Metropolis

Opening sequence: recurring element throughout the film: the clock, time, steam whistle

Workers move like machines, mechanical movement

Architecture: prison-like, resemble to the central, artificial lighting

City above vs city below

Mechanical rhythm vs natural rhythm

Son’s club: open spaces, neo classicism, soft lighting, dream-like

Moloch: Child sacrifice

The city: geomatic form, densely packed

Exoticism

Circular movement

Loss of natural rhythm

Biblical references

Hel status: enlightenment knowledge

The mediator left ambiguous

The mediator between head and hand is the heart

Transformation scene

1. Lighting

- Creation of the golem

- Lots of contrast

- Expressionism
 - Isolation of subject vs. background

- Maria surrounded by light

- scattered

2. Framing

- 3/4 body shot of the body

- Close-up, remind of Dr. Caligari

- Crowding of the frame

3. Mise-en-scene

- Crowding of the frame

- Geometry

- Aura (electrical rings)

4. Camera work

- Alternating full body and close up

- Static shots

5. Editing

- Three dominant static images

i. Iconographic image

ii. Emphasize on male creation and control

The scene starts with a high angle close-up on Maria, follows by medium shots of the scientist

and a wide shot of the room. Then there are close-ups on the chemicals, medium shot of the

scientist full body follows by the shot of the robot with electrical rings. The robot is always shot

from the scientist’s perspective. Then there is a long shot framing both Maria and the robot.
Maria is in a low position while the robot is in a lower position. It implies the mechanical

features outpowering the humanity. Then scene ends with a high angle close-up of Maria and a

low angle shot of the robot implying the power of the robot.

1. The machine woman: A historical digression

- 18th century discourse (materialist):

i. Automata

ii. Mechanical Turk

2. The ultimate technological fantasy: creation without mother

- Technological creation to usurp female reproductive role

- Reducing women to reproductive technology

3. Virgin and the vamp: displacing the double threat

- Real Maria poses threat to world of technology (heart)

- To subjugate this threat, she is transformed into robot Maria

- Robot Maria unleashes chaos

- Neutralizing the threat of the heart and repurposing for a re-creationary or conservative

ideology

4. The male gaze and the dialectic of dripline and desire

- Male gaze as constructing the machine woman

- Meta-parallel to what cinema does as a male technology

- Association vision with domination and civilization

5. The female minotaur as technology-out-of-control

- Fear of sexuality: desire to control technology

- Oedipal conflict

- Discourse of uncanny