Contemporary influences on Fritz Lang in the 1920s

The Nibelungen

Looking back to a mythic past

The film is based on mythology about an Aryan hero, who suffers a great downfall at the hands of a corrupted monarchy

The fall of the German hero. Note the literal ‘stab in the back’

The Nibelungen – majesty turns to defeat

The final hour is essentially a depiction of doomed trench warfare against a ‘primitive’ eastern foe

Metropolis

Themes of psychic control – sleepwalking, into defeat, etc.

The dehumanising effects of industrialisation

Literal dehumanisation

Man and machine

Religious references

The power of speech and effect on a mass audience

Revolution and mob rule – Rosa Luxemburg & Spartacist League – in 1918 in post armistice riots advocated resistance to the new Weimar government. She lost control of rioting workers and was herself murdered by the Freikorp paramilitaries.

Fritz Lang’s unintentional influence on German propaganda in the 1930s

Leni Riefenstahl