Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) - film symbolism

[RobSS]

 The Machine-Human's one-eyed wink

 

In Fritz Lang's 1927 film, Metropolis, there's a scene in which Rotwang, a black magician, abducts a women called Maria, a saintly figure to the workers. The workers dwell in the depths of the city, toiling to keep the machines that power the city, going. Maria prophesies of the coming of a mediator who will one day bring the working and ruling classes together.

 

Rotwang uses Maria's face to make a copy. He then gives the Maschinenmensch (the Machine-Human) Maria's face, and she appears as an exact replica of Maria, but she's a programmed machine. When the black magician finishes his work, he tells the Maschinenmensch to go down into the depths to the workers, and he instructs "her" to destroy the work of Maria, in whose image she was created.

 

Below is a 10 minute clip of the scene with the video set to start near the end of the clip, at the point where the black magician tells the Machine-Human what to do regarding undoing the work of Maria...

 

"Whoever winks with their eye is plotting perversity;
whoever purses their lips is bent on evil." (Proverbs 16:30)

 

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by RobSS