Metropolis Film Review Today we watched a cult classic film, one of the biggest budgeted movies ever produced

in Germany. Director Fritz Langs adventurous Metropolis film cost the studio a staggering amount of money and nearly sent them bankrupt! Full of inspiration I now look to dissect the films elements to learn its inner secrets. Even though it was released back in 1927, Metropolis is widely considered to be the grand-daddy of the Sci-Fi genre. Introducing science fiction with a sense of horror, drama and realism that at the time had not been explored in such a diverse way. Now the year is 2013 and even now we can learn a thing or two from Fritz Lang. I have just had a sensational night at the movies, and the picture was only 83 years old.(1) I agree with David Thomson because the fact is that throughout the film we can observe certain aspects that are widely recognizable in Theatre, Film and Tv.

Figure one

Metropolis boasted top of the range cinematography and special effects at the time. It has recently been restored with multiple versions of the film released, as some of the footage has been lost or is being converted. Lang wanted to stress the diversity of his masterpiece, for the audience to become lost in its imaginative landscapes and feel the wonder he sought to portray in his film. Metropolis employed vast sets, thousands of extras and astonishing special effects to create its two worlds.(2). Using this quote we can infer with our own hypothesis that Metropolis wanted to be a massive scale production. If we use this as an example to reference to and look to more modern projects such as Thor(Figure Three) we can see the level of detail and special effects used to stress the scale of the production. So the artstyle and the production scale has changed over the years from Metropolis that was released over 80 years ago but is still relevant in todays media. Figure Three

Figure Two

Even though they wanted to stress as much realism as possible in the film from surreal aspects, I reckon that the change from the bare naked android to the finished reconstruction was at the time a marvel to see! They stressed the transformation with minute effects of lighting and fade to produce a smooth conversion. Even in present times many directors seem to struggle with this in film-making

Figure Four

But Lang completes this with ease. an eternal masterpiece (3)Would be a relevant quote to support this because even in todays cinema Metropolis has been referenced to in film countlessly.

List of Illustrations Figure One: Metropolis Theatrical Release Movie Poster at http://www.scificool.com/a-poster-for-fritzlangs-metropolis-just-went-for-1-2-million/metropolis-1927-movie-poster/ accessed on 9.10.13 Figure Two: Creating the Android at http://svtvn.com/media/2010/01/Metropolis-1927-by-FritzLang.jpg accessed on 9.10.13 Figure Three: Film still of Asgard at http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2011/04/15/stunning-newconcept-provides-a-look-at-thors-rainbow-bridge/ accessed on 9.10.13 Figure Four: The finished Android at http://www.cinemasquid.com/bluray/movies/screenshots/sets/metropolis/e04fb343-279f-40fc-ab74-43b93fb68121 accessed on 9.10.13 List of Biblography (1): David Thomson, The New Republic at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1013775-metropolis/ accessed on 9.10.13 (2): Roger Ebert, rogerebert.com at http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-metropolis-2010restoration-1927 accessed on 9.10.13 (3): Daily telegraph, September 10th 2010 at http://metropolis1927.com/#reviews accessed on 9.10.13