Metropolis Essay Research Paper Philosophy of Walter

Metropolis Essay, Research Paper

Philosophy of Walter Benjamin and Karl Marx in Relation to Metropolis

Circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.

–Karl Marx, The German Ideology

Despite what some may think, humans have significant control over their lives; however they often lack the ability to realize this or to take action within such circumstances. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the communication medium of film has proved so popular, because it has the power to educate and display both simplistic and difficult ideas about everyday life. Such is the case in the movie Metropolis, originally directed by Fritz Lang. Part social and part political commentary, the film becomes more powerful upon viewing because of its truthfulness about the human condition. The movie s message is furthered through its relation to such philosophers as Walter Benjamin and Karl Marx. An interpretation of the film proves more powerful when contemplated through Marx ideas; however, Benjamin offers a few crucial ideas about the purpose of the film as art and its purpose. In this paper I will show how Benjamin s philosophy of the masses and art in his essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, relate to Metropolis as well as highlight the key ideas of Karl Marx as seen in his works, Estranged Labour and The German Ideology, and how they relate to the film as well.

Throughout his essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin highlights many key ideas, some of which can directly be applied to the purpose of the film Metropolis. In the film, the workers who kept the city running were portrayed as no less than a large mass of non-individualistic, animalistic sub-humans. They were never depicted as having the capability to posses any kind of worthy relationship with another, nor were they seen as able to calculate their own thoughts. Their ideas were easily manipulated by others, i.e. Fredersen, Rotwang, and the robot of Maria. It was this inability for them to think on their own that diminished their consciousness of themselves and their circumstances. The film stated that the workers were forced to the limits of human endurance by working the machines. They became so consumed with the demands of this coerced labor that, as a mass, they lost touch with reality. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception (735). In the film, the thinking bodies that helped the masses see reality again proved to be Freder and Maria. They both perceived the problem of the unthinking masses and realized a way to correct this. Furthermore, outside the film, the movie serves also to correct the thought of the contemporary masses-to make them think and be aware of the power of their own thoughts. This movie also proved effective in outlining these thoughts of the masses because of its depth and the way it seemed to jump into the very root of the problem at hand. In his essay, Benjamin points out the effectiveness of film over other art forms. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web (744). The ability of the camera to go beyond that of the human eye is what strengthened the purpose of this film. When the camera zoomed-in on an object, it forced the audience to see that object in much detail and apply more importance to its showing. For instance, when the camera focused on the face of a struggling worker, the audience became much more aware of the worker s hardships. Thus the viewers of such a film are able to see ordinary objects in such unique detail so as to feel strong and different emotions about them. In this way, film extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives (746) by assigning significance to daily activities and objects which humans may not normally see. Because of this, films with a serious nature, such as Metropolis, may not provoke positive feelings from an audience; however this should not interfere with the perception of film as an art form. As the times change, so do ideas of art. Art has left the realm of the beautiful semblance which, so far, had been taken to be the only sphere where art could thrive (741). Whether art displays the negative possibilities of potential flaws in the human condition or whether it imitates the positive outcomes of certain behaviors or ideas, it should still be viewed as an invaluable piece of genius.

The ideas of labor, estrangement, and alienation, written about by Karl Marx in his essay, Estranged Labour, can be seen in the characters and their behavior in Metropolis. In his essay, Marx outlines two distinct classes of people-that of the property owners and that of the property-less workers. It is the clash between the functions, desires, and productions of each class which produces such conditions as estrangement and alienation. Inevitably, as more things are produced, the value of such produced items increases, which then devalues the human worker. As production increases, workers become mere numbers and certainly are seen as less than human by those who control the labor (71). With the increasing value of the world of things proceeds in direct proportion the devaluation of the world of men. Labour produces the worker as a commodity (71). The idea of the worker as nothing more than a n