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

It was an interesting movie and I can now see how it has affected many movies that came after it. Dr. Strangelove is one of the movies that seems to draw a straight line back to Metropolis.  The doctor in Metropolis has a hand in a black glove that he lost to the creation of the robot.  In Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Strangelove has a black-gloved hand that he has no control over and randomly snaps into the Hitler solute.  Whether this was done out of a sign of respect or if it was done to lampoon Metropolis I’m not sure, but it was defiantly a reference to the older film.  There are also other links that can be drawn to countless other Sci-fi movies that use (better quality) but essentially the same effects as they used in the libratory.  When Rotwang was coping Maria the light that covered her body and transferring energy to the robot has been used for years in similar situations.

To the film itself, first striking thing about how bodies interact is that almost all the bodies are part of the machines, there is no distinction made between the mechanical apparatuses and the bodies that work with them.  This is of course emphasized when one of the machines explodes and the workers sacrifice themselves to it.  The work for the most part is repetitive, the workers all working together in the same rhythm.  The positions that the workers bodies are is communicates that they are working hard and are needing to use their whole body to make the machine work.  The upper management types and there lakes on the other had work in large offices and they looked over and monitored the work that was happening below. 

Another show that still shoots back to Metropolis is the new series of Dr. Who, a BBC sci-fi show.  In that show there is a race called Cybermen, who are trying to upgrade the human race.  There is of shoot of that show called Trochwood that has a female Cyberman who looks almost just like the robot in Metropolis.  It is just interesting to see that the same visual representaion is still being used.