Module A – Trial Essay (Metropolis & 1984)

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