The Temporal Messages of Metropolis

Originally published January 2016

Commentary

I owe a lot of this video the analysis of Lawrence Bird, so much of it isn’t even mine. I think some of the emphasis on space as nation is where most of my own analysis really comes in. This video was also then turned into a chapter for Chris Stuckmann’s Anime Impact, and in my own idiocy I completely forgot to cite Bird at two parts. I was able to apologise, so that all worked out, but it was bit blunder on my end.

Metropolis is an absolutely stellar film, visually speaking. I always find editing films and shows that look fantastic to be a blast, there’s so many ways and things you can do with them that makes it feel so effortless and seamless. The cross-analysis is interesting because I think this is one of the few Metropolis videos out there; lots of people have seen it, but very few have talked about it.

In context, I think I’d rather not touch on it the way I did here. Though I’m starting to move out of my mush-mouth fast-talking style, it is still very much a situation where I just blast a ton of information at the viewer without a lot of context. In this sense, a lot of it feels very rushed, like I need to be somewhere. I think an analysis of Metropolis deserves better, but I dunno if I’m the one to really do it.

Stray Notes

  • You may remember Rock from Moony Man and Detective Boy Rock Holmes

  • A big fan of Lang's 1927 Metropolis is Joseph Goebbels

  • Tima survives, which is a great ending card, but also firmly de-legitimizes her power base!

  • Fifi is from both Tezuka's and Rintaro's Metropolis - Fifi is the robot in the lair, while in the movie Fifi is the robot that gives Kenichi Tima's heart

  • For those of you curious as to what exactly influenced Hitchcock, it's the Schufftan process, which I've linked below

  • If you're interested in another interpretation of Metropolis, you might find William Benzon's "The Song at the End of the World: Personal Apocalypse in Rintaro's Metropolis" a fascinating read - Benzon focuses on Rintaro's choice music, and briefly describes how it places family matters in the foreground

Texts

  • McVeigh, Brian. Postwar Japan's "Hard" and "Soft Nationalism", JPRI 73 (2001), http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp73.html

  • Nae Hauf-Way Hoose. 地震, http://naehauf-wayhoose.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-post.html

  • Yoshiwara, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiwara

  • The Tower of Babel (Brueghel), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_(Bruegel)

  • Martin. Anime UK News, http://www.animeuknews.net/anime.php?id=833

  • Snider, Drew. What's the Big Deal?: Metropolis (1927), http://www.film.com/movies/whats-the-big-deal-metropolis-1927 - NPR. An Anime Metropolis, http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jan/metropolis/020124.metropolis.html

  • Yasar, Kerim. Japanese Visions of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", http://dissertationreviews.org/archives/2343

  • Bordwell, David. Metropolis Unbound, http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2010/04/05/metropolis-unbound/

  • Bird, Lawrence. Dialectical Imaginaries: forms of life, forms of fascism in the Metropolis of film, manga and anime, Critical Planning (2012): 38-54

  • Bird, Lawrence. States of Emergency: Urban Space and the Robotic Body in the Metropolis Tales, Mechademia 3 (2008): 127-148.

  • Eagan, Daniel. Mad 'Metropolis', Film Journal International (2001): 68. - The Influence of Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' on Future Films, https://sjfilmhistory.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/774/

  • Hutchinson, Pamela. Future-proof: How Metropolis still inspires fashion, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2012/feb/27/metropolis-inspires-the-fashion-world

  • Szirmai, Adam. The Dynamics of Socio-Economic Development: An Introduction, Cambridge Press, 2005. - Knack, Steve. Institutions and the Convergence Hypothesis: The Cross-National Evidence, Public Choice 87 (1996): 207-228

Video

  • Metropolis (1927)

  • Metropolis (1949)

  • Metropolis (2001)

  • World War 2 Pacific Theater Public Domain stock footage

Audio

  • I can't stop loving you by Ray Charles

  • Colossus Wonders by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100358 Artist: http://incompetech.com/

  • Bet on It by Silent Partner

  • With a Stamp by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/

 
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