Two of my favorite things are school and old movies, and I'm constantly looking for ways to combine the two (that don't involve actually changing my major). This blog was the result of one such endeavor; for another, I got to re-watch Metropolis last week for a class called Modernity in the Western World. It's an Honors history class, and my presentation focused on the film as a representation of the post-industrial attitude toward Futurism; don't worry, I won't be rewriting that essay here. I will say, however, that upon seeing Metropolis for the second time -- the first was a year ago, in the film history class I've mentioned here before -- I picked up on a lot of things that I'd missed the first time around. I've blogged before about my lack of patience for silent movies, but I really think Metropolis is a film worth seeing twice.
Metropolis is about a city divided into two classes. The collective "head" of the city is the ruling class, those who live aboveground. The "hands" of the city are the laborers, who live underground and work in shifts to ensure that the city above them runs smoothly. Maria, a wise young woman to whom the workers look for guidance, preaches patience and predicts that a mediator will come, someone who will be the "heart" and unite the two classes for the betterment of all.
It's interesting to see not just how far off Fritz Lang's vision of the future is from what we now know -- although Norman Ball of the Bright Lights Film Journal is quite right to say that he "misses the productivity gains of the computer age by a mile." However, I find it more interesting to look at how he delves into the past in order to create that vision of the future.
The image of the laborers being forced into the machine to replace their comrades who had just perished in the explosion, for example, was strongly reminiscent of images of Hewbrew slaves being forced to build the pyramids in Egypt. Maria's speeches to the workers about waiting for a mediator parallel John The Baptist foretelling the coming of Jesus. The story of the Tower of Babel is directly invoked throughout the film, both when it's mentioned directly and in the image of the aboveground city. My Dad, an avid fan of the genre, always tells me that the best science fiction draws material directly from history; Metropolis is an excellent example of this.
Sources:
Ball, N. (2008). Metropolis, Ezra Pound, Mammon, and the law of too-large numbers. Bright Lights Film Journal, (62). Retrieved November 11, 2008, from http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/62/62metropolis.html
Showing posts with label silent cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label silent cinema. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Beer drinking don't do 'alf the 'arm of love-making...
When I think of Alfred Hitchcock, the first images that come to my mind are of absolute terror. When digging through a $5 DVD bin at Wal*Mart several months back, I pulled out a boxed set of 20 films from early in the Master of Suspense's career. Admittedly, at this point the only Hitchcock movie I'd ever seen was Notorious, but since I don't happen to live under a rock, I was of course familiar with the famous shower scene from Psycho and the basic plot behind The Birds. This was all I knew of Hitchcock, so naturally I was surprised to see that there was very little actual horror in his earlier works. There are some suspense films in the collection, such as The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, but the movies that most surprised and interested me were the silent romantic comedies. The first of these that I watched was 1928's The Farmer's Wife.
I should start by saying that, although I enjoy silent films, I lack the patience to watch them as closely as they need to be watched. For all my love of classic films, I am a thoroughly modern viewer; I've grown so used to multitasking that I'm almost incapable of sitting down to watch a movie without playing a video game or surfing the internet at the same time. With sound films this isn't much of a problem, because although I may occasionally miss some vital or artistically nuanced action on the screen, I can keep up with the movie's plot simply by listening. Dividing my attention between the TV and my laptop is a lot dicier during a silent film, because all of the information is presented visually. Thus, the first time I watched this film I missed a lot of important parts, such as the farmer's dying first wife reminding Minta, the maid, to hang her master's pants to dry. This seems like a frivolous request to make from one's death bed, but it lets the audience know that the soon-to-be-late wife of the farmer wants him taken care of after she's gone, and that she approves of Minta being the one to do it. This bit of foreshadowing sets up the relationship between Minta and Samuel that doesn't fully develop until the end of the film.
Luckily for me, the film as a whole doesn't rely too much on title cards. Hitchcock lets his actors do the talking, telling the story through actions and emotions rather than words. The audience doesn't need to be told that Samuel is lonely -- we can tell by the way he gazes at the empty chair in front of the fire. Likewise, it's clear from Minta's disapproving expressions, even before the text reveals what she's thinking, that she finds fault with each of the women on his list, perhaps because she herself is not among them. Thirza Topper's vanity, too, is established not by what's said about her but by the sheer amount of time it takes for her to get ready to receive Samuel.
The plot itself is trite but amusing, and I think most audiences would enjoy watching the arrogant Samuel Sweetland rejected again and again. The lack of sound doesn't detract from the clever writing, as Samuel finds new and inventive ways to insult each of the women he proposes to. Overall, it was worth seeing once, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again.
Sources:
Hitchcock, A.(Director). (1930 January 4). ['Movie']. The Farmer's Wife. British International Pictures.
The Farmer's Wife (1928). (2008). IMDb. Retrieved October 25, 2008, from Internet Movie Database Web site: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018876/
I should start by saying that, although I enjoy silent films, I lack the patience to watch them as closely as they need to be watched. For all my love of classic films, I am a thoroughly modern viewer; I've grown so used to multitasking that I'm almost incapable of sitting down to watch a movie without playing a video game or surfing the internet at the same time. With sound films this isn't much of a problem, because although I may occasionally miss some vital or artistically nuanced action on the screen, I can keep up with the movie's plot simply by listening. Dividing my attention between the TV and my laptop is a lot dicier during a silent film, because all of the information is presented visually. Thus, the first time I watched this film I missed a lot of important parts, such as the farmer's dying first wife reminding Minta, the maid, to hang her master's pants to dry. This seems like a frivolous request to make from one's death bed, but it lets the audience know that the soon-to-be-late wife of the farmer wants him taken care of after she's gone, and that she approves of Minta being the one to do it. This bit of foreshadowing sets up the relationship between Minta and Samuel that doesn't fully develop until the end of the film.
Luckily for me, the film as a whole doesn't rely too much on title cards. Hitchcock lets his actors do the talking, telling the story through actions and emotions rather than words. The audience doesn't need to be told that Samuel is lonely -- we can tell by the way he gazes at the empty chair in front of the fire. Likewise, it's clear from Minta's disapproving expressions, even before the text reveals what she's thinking, that she finds fault with each of the women on his list, perhaps because she herself is not among them. Thirza Topper's vanity, too, is established not by what's said about her but by the sheer amount of time it takes for her to get ready to receive Samuel.
The plot itself is trite but amusing, and I think most audiences would enjoy watching the arrogant Samuel Sweetland rejected again and again. The lack of sound doesn't detract from the clever writing, as Samuel finds new and inventive ways to insult each of the women he proposes to. Overall, it was worth seeing once, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again.
Sources:
Hitchcock, A.(Director). (1930 January 4). ['Movie']. The Farmer's Wife. British International Pictures.
The Farmer's Wife (1928). (2008). IMDb. Retrieved October 25, 2008, from Internet Movie Database Web site: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018876/
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