Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

FREE-WRITE:

The imagery in this film was very pertinent to today, despite the fact that it was made 80 years ago.  I recently read a quote from Studs

Terkel about how machines have replaced natural sounds and become the norm; birdsongs are now exotic, while mechanical sounds and hums from appliances and technology have become constant and static.  This quote reminds me a lot of the garden scene in Metropolis, which made me think about how nature has been sort of ushered out and overtaken by cities and technological projects or devices.

I also thought it was interesting to think about how Metropolis the city was like a body itself; the skyline and lights were its lovely

exterior, while the machines were beneath the "skin"/ground of the city, almost like its skeleton.  There were these machines holding the city up and keeping it functioning; "The Heart Machine" especially kept the city pulsing.  Even the water during the flood reminded me a bit of blood, and the people always in motion made me envision them as the joints flexing the city and making it stronger as long as these people stayed in order and command of the machines.

ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

I think the robot in Metropolis is gendered feminine because, as Huyssen says in his essay, "After all, the world of technology has

always been the world of men while woman has been considered to be outside of technology, a part of nature as it were" (Huyssen 224).  It was more radical and shocking to have a feminine gendered robot than a masculine one because it went against the norm.  What marks the robot as feminine are her breasts, crotch, her delicate looking eyes and plump lips, and her wide thighs which seem to create hips and curves.

The spaces, objects, and patterns bodies assume while doing work range from The Depths, where masculine workers in dark clothing are constantly in motion, to the garden with the fountain and birds and flowery, pretty atmosphere.  The garden represents a utopia while the depths are like hell and the tops of the towering buildings, as well as The Son's Club, are the peak of the hierarchy.

The workers do manual labor; there is a lot of gears to keep turning and clock-like meters to supervise and control.  The people and

machines seem co-dependent; the machines cannot operate without the people, but the people of the city cannot live without the machines always in operation.  

The shapes and patterns bodies assume while working consist of clocks, triangles (which symbolize a hierarchy), and continuous streams of people like ants in an ant farm.  The huge, exaggerated doors also seem to shrink the bodies down and make them seem insignificant since the people appear so tiny when stepping through the looming doors.

Objects or architecture of the building also greatly shape and order these bodies; at the beginning of the film when the bodies are moving through the tunnel, all of the workers have to walk at the same pace to fit and pass through in an organized manner.  As mentioned previously, the large doors give the illusion that the bodies are very small. The tall crosses in the catacombs where Maria comforts the workers make her appear angelic and small as well.

The work of the owners and inventors is varied; while Joh controls people and is a boss/overseer of Metropolis, Rotwang creates people (robotic people, that is) and invents machines.  Freder, meanwhile, seems to entertain the women in the garden and roams the various sections of the underground even though his father does not want him to. 

The shapes and forms Joh, Rotwang, and Freder assume while working are very different as well.  Joh is rigid, like a pillar; he often has his hands in his pockets or sometimes on his chest to create a sense of linearity.  Rotwang is hunched over like a question-mark, which makes sense, because his actions and ideas are questionable and mysterious.  Freder appears the most abstract, with his oddly shaped pants and loose movements when working in The Depths.

The objects and architecture shape and order Joh, Rotwang, and Freder's bodies in various ways.  Joh has his huge bright office that

seems quite minimal and expansive, showing what space he has at his disposal while everything underground is cluttered and tight.

Rotwang's house is as maze-like as his mind, and is dark and weird like one would imagine the setting of a scientist.  Freder just explores the city and is not tied to a specific part of Metropolis.

Metropolis is visualized as being huge, epic, and glittering.  The people are small compared to the huge, impressive structures and

skyline.  The inhabitants of the city are like an extension of the city itself in the sense that the people keep the city going

economically, but at the same time, the machines that make the city function are the prosthesis of the people; again, there is a

co-dependent relationship between them wherein the people must depend on the machines and the machines must be controlled and managed by the people.

The worker's underground is a cavernous, dank place, with tunnels and catacombs and elaborate machines.  It has a ghostly sort of atmosphere and is very dark and crowded.  As mentioned before, the workers are like an extension of the city itself in the sense that they keep the city going, but at the same time, the machines that make the city function are the prosthesis of the people; again, there is a co-dependent relationship between them wherein the people must depend on the machines and the machines must be controlled and managed by the people.

The differences between Tomorrow's Eve and Metropolis are notable.  For one thing, Hadaly embodies more than one woman, while the robot takes on the likeness of Maria only.  Plus, while Edison wants to use Hadaly as a way to repay Lord Ewald for saving his life, Rotwang is using his robot creation as a way to get revenge on Joh and Freder.  Additionally, Hadaly’s construction is much more detailed than Maria’s; Rotwang’s robot takes on Maria’s face, but Hadaly takes on Alicia’s characteristics like her accent, voice, gestures, teeth, tongue, and “the very pallor of the living woman” Alicia (Villiers 216).  For Metropolis, technology is a tool in the sense that Rotwang uses it against Lord Ewald, and the technological machinery that keeps the city pumping is a tool used by the workers.  It is complex, however, because the workers are also tools of the machines; both the machines and people rely on each other and use each other as tools.  In Tomorrow’s Eve, technology is a tool when Edison decides to use his android’s capabilities to his advantage; he is able to manipulate technology by giving Hadaly the features that Alicia supposedly abused; “In her [Alicia] all these qualities were dead, deceptive, degraded, because enslaved to vulgar, selfish reason, beneath their veil now lurks a feminine being who is, and perhaps always was, the true and rightful possessor of this extraordinary beauty, since she has always shown herself worthy of it” (Villiers 216).

Social structures and patterns that are reflected in the imaginary worlds  of both Tomorrow’s Eve and Metropolis include the idea that, rather than God, science can be used to create people and technologies that can work in place of people, as well as the idea that humans are basically machines themselves, always in motion and contributing to the apparatus of life by laboring in attempts to make money and ascend to a higher level in the societal hierarchy.