Fritz Lang Research

 Fritz Lang made the film "Metropolis", which is considered one of the first science fiction films. It is a silent film made in 1925. Unlike the film “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” by Robert Wiene, which was a success, already discussed in another post by me, this film was a failure and because its realization was very expensive, almost bankrupted UFA studios. (infopédia, s.d.) 

"Metropolis" is a film that shows what is good and bad about technology. Many people participated in the film and many matte paintings and miniatures were used in the shots. «A particularly cutting-edge technique was the Schüfftan process that enabled creating the illusion of actors interacting with gigantic backgrounds by using mirrors to project them onto miniature sets.» (Sevingen, s.d.)

We can see the trailer at the following link: Metropolis (imdb.com).

The film takes us to the year 2026, to a modern city, showing a mechanical and industrialized world. In one plane we have workers, showing a disadvantaged class that lives underground, and in the other plane, we have a bright and spacious city, showing a privileged class. (Sevingen, sd.) In charge of the city is Joh Fredersen, whose son Freder. The inhabitants live underground and guarantee the functioning of the machines and consequently the city. Freder, belonging to the elite, knows Maria, a revolutionary underground worker, and knows the conditions that underground workers have. Freder initiates a series of attempts to change this situation. (Infopédia, s.d.) Rottwang, who is an industrialist and scientist, does not want change and has the complicity of Fredersen, the city master. He conspires to pit slaves against reformers. Freder seeks out Rottwang (who a scientist) to help him, but Rottwang knows the sub-soil world well. Rottwang captures Maria and creates a robot that has Maria's face and intends to manipulate workers with that robot. But the robot leads workers to destroy the machines, which causes rain and floods. Fredersen resigns and agrees to treat workers well. (Ebert, 1998)

I chose a set of images that let you see the expressionist current. The actress's facial expression shows what she is feeling, an exaggerated facial expression. I will try to have my characters show what they are feeling through the expression on their faces. It is not easy to do this, because it is a drawing of a puppet, not a drawing of a human face that allowed us to better capture human expressions. I will also outline some darker strokes to emphasize some aspects. Also in some scenarios, I am thinking of placing the darker backgrounds to give a dark dimension, such as the images I chose from the film.

image from Fritz Lang. Film still from "Metropolis". 1927 | MoMA

“The City of Sons, the humungous sports arena of Metropolis”, image from Film_review-Metropolis_1927.pdf (humanitiesinstitute.org)

image from Galeria de Cinema e Arquitetura: “Metrópolis” - 6 (archdaily.com.br)

image from Metropolis (1927) (imdb.com)

The drawing that I did base on the work of Fritz Lang:

References:

Ebert, Roger (1998) Metropolis [online] Available from: Metropolis movie review & film summary (1927) | Roger Ebert  (accessed 27th January 2021)

Infopédia (s.d.) Metropolis [online] available from: Metropolis - Infopédia (infopedia.pt) (accessed 27th January 2021)

Sevingen, Burak (s.d.) Metropolis [online] available from: Film_review-Metropolis_1927.pdf (humanitiesinstitute.org) (accessed 27th January 2021)