Metropolis Notes

  •  although this movie was supposed to be "futuristic," it still has a lot of past ideas
    •  ex: women are property and serve men; the elite live about ground while the poor live below;         women (Maria) cares for the children; lower classes aren't important, only work to serve the elite
  • humans are behaving like machines underground
    • resembles choreography
  • planes, trains, and cars are depicted well for how old this movie is
    • machines also depicted well, but do not require as much human interaction as suggester
  • elite adults seen in suits, poor children seen in dirty "leisure" clothes
  • heart machine runs the city
  • futuristic architecture
  • one character willing to risk his life for a machine
    • shows that machines are more important than human lives
  • mad scientist - fake, robot, hand; hunchback; has inverted pentagram which depicts evil
    • in comparison Maria - shown totally clean and with candles and crosses behind her to show she is angelic
  • very good depiction of the robot
    • especially considering the time era in which this movie was created
  • mixes futuristic technology with stories of the past
    • ex: building the tower of Babel
  • mad scientist and elite man disapprove of the relationship between Maria (who is poor) and the elite man
  • skeletons used to show Maria's fear of dying 
    • especially important because there is no dialogue
  • parallels of Maria and the elite man pounding on doors
  • the elite man's first concern when he gets out is to save Maria from his father
  • Maria is often depicted in an angelic-like way
    • she has halos, candles, etc surrounding her
  • people in the town begin worshiping the evil, robot version of Maria
  • this movie shows the dangers of keeping an entire city reliant and running on machines
  • shows how good people of this era thought robots would be in the future
    • they can look and act just like humans
  • human Maria has empathy, while robot Maria does not care about others 
    • human Maria risks her life to save the children 
    • robot Maria leaves them behind to drown
    • this shows that humans are the only ones capable of empathy
  • people of underground city were brainwashed enough by the machines (especially robot Maria) to leave their children behind
  • many religious references throughout
    • story of Babel
    • halos surrounding Maria
  • "The mediator between head and hands must be the heart"
    • empathy and feelings have a very important place in the world and must not be overruled by the decisions of the mind or body










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