Nosferatu and Metropolis - of Plagues and Dystopian Worlds
Since I've been sick and condemned to lack of activity (or cursed with lack of energy, whichever), I've been trying to keep myself alive with German Expressionist films. I've been meaning to watch "Nosferatu" and "Metropolis" for a while now, so I guess I might as well thank "the nameless gods of the wood" (© George R.R. Martin) for the - albeit unasked for - opportunity.
Shall we proceed, then?
Nosferatu (original title, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens; directed by F.W. Murnau, released in 1922)
☻ for plot summary and other nifty details, please visit the wiki page, since I'm lazy like that :P
I must say that, childish as it may sound, I was genuinely scared by Count Orlok. Max Schreck did a damned good job of playing him, and the additional "shadow play" made the horror effects quite amazing (considering the time's lack of technology). The ending, however, was a bit disappointing, due to its sudden dramatism. I was sort of expecting a happy ending, and although in general it did deliver, on a smaller, more particular scale, it did not. But again, the characters were quite forceful, notably so Count Orlok and his minion, devilish Knock (who is, I believe, the epitomy of grotesqueness). I also admired Murnau's almost foolish courage to take on the project of a film that was so blatantly based on "Dracula", when Mrs Stoker had not given her assent for him to use her late husband's idea as such.
Metropolis (directed by Fritz Lang, released in 1927)
☻ please refer to the wiki page :)
Whilst watching the film, I couldn't shake off the feeling that the world we live in is precisely the same kind of distopic world pictured in "Metropolis": a gruesome, gothic fiction world masked by the appearance of cold civilisation. That kind of thing. And although, sadly, I couldn't, as Aenne Willkomm (the outfit designer for "Metropolis") would have wished, "see the film Metropolis from the year 1926, and be amazed with what does coincide with this fantasy" from a couture point of view, I was, nonetheless, impressed by how unwittngly veridical the whole situation seemed to be.
As for themes and motifs, this particular production was full of them. To enumerate a few:
• the man-eating machine
&
• the revolt gone disastrously bad
=> these two, as they were presented in the film, were very reminiscent of the situation in Zola's "Germinal" (yes, yes, school haunts me, I just had to notice this :P)
• the angelic woman/Madonna figure vs the devilish woman/whore of Babylon figure (ah, Gilbert and Gubar, did you watch this before publishing "The Madwoman in the Attic"? if so, then I do sympathise), as well as the doppelgänger motif
• the humanoid robot as a source of destruction/Golem figure
• the mad scientist/Faust figure
• (ooops, I almost left this one out xD) the "Moses" situation, i.e. the young, untainted generation is saved, in order to found a new world, untouched by the biased principles of their parents
So yeah, if you haven't watched "Metropolis", WATCH IT NOW!
Shall we proceed, then?
Nosferatu (original title, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens; directed by F.W. Murnau, released in 1922)
☻ for plot summary and other nifty details, please visit the wiki page, since I'm lazy like that :P
I must say that, childish as it may sound, I was genuinely scared by Count Orlok. Max Schreck did a damned good job of playing him, and the additional "shadow play" made the horror effects quite amazing (considering the time's lack of technology). The ending, however, was a bit disappointing, due to its sudden dramatism. I was sort of expecting a happy ending, and although in general it did deliver, on a smaller, more particular scale, it did not. But again, the characters were quite forceful, notably so Count Orlok and his minion, devilish Knock (who is, I believe, the epitomy of grotesqueness). I also admired Murnau's almost foolish courage to take on the project of a film that was so blatantly based on "Dracula", when Mrs Stoker had not given her assent for him to use her late husband's idea as such.
Metropolis (directed by Fritz Lang, released in 1927)
☻ please refer to the wiki page :)
Whilst watching the film, I couldn't shake off the feeling that the world we live in is precisely the same kind of distopic world pictured in "Metropolis": a gruesome, gothic fiction world masked by the appearance of cold civilisation. That kind of thing. And although, sadly, I couldn't, as Aenne Willkomm (the outfit designer for "Metropolis") would have wished, "see the film Metropolis from the year 1926, and be amazed with what does coincide with this fantasy" from a couture point of view, I was, nonetheless, impressed by how unwittngly veridical the whole situation seemed to be.
As for themes and motifs, this particular production was full of them. To enumerate a few:
• the man-eating machine
&
• the revolt gone disastrously bad
=> these two, as they were presented in the film, were very reminiscent of the situation in Zola's "Germinal" (yes, yes, school haunts me, I just had to notice this :P)
• the angelic woman/Madonna figure vs the devilish woman/whore of Babylon figure (ah, Gilbert and Gubar, did you watch this before publishing "The Madwoman in the Attic"? if so, then I do sympathise), as well as the doppelgänger motif
• the humanoid robot as a source of destruction/Golem figure
• the mad scientist/Faust figure
• (ooops, I almost left this one out xD) the "Moses" situation, i.e. the young, untainted generation is saved, in order to found a new world, untouched by the biased principles of their parents
So yeah, if you haven't watched "Metropolis", WATCH IT NOW!