Maria! Maria!

Metropolis was an outstanding silent film. While the outdated technology of the film and the over dramatics of the sets made the film entertaining the message couldn't have been any better. The idea that the hands the drive and manipulate a country and or city are forgotten to the heads that run the city is not foreign. After having just read Frankenstein, I couldn't help but see parallels with the idea that the scientist forgot about the idea and feelings of the creature. He didn't think that it would retaliate and rebel. The scientist was only thinking of himself. In Metropolis I see Federson as more of the scientist and the people of the city down below as the creatures.

The elaborate scenes of the scientist and his robot version of Maria created in my imagination what I expected from Frankenstein before reading it. It was the glitz and glam that Hollywood had implanted in my brain about what Frankenstein would be like. The robotic Maria seemed to be so perfect in model. Having no brain of her own she was reckless in her mission and seemed to be feeding off of the anarchy she created in the city. The real puppeteer in this whole film was Rotwang. Who while manipulating Federson, he seeked out to accomplish his own personal goal of ruining his life, by destroying that of his son. When thinking about the victimization of all the characters I can't help but wonder is everyone in this story somehow the victim. It seems that while one can point the finger at Federson or Rotwang, one also has to feel sympathy for all the "villains" in this tale. Rotwang has fallen victim to becoming a scorned man, after losing what is assumed to be the love of his life to Federson and then death. Federson seems to have been more caught up in the city and lost a sort of humanity even with his own son, and so in turn cannot be fully blamed for suppressing his own people down below. This lends to read like Frankenstein where not only was the creator but the creature was also a victim to his reality.

Personally the scene I find most fascinating is the scenes of the factory/city down below. Although the people running the machines are human and have families, one can't help but see them as one machine. They come in all together like robots and leave all together like robots. They work without break and seem to do it as automatic as breathing. This scene brings into question if really all people can be driven to become robots. Although there was only one Robot in the film, she seemed to be full of life scandalously so (ie. her seducing men at night in the "clubs") but the real robots seemed to be the people from below who didn't really come to life until they rebelled and who one never really saw as individuals but as one huge group known as "the hands"