Metropolis Fritz Lang Quotes

With an evermore increase of industrialisation machine stops being merely a tool, develops a life of its own and imposes its rhythm onto human. Operating it he moves mechanically, becomes part of the machine.

Mit zunehmender Industrialisierung hört die Maschine auf, bloßes Werkzeug zu sein, beginnt ein Eigenleben, zwingt dem Menschen ihren Rhythmus auf. Er bewegt sich, sie bedienend, mechanisch, wird zum Teil der Maschine.

Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis is commonly regarded as one of the classics of cinema, and at the time it was probably the most expensive film ever made. Only in light of recent restoration work, though, can we see how explicitly it draws on apocalyptic themes in its prophetic depiction of modern society. Partly, Metropolis reflects the ideas of Oswald Spengler, whose sensationally popular book The Decline of the West appeared in 1918. Spengler presented nightmare forecasts of the vast megalopolis, ruled by the superrich, with politics reduced to demagoguery and Caesarism, and religion marked by strange oriental cults. Lang borrowed that model but added explicit references to the Bible, and particularly Revelation. In the future world of Metropolis, the ruling classes dwell in their own Tower of Babel, while the industrial working class is literally enslaved to Moloch.

With an evermore increase of industrialisation the machine stops being merely a tool, develops a life of its own and imposes its rhythm onto human. Operating it he moves mechanically, becomes part of the machine.

In Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, society is divided into two groups: one of planners and thinkers living in luxury high above the Earth, and another of workers, dwelling and toiling underground to run the machine that sustains the wealthy. The film is about the workers’ revolt, but the broader point is clear. Abundance comes at a cost: scarcity elsewhere.

The scene which met my eyes was at once compelling and repelling. The original sweatshop has been preserved for posterity at Levy Pants. If only the Smithsonian Institution, that grab bag of our nation’s refuse, could somehow vacuum-seal the Levy Pants factory and transport it to the capital of the United States of America, each worker frozen in an attitude of labor, the visitors to that questionable museum would defecate into their garish tourist outfits. It is a scene which combines the worst of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis; it is mechanized Negro slavery; it represents the progress which the Negro has made from picking cotton to tailoring it. (Were they in the picking stage of their evolution, they would at least be in the healthful outdoors singing and eating watermelons [as they are, I believe, supposed to do when in groups alfresco].) My intense and deeply felt convictions concerning social injustice were aroused. My valve threw in a hearty response.

The screenplay was written by pacifists Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, whose World War I experiences left them with a profound distrust of authority. Caligari can be read as a pointed attack on the dangers of unquestioning obedience. Fritz Lang (Metropolis) was originally slated to direct before backing out at the last moment. Prior to his departure, Lang modified a framing story already present in the script, implementing the now-familiar “it-was-all-a-dream” twist that neuters the film’s anti-authoritarian thrust. (This trick is found as long ago as 1910 at the end of prolific Danish director August Blom’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)

Bennie, as in the Jets, was based on the Maschinenmensch in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and “All the Girls Love Alice” was inspired by the 1968 black comedy The Killing of Sister George.

It is a scene which combines the worst of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis; it is mechanized Negro slavery; it represents the progress which the Negro has made from picking cotton to tailoring it. (Were they in the picking stage of their evolution, they would at least be in the healthful outdoors singing and eating watermelons [as they are, I believe, supposed to do when in groups alfresco].) My intense and deeply felt convictions concerning social injustice were aroused. My valve threw in a hearty response. (In connection with the watermelons, I must say, lest some professional civil rights organization be offended, that I have never been an observer of American folk customs. I may be wrong. I would imagine that today people grasp for the cotton with one hand while the other hand presses a transistor radio to the sides of their heads so that it can spew bulletins about used cars and Sofstyle Hair Relaxer and Royal Crown Hair Dressing and Gallo wine about their eardrums, a filtered menthol cigarette dangling from their lips and threatening to set the entire cotton field ablaze. Although residing along the Mississippi River [This river is famed in atrocious song and verse; the most prevalent motif is one which attempts to make of the river an ersatz father figure. Actually, the Mississippi River is a