Metropolis (Cont.)
Last Time
- Discussed the idea that Maria (the real Maria) is an angelic figure, as you see her with children entering the Eternal Gardens; the children signify she’s caring, nurturing, and good
- Left off with Freder in search for Maria
Today’s Lecture
Freder’s transition from Upper-Class Playboy to Mediator (13:53)
- Freder learns about class inequality through his attraction to Maria
- Freder (and the viewer) observes the following about the workers: they move in sync with the machines they work on and are exhausted
- The thermometer rising is related to maintaining the heat levels of the machines
- The machine becomes personified (as Moloch) when it explodes
- Freder’s expression in his dramatized shots, show fear, shock, but also realization that things need to be changed (that he should later become the Mediator of the working and upper-class).
Sacrifice to the Machine (13:53)
- The men look like they are bound and are slaves
- More groups of people go into Moloch; as though to maintain the routine as though it’s normal
- The two gate-keepers of Moloch appear to be “savage”
[An aside comparison with Trip to the Moon]
- The moon men (Selenites) are like the two gate-keepers; recurrence in Sci-Fi to have the “other” be a savage or barbaric person
- This viewpoint was popular during early American worldviews that painted tribal people as different, and allowed early 20th century writers to exoticize them through Science Fiction.
Jon Frederson’s Office; no one is comfortable, even with status (19:15)
- You can see everyone is anxious working with Jon Frederson
- No one is exempt from living comfortable lives, not even Jon Frederson later on when he’s concerned with his own son
- Shows a similarity between the working and upper-class citizens in their constant anxiety over the tasks they need to do (although it’s not nearly as dangerous as maintaining the machines below)
Rotwang; the original “Mad Scientist” (~38:00)
- He’s a cyborg, denoted by his hand being robotic after creating his man-machine
- The exterior of his lab looks like a church, which alludes to his ability to create life and thus having “divine powers”
- Creates Hel as the man-machine (first double introduced); has a Pentagram above where she sits, which signifies demonic/sacrilegious; has female attributes based on the curves (43:40)
- The clocks in Rotwangs lab mirror the worker’s movements when operating the machines they labor over (47:30)
Maria; Ave Maria (51:50)
- Under the catacombs she’s preaching and the subject is the Tower of Babel; there’s an altar, candles, crosses; Maria wears white (purity) and a scarf, which a lot of religious figure adorn
- Can clearly see that this is a church and she’s the pastor
- The men are kneeling showing respect to her, with reverent faces (as though they are at mass)
Creation of Maria’s Double (1:23:00)
- Reminiscent of “Frankenstein”, likely being an homage
- Alludes to the idea of thinking one is in control of the monster, but in reality the monster has a mind of it’s own (the man-machine being the monster in this case)
Distinction between Real and Fake Maria (1:28:50)
- The recurring theme of doubling with Fake Maria; unable to distinguish the synthetic and real
- The audience is able to tell; Fake Maria has dark eye shadow/mascara and her eyes twitch more, as though she’s malfunctioning
- Interesting imagery using the eyes to have it be the tell, because eyes are “windows to the soul”; so use of black makes it seem like it’s evil or malicious
Intermission
What does it mean to be “human”?
- Constantly grappled with idea in Science-Fiction stories
- Writers push the limits of the perception of what is really human
- Can something be human if it passes as human and mimics them?
- Can something be human if it feels the same way as humans do?
Brave New World (Ch. 1-5)
- Utopia/Dystopia is brought up again in BNW, since it’s one of the three most notable dystopian novels
- On the surface it looks like a utopia, but it’s really a dystopia in outside perspective; which seems to be the case with most utopia/dystopia novels
Class Discussion: What Stuck Out In The Book?
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Developing Children as though it were an assembly line
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Soma; the drug that is excessively used in the society
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Manipulation of language (p. 62)
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Caste System/ranking based on genes
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Hypnopædia; programming humans with suggestive thoughts while sleeping
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Parallels of doing human experiments on actual people in our own society (Little Albert Experiment)
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Viewing Soma & Sex as a “religion” (the Solidarity Service)
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Bernard is seen as an outcast
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Use of similes; Mother & Child like Cat & Kitten (p.43)
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Bokanovsky process; competing with others to be efficient; science/progress; 13. stability
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Individuality; the view on sex/society defines a person’s individualism (like with Lenina and Helmholst)
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Therapy; the conditioning that is done that we would use to benefit people, is used here to be exploitative
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(See 10)
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Happiness; conditioning creates “happiness” but are you truly happy? (p. 77)
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Fear/disgust of the old world; old world mentality of personal connections don’t benefit a society that focuses on the greater good
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Social Predestination; everything is planned out and monitored by people outside of your life, from conception to death
Some other ideas to be aware of
- The motto: Community, Identity, Stability
- There’s a monetary incentive to do Bokanovsky (p.17)
- The idea of progress (p.17): efficiency, mass production, standardization, good of society, mass quantity, sustainability (balance), development (ie, betterment), equal opportunity
- It’s clear that Helmhost and Marx are individuals (p.71)
Review For Next Class
- The section that rapidly changed perspectives in each paragraph (with Mustapha) (~p.45)
- Individualism (p.69)
Key Terms (will be talked about more next class)
Bokanovsky Process
Mass Production/Assembly Line
Hedonism
Utilitarianism
Eugenics/Social Engineering/Social Darwinism
Propaganda
Materialism/Commercialism
Hypnopædia
A Note About Blogs
- Blogs should have more structure to them and should utilize topic sentences
- Separate paragraphs; each paragraph should have one idea and should reflect the topic sentence of that paragraph
- Topic Sentence: First sentence of each paragraph that addresses the overall idea of that paragraph
- Each blog should focus on one key idea, with (at least) three pieces of evidence
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