Metropolis

So, for the last few days, I've been watching the classic 1927 silent film "Metropolis", by the German director Fritz Lang.

It's quite mind-blowing to me for a bunch of reasons:

here are a few:

--as a visual spectacle, it's unlike almost any movie you've ever seen. It looks more like ballet than what we normally think of as film, in that it's very co-ordinated and rhythmic, using gestures and movement to tell the story. It also borrows heavily from (or influenced, perhaps) a lot of the painters and photographers of the day, especially German and American. Charles Scheeler (i think) for e.g., with his great American cityscapes of the 1920's, Brookly Bridge and stuff like that.

--it has a 10 hour clock. (that was also once proposed for the independent prairie nation of Manisaskerta)

--it uses old testament mythology in lots of very deliberate ways-- the Tower of Babel shows up, the war god Moloch (when Freder, the main character, has a vision of children being sacrificed to Moloch--very Pink Floyd the Wall, too).

It's on youtube in 12 parts. Each part is about 10 mins. I highly recommend it.

here's part 1--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFviW7ISk6I