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I think he completely missed the point of the film. It wasn’t an attempt to predict what the world would look like in a hundred years. It was a fable. When t
by david927 6y ago
I think he completely missed the point of the film. It wasn’t an attempt to predict what the world would look like in a hundred years. It was a fable. When the interior of a scene was larger than the exterior, it wasn’t a mistake but an intended effect.
Lang wasn’t saying, “This is the future,” but rather, “we need to beware of a future that bends this way.” And he was right. The mechanizations that were meant, as Wells says, to liberate us didn’t entirely. We’re no longer marching shoulder to shoulder to the caves to work mechanically, but half of us go to low paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted. An Amazon or Uber driver may not look like a fleshy cog in an oversized machine but he or she might certainly feel that way.
Lang was sitting us down as children and telling us a fable and the fable had a moral: in the future we need to take care lest we the humans are reduced to machinery and the machinery sublimated to human. And Lang was prescient because, 100 years later, that is what we’ve found.
- StavrosK 6y ago> but half of us go to low paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted And half of us go to high paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted. Beware the cultural, subconscious lie that "more money means you're happier". Plenty of low-paid people are happier at their jobs than plenty of millionaires.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y agoThen why keep all this money in the hand of unhappy people (who mostly hoard it)? Does unhappiness help with capital allocation? Could concentrating wealth in the hands of a few cause unhappiness and trouble both their owner nor the rest of society (who would do better if they had more control)?
- StavrosK 6y agoI didn't say all rich people are unhappy, I said not all poor people are unhappy and not all rich people are happy.
- lb1lf 6y ago"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." (Lev Tolstoi; 'Anna Karenina') ('Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.'), for the purists.)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- david927 6y agoThat is an opaque point and adds nothing to our discussion.
- soco 6y agoMoney may not buy happiness, but I'd rather cry in a Jaguar than on a bus. (Françoise Sagan)
- shard 6y agoReminds me of the girl who said, "I would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_would_rather_cry_in_a_BMW https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_would_rather_cry_in_a_BMW
- toddh 6y agoSounds like something you might say at the beginning of your life and shake your head at later in life.
- quickthrower2 6y agoBut you’ll be shaking your head in a Jaguar, hopefully. (Personally I’m not into cars so all this seems silly to me!)
- Jetrel 6y agoI feel like a much better quote, which really hits on the more meaningful parts of it is this one, attributed to a "Helen Gurley Brown": "Money, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort." Money may not bring you fulfillment, or love, etc. But currently, it can decisively solve most of Maslow's hierarchy-of-needs (with a few exceptions like illness). The unhappiness from having a hole in Maslow's hierarchy is a pretty bitter, cruel thing - especially if reaches the point of losing family members or friends.
- friendlybus 6y agoIt's usually the rich that extol the virtues of being poor.
- david927 6y agoThe argument is not whether some of the poor are happy in the jobs and some wealthy are not. The argument is about the future and what it could look like. The hope of machinery is that it can free us. And yet if we look around, much of labor is rote and serves merely to sustain existence. Instead of freeing us, we are incorporated into the machine framework, and it has reduced our humanity. That's what Lang warned us about and that's what we're finding.
- simonebrunozzi 6y agoI love your comment. So insightful. Let me tell you why. Earlier today I spent some time to read about "Lawrence of Arabia" (I watched it a couple of days ago, essentially for the first time in my life), and I discovered so many interesting things, such as: 1) The movie received 7 oscars! 2) It was based on the life of T.E. Lawrence 3) The director, David Lean, also directed "Bridge on the river Kwai" in 1957 (which also won some oscars), before working on Lawrence of Arabia. 4) There's no love story. The movie lasts for almost 4 hours! It was shot in 70mm. 5) It's interesting how the protagonist's sexuality is never openly discussed, but it's hinted that he might have been homosexual. Etc. So, after half an hour reading about it, I realized how much more there is, besides the movie itself. Your comment on Metropolis gave me similar insights about that movie. Thanks again for sharing it.