ESSAY 1

Essays should be five to six pages in length. The primary purpose of this paper is to develop a persuasive thesis about the material at stake. I do not expect you to carry out major research for your topic. What I would like to see, however, is some closer reading of a selected scene or two in order to illustrate your argument. Please do not hesitate to talk to me about your topic so as to discuss it in further detail. Due date is October 20, 2004.

Here are some suggestions:

• Compare and contrast the image and construction of interior space in M and Metropolis. Use the apartment of Frau Beckmann and what we see of the interior of Rotwang’s house as examples and illustrations.

• Examine the construction of urban space as we see it in M in the below still. To what extent can we compare M’s Berlin to the futuristic design of urban space in Metropolis, or the frenzied imagery of urban life in Ruttmann’s Berlin film?

• Both M and Metropolis are obvious studio productions. The role and meaning of studio-made urban sets in both films might be different though. How does the effect of studio architecture differ in both films?

• Compare the peculiar ways in which both M and Der Totmacher seek to feminize their protagonists in order to identify them as Lustmörder and serial killers.

• Kracauer considered the use of editing in Berlin, die Sinfonie der Großstadt as a politically questionable strategy of equating the incommensurable and erasing social differences. Whether he might be right or not: to what extent can we apply this kind of reasoning to certain editing strategies used in M?

• Anton Kaes considers M a film extending experiences of warfare into the post war era. How persuasive is his argument?

• Discuss the famous first shot of Beckert in M (production still below). How does it foreshadow what is to come? And how does it communicate with other shots making heavy use of shadows in M?

• How cold is Lang’s gaze at modern society?

• Does suicide, as presented in Berlin, die Sinfonie der Großstadt, have a place in Jünger’s and Lang’s conception of modern life and mobilization? Does it reveal what Jünger’s concept seeks to repress?