Cinematic Cities

Hugh Ferriss: The Lure of The City, 1925

Faust | 1926 | F.W. Murnau | Germany

Famous architects dressed as their buildings, 1931

Day 18: Metropolis (1927)

(Black and White Wednesday)

There isn’t really much I can say about this film. Metropolis is not a film for everyone, alot of people, especially those who watch film purely for leisure would find it hard to sit through. I know i’ve said it before, but this is another one of those influential films, the difference being this one is especially important in the history of film. Arguably the single most important, this film was directed by Fritz Lang the father of futurism. At the time this was made, even the world “robot” had no value, it was not a term used yet. It truly is an ageless masterpiece that will be an eternal source of inspiration for film makers. It is a silent film, alot of it missing, know one knows how long the film originally went for because it was badly damaged, it was luck any of it at all was recovered.

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari - Robert Wiene - 1920

Shooting of the film was a draining experience for the actors involved, due to the demands that Lang placed on them. For the scene where the worker’s city was flooded, Helm and 500 children from the poorest districts of Berlin had to work for fourteen days in a pool of water that Lang intentionally kept at a low temperature. (x)