In the early days of film, due to the limitations of film sound technology, most films before the 1830s had images without dialogue and sound effects, which is often referred to as silent films. When it comes to silent movies, the first thing people think of is Chaplin's black and white comedy. It is true that in the era of film without lines, comedy silent films were often able to capture the audience's attention so easily that people now almost equate silent films with black and white comedies. This is due to the reliance of silent films on physical performance techniques, which often appear as excessive and exaggerated interpretations, which are relatively natural in comparison to comedy performances.
In fact, in the "screen age" of movies, there are still many classic silent movies that are not comedies and stand out with their excellent connotations. The film we are going to introduce today is a silent film with exaggerated images, vivid plots, and deep themes. It is the most expensive silent film in film history. It was inscribed on the World Cultural Heritage List by the United Nations in 2010. It is called the originator of modern science fiction films - from the German director Fritz Lang's 1927 expressionist film - "Metropolis" (Metropolis).
The story of "Metropolis" takes place in 2026, 100 years after the film's release, and is a highly industrialized future metropolis. The society of the metropolis is divided into two classes: workers and capitalists. The capitalists, represented by John Fredersen, the owner and manager of the metropolis, live in tall, majestic and magnificent skyscrapers on the ground. , Luxurious, sensual and lustful, living a life of luxury and corruption; while the working class who work with their hands lives in a dark underground city, controlled by huge and cold machines all day long. In Germany during the second industrial revolution where the director was located, such a concept undoubtedly reflected the class differentiation and the deepening of class contradictions under the background of the times.
The film is based on the perspective of Jon Friedson's son Fred. At the beginning of the movie, in a paradise called "YOSHIMARE" full of twisted buildings, gardens, fountains, theaters, and sports fields, the upper-class son Fred, the female teacher who was pushed through the garden gate during a play, walked in attracted by Maria. Surrounded by many lower-class children, Maria crouched down, pointed to the people in the garden and told the children, "Look, these are your brothers." She came from working-class backgrounds with Fred's former acquaintances. Women are very different, and Fred seems to see the holy light blooming in the pure and simple her.
In order to find the woman he haunted, Fred went underground - where the "hands" of the metropolis are. Here, pampered and pampered, he realizes for the first time the infernal furnace-like conditions beneath the city—stuffy, humid, never-ending work. He witnessed a serious accident like hell with his own eyes, and his heart was shaken, and he decided to tell all this to his superior father. However, in the "New Tower of Babylon" where his father worked, he learned that his father, who was at the top of the society, knew all about it, but he didn't think about what to do, and even easily pushed those who were not working well around him into the lower class. abyss. Fred felt he needed to do something for his brothers and sisters underground, so he went back underground and swapped identities with a worker. In the underground work, Fred learned a clue about Maria from a co-worker: it turns out that Maria has always played the role of savior, intending to save the workers who are living in dire straits, and today she will grow old at night Time to hold talks in old places.
On the other hand, in the previous accident, two strange floor plans found from the workers gave Fredson, the Lord of the Metropolis, a headache. In order to investigate the truth about the accident, he decides to visit the mad scientist, if there is only one person in the world who knows what this is, it must be Rotwang. It's just that Fredson is not very happy to have contact with him. It turns out that the scientist was a rival in love with Fredson when he was young, and Fred's mother, Hel, died of dystocia when he gave birth to Fred. die. The mad scientist is so mad at Fredson, and because he misses his sweetheart, he creates a robot that can imitate anyone to replace his lover. King Rhodes said after looking at the floor plan that it indicated an ancient tomb under the dungeon. In order to find out what the workers were doing in the tomb, Fredson and scientists went through a secret passage to the tomb to find out.
In the tomb, Maria was giving a speech. She told a story about the Tower of Babylon (Babel Tower): a man conceived to build a tower of Babylon that reached the sky, but he was unable to build such a building himself, so countless working people were killed by Sent to build this tower of personal praise and lived a miserable life. People build bricks and bricks mechanically without being told what they are accomplishing; and those who conceive it continue to live their rotten lives, ignoring the lives of the builders. Maria used this story to hint at the essence of the capitalist class represented by Fredson, the master of the metropolis-they used their brains to control the laborers in the lower classes of the city, and built this splendid city with the help of the power of the workers. After it was built, the workers forgot their hard work and enjoyed the benefits of the city alone. It happens that Fredson's office building happens to be called the "New Babylon Tower", which coincides with the story. Maria believes that the upper class is the "brain" and the underground workers are the "hands". In order to integrate the "brain" and the "hands", a mediator such as a "heart" is needed, and she believes that this mediator will definitely come.
The workers dispersed, leaving only Fred kneeling on the ground. Maria realized that Fred, the son of the capitalist, was the mediator. Maria and Fred fell in love at first sight, but this scene was captured by two pairs of eyes in the dark corner behind the wall. Fredson was furious. He was afraid that Maria would destroy the relationship between the upper and lower classes. In order to prevent this woman from confounding the public, he decided to turn the scientist's robot into Maria to divide the relationship between Maria and the workers and destroy Maria's work. beliefs of the workers. However, a bigger plan arose in King Rhode's heart. In order to retaliate against Fredson, his chance to destroy everything he had been thinking about day and night finally came. King Rhode kidnapped Maria and took her to the haunted house, where he was going to change the robot into Maria's face. The next day, Fred, who was supposed to go to the church, did not wait for Maria. He passed by the haunted house while searching around, and happened to hear Maria's cry. Fred rushed into the haunted house, but was trapped by the mechanism in the haunted house. Scientists successfully copied Maria's face with a machine. The whole experiment was perfect, and the replica's face was even more charming than Maria herself. Scientists claim to Fredson: This stunner will be every man's dream, the most perfect and submissive plaything ever, and tonight people will see how she is fascinated by all living beings in this city, people will absolutely not be able to tell the difference Her authenticity. Fredson was also fascinated by the man-made man in front of him. His eyes seemed to have the figure of his wife. Just as he stretched out his hand to take a look at the beauty, Fred, who had broken through the haunted house, rushed in just in time. saw this scene. In an instant, Fred fainted as if the world was collapsing.
At the grandest high-end party of the night, the robot Maria appeared gorgeously dressed and fascinated the men in the audience with her coquettish appearance and sexy and sultry dance. People flocked to see her, and men of high society fought each other for her. But Fred, who fell ill in bed, saw the prophecy in the Book of Revelation come true in the dark - the devil came to the world on behalf of the seven deadly sins, darkness enveloped the whole world, and the glorious metropolis was about to be destroyed. . Fred woke up thinking that the woman he saw was definitely not the Maria he knew, and decided to go to the tomb with his secretary to check the situation.
After the party, the robot Maria went to the dungeon to incite the workers to riot: the mediators of "brain" and "hands" have not appeared, people still live in cold machines and work day and night, workers, you have already Wait long enough, your time has come! Who reduced their marrow to the lubricant of the machine? Who nurtured the mechanical monsters in Metropolis with the drive of flesh and blood? Let the machines go hungry! Destroy them! Destroy the machine! Fred, who arrived, pierced through the robot Maria, but it was too late, the angry workers had already lost their minds, and Fred, the son of a capitalist, could not stop them. Workers flocked to the underground city factory. They ignored the foreman's dissuasion and wanted to destroy the core machine of the Metropolis. The robot Maria took advantage of the chaos to pull the switch to destroy the core machine. With the destruction of the machine, the dungeon began to be flooded, but the unsuspecting workers sang and danced for the victory.
On the other side of the city, the real Maria was being strictly guarded by King Rhode. King Rhode proudly explained his grand plan to her, but all this was overheard by Fredson secretly. Fredson rushed in and got into a fight with the scientist. Maria took advantage of the chaos to escape the scientist's grasp, and ran straight to her students as the floodwaters began to flood the dungeon. Maria sounded the alarm and summoned the children to the square, where they met with Fred, who had come here, and the two who finally met embraced each other deeply. They then escaped the flooded dungeon with their children.
The excited workers were finally awakened by the news of the flood, and people realized that they were bewitched by the woman. Immediately they turned their anger on Maria: it was the woman who killed us, it was all her fault, killed her! The workers, led by the foreman, broke into the clubhouse and grabbed the robot Maria, who tied her to a post and burned her to death amid cheers. The robot Maria gave a ghostly laugh before she died, then revealed herself, and people realized they had been fooled. The real Maria, who was hiding on the side, was taken hostage by King Rhodes, and Fred stepped forward to stop him from fighting with him. In the end, King Rhode fell from a high building in the fight, and all the disturbances subsided. At the end of the film, Fred finally became the mediator, and the "brain" and "hands" were finally combined under the guidance of the "heart".
"Metropolis" is an excellent silent film that has a profound influence on later generations. The film combines the hot spots of the times with religious legends and sci-fi imagination of the future, and shows us a social change that integrates class, religion, human nature and ideals with exaggerated and vivid plots.
From the standpoint, the director stands on the standpoint of capitalism to discuss the issue of class contradictions. Looking back at the development of capitalism, a new class of workers emerged before and after the Industrial Revolution. As producers who directly participated in labor, their lives were hard and poor, while the bourgeoisie was able to reap the fruits of labor. This is the contradiction and darkness that exists behind the bright society of capitalism. However, the inevitability of class contradiction makes some capitalists, like Maria in the film, who sympathize with the proletarian laborers, pin their hopes on a "middleman" to reconcile this contradiction. Fred's awakening is a symbol of the awakening of capitalist morality. The director believes that improving the subsistence level of the proletariat and easing class contradictions is never accomplished through a bloody "revolution", and the revolution under the guise of eliminating classes may actually be mixed with personal ambition and greed. If the bourgeoisie can value workers through constant self-examination, improve workers’ treatment, and give them rewards and rights, then destructive revolutions will not happen, “brains” and “hands” can coexist harmoniously, and the capitalist “metropolis” will also can continue to operate. This point of view just reflects the policy of the European and American capitalist countries led by the United Kingdom and the United States after World War II to advocate political reform and provide subsidies and welfare subsidies to the middle and lower classes.
In a symbolic sense, the film uses a lot of religious symbols, and even directly puts scenes from the Bible on the screen-representing God is the ruler of the metropolis, Fredson and the upper capitalists; Maria is like her The name represents the Virgin who descended the world to redeem the world; the robot Maria, who symbolizes the seven deadly sins, is the devil who drives the darkness to cover the world; the workers represent the ignorant human beings who sinned by hurting God. In the film, "human beings" built the "Tower of Babel" and touched the order of the world, and then ignored the warnings of the "prophet" and destroyed the core machine that maintains the world, thus causing a great flood. God" is back to good. This "Christian fable" form of sci-fi movie mode has also become a precedent for sci-fi movie shooting, and has formed a profound impact on later sci-fi movies. Religious films with science fiction colors allow people to understand and contact the connotation and meaning of religion in bizarre images, and can easily deepen the ideological depth of the film, so they are favored by Western directors who are deeply influenced by Christianity.
As one of the representative works of German expressionist films, it is not difficult to find many shadows of the prevalence of expressionism in the film. From the very beginning of the prologue, the director has painted us a utopian, highly developed future city picture: the sky train rushes through the skyscrapers, the high and low tracks are scattered around the towering buildings, the constantly changing laser columns and geometric shapes. The buildings cut the sky into pieces. As a film released at the beginning of the 20th century, director Fritz Lang was the first to put the idea of the city's development from two-dimensional to three-dimensional on the screen and presented it intuitively with a rather grand and well-organized layout. The film has profoundly influenced the exploration of the architectural world in the later world from the perspective of urban conception, and also influenced the sets and settings of many later sci-fi movies. It is not difficult for us to find architectural shadows derived from "Metropolis" in the works of architectural groups such as Architectural Telecommunications, Super Studio, etc. We can also easily find architectural shadows in "The Fifth Element", "The Matrix", "Blade Runner" Find similar elements in these classic sci-fi. In addition, the setting of the robot Maria in the film almost laid the prototype of robots in sci-fi films such as "Star Wars" and "Back to the Future", while the morbid Frankenstein figure of King Lord almost laid the foundation for this. Screen basis for a class of characters. Expressionism is not only used in images, but also fully reflected in the setting of the plot. In the scene where Maria is being hunted by the scientist King Luther, Maria's wildly waving arms, her almost frantic steps, her eyes widened in fear and her expression of despair, are like a desperate beast. And with the actors' exaggerated expressions and twisted limbs, the sharp and weird edges and corners of the movie set, the thick and long steel lines, and the heavy shadows that cover everything, all of which render a despair, ominous, and frightening. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the exaggerated expressions and desperate lines in Munch's representative expressionist The Scream.
The naturalists once prided themselves on their modernity, yet "art seems to have fallen into desperation, needing new passions, new pathos, the expression of subjective fantasies without regard for imitation, the expression of The attention of the urban crush is far more intense than the naturalist description of the social situation." (RS Furness, 1989) The success of the film "Metropolis" is that the director accurately grasps the The modern people's emotions of both joy and fear about the future have lived, and the mechanized and industrialized society has brought about the development of civilization, and at the same time, it has been accompanied by fierce social contradictions and the mechanization of human nature. Skyscrapers are now a reality, but the emotions portrayed in the film still resonate with audiences today, which may be why it is an expressionist classic of the silent era.
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