Metropolis? No Thanks - Nikki Anzalone

The year? 2026. The place? Metropolis, a thriving city filled with technological marvels, extensive gardens, and skyscrapers that live up to their name. Not all is well and good in the city however, just beneath the surface lies a dark secret. A society of workers pushed beyond their limits. They themselves treated like mere cogs in a machine, identical, yes, and completely replaceable. This is where Fritz Lang’s Metropolis begins, with a stark contrast between the citizens of above and below, and while Metropolis ultimately blurs those lines the message of the film could not be more clear cut. The movie isn’t particularly groundbreaking for it’s use of the narrative structure, in fact it’s rather transparent and the action drags at times. Nonetheless, it’s a visual spectacle that manages to still hold some water today.

    The story is a simple one that grabs its audience by the hand and drags it through a vaguely science fiction based world. Joh Frederson, played by Alfred Abel, is the leader of Metropolis and he encourages his people to lead frivolous lives that seem to mostly consist of frolicking through plants. His son unfortunately named Freder Frederson (Gustav Fröhlich) is no exception to this. Of course everything changes when Maria (Brigitte Helm) walks into Freder's life with the simple message that the people below are, in fact, people. (It is worth noting that Brigitte is quite possibly the film's greatest treasure). From that point on Freder is determined to be one with his brothers below. It's a pretty straightforward tale of a lower class's struggle to raise itself up to the standards of the elite, which makes sense given the context Fritz Lang has; post WWI Germany. After the war, Germany had a period of insane hyperinflation (in November of 1923 one US dollar was the equivalent of 4,210,500,000,000 marks) that caused the workers to go on strike. At least it would be straightforward if the eccentric inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) hadn't built a robot of Joh's dead wife for reasons more paper thin than the movie's metaphors. Honestly, if that robot wasn't eventually played by Brigette (as part of a pretty half-baked plan to destroy Metropolis) I would not be able to accept its presence. Watching Robo-Maria dance and flail around is about as thrilling as it gets.
     Overall, Metropolis wants its audience to know the importance of emotion in society, which is fairly standard for German expressionism. Let's say though for some reason you didn't get that. Perhaps you missed the quote at the movie's start, “THE MEDIATOR OF THE HEAD AND HANDS MUST BE THE HEART”. Maybe you also missed each time this was repeated, like when Maria in a beam of grossly symbolic light called Freder the mediator. Or the entire speech about the tower of Babel. Chances are though, unless you were asleep (not out of the question for a two and a half hour movie), you didn't miss it. How could you? Even the illiterate could figure it out as our protagonist is constantly clutching his chest as if he's in the midst of a heart attack (which would admittedly be more exciting).
     It's incredibly difficult for a modern viewer to like Metropolis. Every plot point that, back then, would have been a riveting twist, today, is just another kick to a very dead horse. The camera work is nothing special and is mostly stationary apart from a few "artistic" shots that feel almost out of place. However, this is where the audience can forgive Fritz Lang because Metropolis, for all its downfalls, pioneered a genre. It's predictably stems from its influence on movies today. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the writing isn’t terrible. The compulsive need to walk the audience through any sort of abstract concept is not a great technique to use, well, ever. Overall, Metropolis may not be a great movie, but it is a classic, and that is worth appreciating.

Rear Window: Turning Audiences to Peeping Toms Since 1954 - Nikki Anzalone

    
A man limited to a wheelchair and, in turn, an audience limited to a singular point of view; this is the essence of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. It makes no attempt at flashy action sequences or sharp, snippy dialog. Its artistry lies purely in its hero (played with subtle brilliance by James Stewart) and his reactions to a peculiar sequence of events seen through the titular rear window. Hitchcock doesn’t quite leave his audience on the edge of their seats, holding their collective breath, but Rear Window has within it a suspense of it’s own creation: the wonder if there is anything really happening in this movie at all.

  After injuring himself in the field, photographer L. B. Jeffries or “Jeff” (Stewart) is left with nothing more to do than to look out his window and observe the world around him. This is an easy task, the unbearable heat has encouraged his neighbors to leave their windows wide open giving Jeff, and in turn the audience, a front row seat to their lives. At first, what Jeff sees is benign but soon the salesman Thorvald (Raymond Burr) going out late several times one night becomes the first in a long series of suspicious actions. Thorvald’s nagging wife disappears, he carries saws and rope, he sends off a trunk with all her things but leaves her handbag behind. Rear Window’s methods are simple, it’s “show don’t tell”.

When Jeff peers through a high powered camera lens and spots a little dog digging in Thorvald’s garden, the audience finds it just a strange as he does. The film doesn’t need words to tell that something is happening because it is right there on the screen. It is left up to the audience to find out.

    Part way through the story, Jeff’s nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) scolds him for his behavior remarking “We’ve become a race of Peeping Toms.” It’s true that Hitchcock’s fascination for watching others is central to the story’s plot. Without the voyeuristic tendencies of Jeff, audiences would be treated to 114 minutes of James Stewart trying to scratch his leg with a spoon while pretending to not be in love with Grace Kelly.

Speaking of, there is something to be said of Rear Window’s Hitchcock blonde, Lisa. She falls into the usual tropes, holding in her heart a passion for Jeff (that he doesn’t exactly share). However, Kelly’s Lisa is not so much a fantasy, she stands for a life that Jeff has been so desperate to elude and in the end he falls prey to it.  She’s a puzzle he must solve, battling his own fears of commitment and impotence in the midst of solving a murder.

    The main plot of Rear Window isn’t quite packed with symbolism or carefully crafted mise en scène like Hitchcock’s Psycho. There are point-of-view shots and some more neutral shots and the occasional lighting effect, nothing special. The various stories seen in the single set of the courtyard are (quite literally) another story. The story of Miss Lonelyhearts comes to mind: a horrendously lonely woman nearly driven to suicide is saved by the song of the composer across the way. Her story and even her name relies entirely on Jeff’s perspective. This is true for his other neighbors as well. Miss Torso, Miss Hearing Aid, Songwriter, all of their characterization comes from the lazy sweep of Jeff’s camera. The audience is able to form opinions through what Jeff sees and hears in that moment. In one instance, Miss Lonelyhearts bursts into tears over a table set for two and at the same time Songwriter struggles to come up with his next line of music. In another, a pair of naive newlyweds enter their new home. At first they’re eager to start a life together but as time goes on it becomes clear the husband is starting to feel weighed down by his bride. There is obviously a story in Rear Window, but like in life, it’s not the only one.

It’s small moments of masterful execution that make Rear Window: the point-of view, the stories outside, the look on Jeff’s face when he spots something new. It’s not a perfect story, the climax is admittedly less than thrilling, but it’s engaging in a way most movies aren’t, on a more intimate scale. In 114 minutes, Hitchcock shows it doesn’t take a foreboding location or a shocking twist to capture an audience. Sometimes, all it takes is an open window.