Friday, March 13, 2009
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The Murky Middle (Even More Advice)
Aristotle wrote that stories should have a beginning, middle, and end. Middles can be difficult. You might have a smashing opening to a stor...
Aristotle wrote that stories should have a beginning, middle, and end. Middles can be difficult. You might have a smashing opening to a stor...
8 comments:
Metropolis was a film created in 1927 by Frtiz Lang that included many intriguing elements such as special effects, new camera effects, montages, symbols, and visual photography. The special effects mostly consisted of lightning and explosions and such. Some of them looked almost drawn in, but it's hard to tell. The interesting camera use came into play with panning (which showed up throughout the film) and the shaking of the camera to suggest falling or destruction in one of the scenes close to the end of the film. There were many symbols in this film, including many crosses and Christ-like imagery that suggested the good characters, and a lot of dark lighting suggesting the bad characters. Another huge symbol in Metropolis was the Heart Machine which stood for the worker's heart and the connection between management and labor. With the destruction of the Heart Machine everyone falls, not just the low people. The visual photography was extremely well-done with the heavy use of horizontal and vertical lines throughout the film. If you pause the film at any given point, the image frozen there is visually pleasing due to the lines and the lighting used so symbolically at many times. This film was very interesting, and extremely obvious in all of its symbolism. It was a huge expensive project, but it was certainly well-done and worth the effort put into it due to the effect it had on film overall and its innovative use of many different techniques.
Metropolis was much more interesting than I thought it would be. Better than most of the garbage that Hollywood spews out today. It kind of didn't hit me until the end how much Freder was like Christ. Christ was in heaven... like Freder living in luxury,then Christ came to earth to live among the people like Freder going among the Proletariats being the medated between the worker and the owners, as Christ was between Jehovah and the people. God... the movie, it kind of reminded me of one huge subliminal message. I thought Hel was strange, how crooked her body was , it was nice how Brigette Helm could be so versitile with acting, beteen Maria and Hel, I thought that was great. And I like the use of lighting, the greeat contranst between light and dark, good and evil. It reminds me of Chiaroscuro in Art. A great contrast between extreme light and dark.
The Metropolis by Fritz Lang was well put together. I liked the story line and how it showed the differences between employers and workers. I also liked how he used different techniques to get the story across such as high/low key lighting, special effects, close ups, establishing shots, and etc. The idea of the The Heart Machine was a good symbol. How it showed that the heart was the mediator between the head and the hand. Some things where overly did for example the "bad" Maria. It was a good touch to the film but i think that the acting should have been toned down a little. I aslo like how the story related back to the bible for example when freder was working on the time.
While I unfortunately missed much of Metropolis, what I did see was distinguished from other, more contemporary films, in its heavy symbolism and obvious Biblical allusion. The "good" characters were always bathed in light, Maria especially. It was also made quite obvious that Maria was supposed to be a holy character during her "rousing speech" scene, in which said speech was made in front of a number of crosses. The film was also quite political, saying that literally fighting the wealthy and destroying the machines is detrimental to any kind of proletariat cause. Personally, I found this film to be an excellent example of how film was more of a traditional art form during the silent era, relying on light, shadow, set, and even the facial expressions and physical appearances of actors, rather than dialogue to convey meaning.
Zoe Johnson
I must admit that at the very beginning when I realized Fritz Lang's film Metropolis was one of the olden day black and whites I sort of wanted to put my head down and take a nice nap. It turned out that it actually intrigued me. None of the dialogue was actually heard. Instead there were just soundtracks that went over everything. One of the most important and effective effects was the use of different lightings (like high key and low key). High key lighting was used during moments of important events like the climax and when the passion and love was growing. Low key lighting was used at moments when mischievious things were happening like when the robot of Maria was made and let loose. Also throughout the time when the workers were revolting and violence was occuring. THere was a number of different shots used, like long shots, medium shots, and close-ups. All these were also effective in that they brought out what was to be paid attention to and what was more important than what. Fritz Lang not only explored the themes of hardship and love but he did what most movie producers strive to do today and that is to incorporate that one thing that brings about so much controversy. If paid attention to very closely one would notice that Fritz Lang allows Freder to be in comparison to Jesus Christ. He does this in a way that does not make a mochary of religion or any of the ideas portrayed from relgious aspects. I loved how the film showed that the workers and the employers needed eachother whether they wanted to accept it or not; without eachother everything would collapse and everything that took years to accomplish could me potentially demolished within seconds. The symbolism in this film was very easy to point out just as long as you paid very close attention to detail. Usually when watch a film most of things aren't explored as brilliantly as this 1900's film. Fritz Lang has deffinately made a huge contribution to the history of film prior to the completion of this film. BRAVO! BRAVO!
I really thought that for a film created in 1927, Metropolis was incredibly creative. It was filled to the brim with special effects (like the lightning or the flooding in the workers' quarters, or the futeristic sets, or the burning-at-the-stake of a robot) Nevertheless, it's story line did seem to be a bit too obvious -- the Christian symbolism and the allusions to communism and anarchy were at times much to blunt for my taste. I really thought that, if anything, the filmmaker's message was clear here, though. He followed the mandatory guidelines of photography-for-humans -- if the people are bad, put them in low-key lighting, and if they're good, make them look like Jesus. I suppose that the reasons older films are so easy and so "not-subtle" to watch is because they were made with limited technology -- the soundtrack and the actors' faces had to tell the story, and not their actual words. Therefore, a lot of the films lack a more realistic feel, and instead end up commenting on real life with over-the-top content, like Metropolis does.
Metropolis by Fritz Lamg was a great movie. I love the theme and the plot of the play. The play had alot of symbols in it. One of the symbols were difference between good and bad. The lighting on the stage will shine bright on the protaganist and will have a shadow for the antaganist. Another symbol was the Heart Machine because without the heart the body will die and not function right and thats what happen to the city. The camera shots and angles were amazing in the flim. This film was one of the best films in the 1920's.
Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis demonstrates a period in film when directors were perfecting the silent film. In the film, Lang uses a variety of shots to enhance his artistic message/purpose. For example, Lang makes effective use of close-up shots to focus in on an important object or on a characters face to stress the importance of a particular expression or emotion. Lang also demonstrates artistic composition in many of his shots (i.e. the contrast of vertical and diagonal lines when the workers are marching to work). Symbolism is also used(i.e. the main character being "crucified" on the clock device that he is operating). Because movies that we see today depend so heavily on the spoken word, it was extremely interesting to see a whole film that used no spoken words, yet seemed to operate easily, fluidly and effectively without them.
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