Comparing Metropolis And George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

Man has an inherent free will that cannot be suppressed by any external influence such as society. However, this same free will drives man to power through subjugation. This is evident in a comparison of Fritz Lang’s silent, black and white German expressionist film Metropolis (1927) and George Orwell’s Cold War satire Nineteen Eighty-Four (Hereafter 1984). Lang imposes a narrative in which individual hubris has led to a fundamentally corrupt society that can only be undermined by expression of emotion and destruction of the social hierarchy, a narrative which reflects Lang’s personal context, German Expressionist era and the Weimar Republic. Similarly 1984 (1948) reflects Orwell’s criticism of his totalitarian post-WWII context through the

Unlike Lang, Orwell introduces the importance of individual agency and its emotional ties through methods of subjugation. ‘Newspeak’ and the resulting ‘thought crime’ and ‘double-think’ are established by Big Brother in order for the individual to be incapable of recognising liberties they’ve had stripped. This reflects Orwell’s belief that it’s within words that strong emotions, and so freedom, can be elicited, an idea that extends on Lang’s notion of this, seen in the malleability of the workers whilst Pure and False Maria speak. Orwell presents self-determination as innate through use of The Appendix. Unlike Metropolis, 1984 is seemingly hopeless except for The Appendix which is written from a future looking at the past that occurs in the novel. This projects that despite oppression and the execution of Julia and Winston, Big Brother is doomed. Analysing this with quotes such as “‘If there is hope,’ wrote Winston, ‘it lies in the proles.’” Indicates the power of choice and emotion is within everyone in society not few, and as a result is the biggest threat totalitarianism faces. With conviction Orwell theorises that man’s agency is elemental to humanity, with “Not merely the love of one person, but the animal instinct, the simple undifferentiated desire: that was the force that would tear the party to pieces”

Lang establishes authoritarianism in order to introduce the subjugation of workers. In the opening scenes, chiaroscuro lighting is used to externalise and amplify the negative emotions of the workers resulting from their physical, emotional and intellectual captivity. This overwhelming negative emotion is contrasted by Fredersen’s apathy. Fredersen, whose body language suggests he is preoccupied with thoughts of wealth and grandeur and not with emotions personal or otherwise, characterised by his hands holding his head, a motif symbolic of his nature as a purely rational man. This theme of emotion is used by Lang to symbolise humanity, and as such, lack of emotion indicates lack of humanity. This derives from the idea that to be free and human is to experience emotion, but the one emotion humanity will never achieve is feeling total control. The pursuit of this feeling will cause one to lose humanity. This notion is elaborated on both in the symbolic Tower of Babel through the fable Maria tells in which man through his hubris attempts to reach divine heights, where the ability to control all is. In doing many are crushed for his own ambition. As such in Metropolis, Fredersen is a man whose free will has been indulged to the point where he chases that final emotion. He has created an economic dictatorship where no one is truly free to be human in his