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¶ … Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang. Specifically, it will compare the film with the essay "Metaphors on Vision," by Stan Brakhage.
METROPOLIS
Stan Brakhage could very well have been writing about Franz Lang's classic 1927 film "Metropolis" when he wrote this article. While there is no color in this black and white science fiction film, the camera eye was innovative for its time, and still influences the way science fiction is filmed today - darkly, and with great attention to even the most minute of details, which show in the detailed buildings, which were models. It is most certainly a "world alive with incomprehensible objects..." (Brakhage 66). In his pedantic way, Brakhage illustrates what a cameraman (or woman) can do with a lens, from spitting on it to create "stages of impressionism," to slowing the motion, and using filters to enhance the final image (Brakhage 69). Certainly, Lang understood this philosophy, and used it in his film. Some of the scenes are out of focus, while others are starkly bright and sharp.
Lang was clearly ahead of his time, and it seems unusual Brakhage did not mention his artistry in his essay, especially in his discussion of light, which plays such an important part in this city of monstrous buildings. Little light filters down to the little people of the city, giving much of the film and dark and brooding look. Their lives are dark, just as the underground is dark. Lang knew how to manipulate light, and used it quite effectively in this film. Modern science fiction films often use the same dark, brooding quality to heighten the sense of drama and tension, such as "The Matrix," and "Blade Runner." Brakhage seeks "absolute realism" in his films, thereby turning them into magic. Lang tried to project stark realism in his film, and created magic, long before Industrial Light and Magic came along. "Metropolis" is a classic film that altered the way the public viewed films, and filmmakers wove their craft, and Brakhage seems to have missed one of the best films to ever create magic.
Works Cited
Brakhage, Stan. "Metaphors on Vision." Film and Reality: A Historical Survey. Roy Armes, ed. Baltimore: Penguin, 1974.
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