Metropolis
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As Steve Fore's class note said, "the attitude towards technology expressed in Metropolis (1925-1926) can be described as ambivalent and contradictory". Filmmakers had depicted a stunning, attractive and literally amazing futuristic spectacle with highly developed technology in Metropolis, which amazed people at that time and even nowadays, and inspired, influenced many sci-fi movies' visual style later on. On the other hand, it predicted/revealed the underneath danger of technology towards the human world.
The story of Metropolis was placed in 2026, and the montage sequence of mechanical machines at the opening had already suggested that the maintenance of the Metropolis (future world) was highly depending on technology, and the technology was operated by the slave-liked workers worked and lived underground. The workers were ruled by people who lived on the ground, and of course the people on the ground could have a much better lives, they can lived leisurely, and took advantages of the technology (transportation, power supply, leisure facilities, etc.). It revealed the fact that when technology dominated the development of a society, the richer, much powerful people must be in the leading role, and the weaker one must be oppressed, in order to do the repetitive, fatigued work to keep the technology maintenance and development but without fair payment, so unfairness must be constructed, but this unfairness was hard to be realized by the people, such as Freder, protagonist, if he was not attracted by Maria and pursued her until to the underground, he would never know the fact.
The story of the Tower of Babel, which was told by Maria to the workers, even strengthens the universal fact of the unfairness constructed by technology. Intelligence people manipulate technology in order to have a better life, but at the same time they manipulate other people to achieve their goals. Technology is both the reason and evidence of people becoming arrogance and lack of compassion to the others...