1984 & Metropolis – Essay

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A small snippet of the essay;

The social, cultural and historical milieu of a composer’s era significantly shapes the construction of their text and the ideals, values and attitudes that they choose to address within it. These influences offer a unique distinction between different texts, however, also highlighting notable commonalities. Fritz Lang’s expressionist silent film, ‘Metropolis’ (1927), can be interpreted as a reaction to the rapidly fluctuating, economically unstable social milieu of Germany during the immediate post WWI era, in which the newly emerged, controversial Weimar Republic gave birth to new individual freedoms and consequent cultural diversity. Lang’s physical depiction of the segregation between the upper and lower classes of Metropolis prompts his audience to question the distribution of power and authority, subtly highlighting the flaws in Germany’s new government system and asserting the need for compassion in the rebuilding of a thriving society. Contrastingly, George Orwell’s dystopian novel, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (1949), is a pessimistic vision of the future, responding to the horrific authoritarian regimes witnessed in the years following WWI and during WWII. Orwell provides an unsettling warning of the capacities of dictatorial control systems and their ability to extend control over all aspects of an individual’s life; stifling their freedoms, dignities and morality. Through the comparative study of both texts, we observe an evident series of commonalities and diversities in their construction, contextual influences and explored themes. Furthermore, we discern the fundamental relationship between a text and its contextual origins and how the exploration of similar content in both texts highlights their fundamental significance.