Essay Planning: Further Plans

Developing ideas for essay:

 

 Another point to add is how Walter Benjamin's theories apply well. (re-produced art. Meanings coming from moment of consumption).

Elsaesser:

(p17) "Metropolis's combination of sophisticated design with radical naivety of mythic cliches in the mode of a self-referential mise en abyme is now a familiar feature of mainstream film-making, almost a condition for entering the international market in the first place. Like Steven Spielberg's 'politically correct' (i.e. timid) fairy-tales or George Lucas's Star Wars saga, Lang and von Harbou's film shows the 'imagineer' at work, rather than the artist striving for self-expression."

(p21) Elsaesser lists multiple references and provides image evidence.

 The clock image would fit perfectly for the poster: references focus on time.

 (p55) Reference to 'The Vamp and the Machine'
"...Freder's castration anxiety and the fetishised image of woman did indeed receive ample textual, as well as contextual attention. In his essay 'The Vamp and the Machine', Andreas Huyssen took up two traditional Weimar motifs, the anxious male and the intellectuals' technophobic cultural pessimism."

I think definitely exploring different interpretations of the film over the years and comparing them, focusing on the political and cultural relevance, will be interesting. There's von Harbou's contribution, the USA's interference with it's screening, the Nazi period, Lang's fleeing of Germany, Lang's extensive use of Expressionist references, it's modern viewing and how it's now a cultural reference itself.