking resemblance to the Machine Man in  "Metropolis", also the shape shifting ability can be seen in other sci fi films as well as in other genres.
The character of Rotwang pretty much created the whole "Mad Scientist" character and look. Also the film almost bankrupted the people who bankrolled the film. This was down to all the effects, set designs and the sheer amount of extras, roughly 25,000 people.
To me the film represents the communist/Soviet style of government, the one guy/ the party at the top end of society represented in this film as the the upper class that enjoy the high life, the workers/ everyone else who are, well, all the worker in the film, and the fact that people from the top of society can be cast into the working class by the guy who's at the top. I'm not sure that this is something people have considered but I feel it was worth mentioning in this review.
The version of the film we saw was a restoration of one version of the film found in Buenos Aries. The film, unfortunately, was "exhibited around the world in shortened, differently edited versions[2]" and it is quite possible that the full version that the director settled on will never be found or has already been destroyed. What we saw was the clips that could be salvaged from the reel (Film at that time could easily degrade or were simply destroyed after being shown) plus slides that fill in the gaps, presumably working from a script (and edited version or the original, I am not sure).


1. Roger Ebert,"Metropolis Movie Review & Film Summary (1927)",Rogerebert.com: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-metropolis-1927
2.Philip French,"Metropolis review – Philip French on Fritz Lang’s visionary epic",The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/15/metropolis-fritz-lang-philip-french-classic-dvd

Comments

  1. Jackie3 October 2017 at 06:08

    Hello again Ollie,

    Ok... so I am presuming that you have read my comments on your first review by now. This one is heading more in the right direction, although all the points I made in the last comment apply here too...

    Additionally -
    Be careful of statements like this, 'I'm not sure that this is something people have considered but I feel it was worth mentioning in this review.'

    Firstly, of course by now you will know that you should not be writing in the first person. More importantly, if you are not sure whether this idea is something that others have considered, then it is your job to get out there and find out! This is the whole reason we ask you to support your own ideas with quotes - to show that you have read WIDELY around what other people have thought about the film.

    So, make sure you have looked at the 'Caligari' comment, look at the links I sent you, look at the previous examples that Phil flagged up, and let's see how your next review looks!

    ReplyDelete

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