Comparing Lang's Nineteen Eighty-Four And Metropolis
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The early 20th century novella ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, written by George Orwell, and the 1927 German science fiction film Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang, are two scripts that are both highly influenced by the effectiveness of the social, cultural and historical contexts. Both texts appear to express a dystopian concern for threat of an unmediated concentration of power as accelerated by an escalating industrial capacity and, by extension, the implicit threat to individualism. Most specifically, the totalitarian government’s authority of power and control over there people. The use of technology and control by the upper class persuades the workers perceptions to break the rules and fight for their rights.
The Weimar Republic conducted an experiment to determine Germany’s first democracy and this only happened due to the defeat of Germany throughout World War I. Political and…show more content… Metropolis confines thoughts of revolutionary technology that recounts to the party-like behaviour in 1984. The both texts distinctive countries had experienced totalitarianism during their time periods. The social hierarchy of the futuristic dystopia is illustrated through the idea of a machine-like woman and robotic workers entering the depths of the city. The “Two Minutes Hate” in 1984 coordinates with the workers plodding in and out of the depths of Metropolis at shift change. Winston’s thoughts on the Party’s control “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”. Control of the past ensures control of the future, as the Party creates a past that was a time of misery and slavery from which it claims to have liberated the human race, thus compelling people to work toward the Party’s goals. The power formed by Hitler and Stalin shaped totalitarian perspectives for the community which were repeated arguments within Metropolis and