Today I finished watching Metropolis, which was not only my first time watching the film but also my first experience with silent movies. I had anticipated disliking the lack of verbal dialog between characters, but I was actually pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to understand what was going on. The musical accompaniment was so fitting for what was happening on-screen that at times I felt it provided more clarity than words could have. It was also interesting to see how the actors worked to produce emotion through only their body movements. Sometimes they could mouth simple words, and sometimes they expressed agitation through the speed of their movements, but most commonly they seemed to utilize highly expressive facial poses. Acting must have undoubtedly been a different art form back then.
I also saw many parallels to Frankenstein in this film. Most obviously this includes the appearance of "humanoid like" monsters (in this case represented by the Machine Man), but it was also evident in the characters. Metropolis may not have had the character depth the Mary Shelley had the opportunity to develop in her novel, but the characters of Rotwang The Inventor as well as Freder both contain many elements of Victor Frankenstein. Rotwang obviously represents the ambitious, scientifically curious side of Victor (the one driven to create monsters). Freder represents the post-monster Victor, someone who has just understood a great wrong and will stop at nothing to remedy it. The female role in Metropolis, while much more significant than we see in Frankenstein was also consistently dominated and controlled by men. Just as Victor ultimately (but indirectly) kills Justine and Elisabeth, Maria is utilize by the workers, Joh, Rotwang, and ultimately saved by Freder.
The one element I felt most lacking in Metropolis had to be the logic on the laborers part. It seemed unlikely and slightly insulting to assume that the working hands of the city could by that easily lead and manipulated. Firstly, they failed to see through the guise of a (fairly obviously) crazy Maria clone. They didn't find anything suspicious about the way in which she completely changed her viewpoint after years of promoting peace. Secondly, how is it possible that every single worker managed to completely "forget" about their children when they went to flood the city? That just seems like the movie writers were trying too hard to make their conclusion work.
In my opinion, the workers have been remained in "the Depth" for such a long time, and they receive no education other than how to operate the machine. Actually, their minds are quite vulnerable due to ignorance, so they can be easily brain-washed, mesmerized or manipulated by other malicious people, such as Rotwang and his robot. Then, it becomes reasonable that the workers forget about their families, maybe they do not realize that destruction of machines will cause flood, or they cannot distinguish the fake Maria and real Maria from the shift of points in her preach.
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