Comparing Metropolis And Nineteen Eighty-Four

A comparative study of Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell, 1948) sheds light on ideas about progress in the first half of the twentieth century to a large extent. Both texts challenge the vision of “a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly and efficient.” Due to their different contexts, each text presents a different perspective on the issues of the use of social manipulation to achieve progress, and the loss of humanity in relation to the pursuit of progress.
Both Metropolis and Nineteen Eighty-Four criticise political authority’s use of social manipulation in order to achieve progress, in the first half of the twentieth century. Both texts negatively portray societies that could eventuate if the contemporary socio-political structures at the …show more content…
The placement of a small twenty-four hour clock above the ten hour clock, in Joh Fredersen’s office, symbolises the structure and workings of the metropolis – the elite minority at the top controlling the working class majority at the bottom. Harsh class division and falsification are the means of social manipulation used in the metropolis to hide or alter the truth in a way that benefits the authority and upper class. In Metropolis, the workers are manipulated to think that they work ten hour shifts, when in fact they work twelve hours. In the “City of Workers and Sons’ Club” extract of the film’s Prelude, Lang portrays the stark differences between classes using strong contrast of light and dark, a feature of German Expressionism. The high-angle shot during the “shift-change” scene capturing the workers, dressed identically in dark uniforms, walking in two synchronised groups, is the first time the workers appear on screen, presenting them as inferior and merely an extension of the machines they operate. Though there is no authority present, the group of workers entering the Machine