Mod A – Metropolis & Nineteen Eighty Four Trial Essay

Resource Description

Through comparison and mutual evaluation of Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis (1927) and George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), the nature of government structure on class division and individual identity and the transgressional nature of technology emerge as timeless societal concerns. However, the disparate nature of social, political and cultural paradigms of composers inevitable shape their compositions. Whilst Lang’s representation of dystopic totalitarianism reflects the socio-economic instability of Weimar Germany’s capitalist industrialisation, Orwell’s aversion to fascist totalitarianism encapsulates the escalating ideological uncertainty of the Cold War. Yet, comparing both texts, an extremity of any societal structure resonates as being detrimental resulting in totalitarian control and oppression of individuality. The abuse of technology is explored through maintaining dystopian control and exacerbating the catastrophic revolutions

Metropolis embodies Weimar Republic’s autocratic denial of post WWI dystopia through critiquing totalitarian society by highlighting ramifications of class division and a loss of individualism. During Weimar Germany, the rebellious Nazi ideology appealed to the pride of the populace where the turmoil of WWI reparations and entrenched inequality were channeled by society into anti-capitalist sentiment. Lang elicits a distinct separation between the ruling class and proletariats through Freder’s ignorance, ‘Where they belong…In the depths?’ which portrays an obvious disregard and unimportance of the working class. Mirroring the widening hierarchical separation induced by Germany’s capitalist ideals, Lang utilises dark mise en scene and a wide overhead shot of workers exhibiting uniform expressions and slumped body language to portray the dehumanising force of industrialization. In addition, Lang’s allusion to half naked armies building the tower of Babel parallels the workers’ mechanisation where their proximity suggests interchangeability and nudity connotes to a stripping of human identity. This disempowerment of the individual reflects ramifications of the Second Industrial Revolution of the 1920s in which workers conformed to their social stratification. Hence, Lang’s Metropolis critiques the power imbalances of totalitarian capitalist societies through exploitation of the working class, on the backdrop of a degrading German  society. 

Nineteen Eighty Four, critiques the totalitarian power of a contrasting socialist state by similarly highlighting oppressive class divisions and the loss of individual identity. Orwell emulates the profound anxiety permeating capitalist economies where a fear of communism induced paradoxical government surveillance in the disillusioned postwar period. Oceania’s manipulation of humanity is depicted by Winston’s conceited tone, ‘dumb masses whom we habitually refer to as the proles’, portraying how power is controlled by a minority who dictate life for the population. Furthermore, Winston’s synonymous positioning, ‘Proles and animals are free’,