1. Contemporary influences on Fritz Lang in the 1920s

2. The Nibelungen
Looking back to a mythic past

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

4. The fall of the German hero. Note the literal ‘stab in the back’4

5. The Nibelungen – majesty turns to defeat
The final hour is essentially a depiction of doomed trench warfare against a ‘primitive’ eastern foe

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

7. The dehumanising effects of industrialisation

8. Literal dehumanisation

9. Man and machine

10. Religious references

11. The power of speech and effect on a mass audience

12. 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.

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

14. Leni Riefenstahl