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Metropolis (1927)- Just Vibes
52 Plays2 months ago
We kick of 100 years of sci fi by looking at the costumes in Metropolis. This un-researched and un-serious exploration of the costume design won't answer any of your burning questions, but hopefully will be a fun time.
Information pulled from
IMDb- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_metrop
Wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)
Women in Weimar Fashion: Discourses and Displays in German Culture 1918-1933 by Mila Ganeva
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm your host, Melinda Hare, and also here is our other host. Hi, I'm Ariel Allen. And this is our first what we're hoping our first real episode. We are very excited and nervous and having all kinds of fun technical issues as we learn ah about how to make a podcast and of watching Ariel's cat echoes like inch her way into the video frame because she just wants to be involved so much. just And I love that. so bad I mean, it's it's hard having cats with such good taste in German cinema, but, you know, that like that's the price. I kind of on purpose accidentally made a face with good taste in German cinema because I've got some things to say.
00:01:08
Speaker
I don't know. Maybe they are like generally accepted attitudes and maybe not. Oh, OK. OK, let's. All right. So, OK. Let's. I'm going to let everyone know what we're going to be doing. Yes, please. Ten episodes. So Cat Talk is over. Now let's get into it. Cat cat Chat has ended. ah Now it's time for the podcast. um OK, so. ah i I will take credit for this crazy idea for this little series that we're doing um because I had been wanting to make a podcast about costumes. And I also have been on this kind of project where I've been watching a lot more movies. Not that I ever wasn't watching movies, but I've definitely been watching a lot more the last couple of years.
00:02:02
Speaker
And so talking about the costumes that I was seeing on screen, it was very appealing to me and I wanted to have an excuse to do that as much as possible. And thinking about what I wanted to talk about, what I was interested in, ah and all of that kind of led me to come up with this idea of doing these like 10 episode series where we could pick like a theme and talk about movies in that theme just to give us a little bit of focus or some kind of consistency or direction that we wanted to go in. And so the first idea that I came up with, which
00:02:47
Speaker
became this is a series called 100 Years of Sci-Fi. So what we're going to be doing is kind of picking a representative movie from each decade of 100 years to that film commercial film has existed and talking about that movie and the costumes in it. And ah then her like each episode will have a representative movie from that decade. So we're starting with the 1920s. I think there are some silent films that predate the 1920s.
00:03:26
Speaker
I don't know. My film history is a little meh. My film history is definitely very tired and went past my camera for anything. But I think there are definitely some like experimental things. And even just earlier in the decade, probably. yeah I would say the 1920s is sort of the first decade that people think of, like, we're going to the movies to pay money to sit in this chair and watch this movie as an experience that we technically still have today, although ah it does seem to be a bit of a dying form of entertainment to actually leave your home and go watch a movie in a theater.
00:04:11
Speaker
um And so, yeah, I didn't really think there was any other movie to pick for the 1920s except Metropolis. It seemed like the obvious choice. Oh, absolutely. And for the subject that we were going for, I think it's like super renowned and known. And yes, people have talked about it and people have talked about it um from the lens of ah cinematography and set design and um just like all other forms of design and also content like of the story. But um yeah, we are going to be talking about costumes because that's that's where our, you know, our
00:04:52
Speaker
our eyes go as costumers. Yes. oh yes so I should mention that both Ariel and I are professional costume designers. We kind of didn't mention that before. No. um i think so yeah Hello. This is a very professional ah opening. We will get better with time. We are both costumers. I kind of came to it sort of accidentally. I came to it through illustration and having acted in some plays when I was a kid and liking theater. um And then after working away from the arts for a decade, wanting to go back into the arts and being able to implement my illustrated my illustration background and the idea of being able to sculpt clothes and costumes with stories was really interesting. So I went back to school for that and have been working um locally for the past few years. And how did you get into it, Melinda?
00:05:48
Speaker
um I also kind of got introduced to the concept of theater and live performance on stage as a performer, but it was something that I was never very good at and didn't really have any particular aspirations towards, but I really loved the experience of working um with everyone on a show. And so when I um started college, I took a couple classes on a whim just about theater and just caught the bug and I had grown up in an environment of
00:06:26
Speaker
women in my family sewing and doing other kinds of crafts and making things. And I always had an interest in that, though not very many skills. So I kind of entered um theater and costumes specifically from the perspective of someone who liked to sew and wanted to learn more about that and then um studied more design along the way. and ah eventually got a bachelor's degree and then also a master's degree in costume design, but for theater. I have never ah worked in film, but it's definitely something whenever I'm watching TV or movies that I always am picking up on and looking at and just generally interested in is the design of the costumes. Yeah. I mean, I think that that was the,
00:07:23
Speaker
like ultimate catalyst for me to go into um costume design ah and making. like I prefer them making. like i I enjoy designing and being given the ability to like create renderings and then hand that off to people to make. myself included being one of those people who makes them. um And because I work in local theater, it is more often than not me who makes them. um But it was always movies because i definite I was an only child growing up and I was really like, I spent a lot of time by myself and I liked watching movies. We didn't have TV. And um I was obsessed with like these clothes that people wore. And I remember like a secret garden from 94, I think.
00:08:09
Speaker
um And how pretty everything was and how it just made it feel like you were time traveling and of course like Star Wars did the same thing where it's just like you're in this whole other world and if you don't have. um All of these elements that come together to tell the story correctly then you're not transported. correctly into the world that you need to be in to see the story, right? So it's like if they were wearing jeans in Star Wars, you kind of would be like, well, we have jeans now. So is it a galaxy long time ago, far, far away if it's Levi's? I don't know.
00:08:44
Speaker
um And so you need to have those people who do the research and who get really nerdy about fabrics and techniques of making things and taking tablecloths and turning them into wedding dresses, all these crazy things. um Yeah, ramble, ramble, ramble. But costume is our like happy place. We like talking about it. We like seeing it. and so When we talk about it, it's not going to be exclusively academic. It's really going to be coming from this is what we do as a living. And it's also just something that we really enjoy. And it's anytime we see anything, I'm going to collectively speak for the both of us. um We do please take in like, what are these people wearing? And what does that tell us about what's happening in the world and who the people are?
00:09:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think we cannot stress enough that this is not an academically researched project and been remotely. My notes for today are going to show that. and course Yes, if you're looking to learn things, I would say maybe try a different podcast. Yeah, I would say, you know, even go to Reddit and look at, yeah like I did, look at the kind of like academic discussions, which obviously, you know, go down through a rabbit hole of emotional arguing pretty quick. But if you want that kind of discourse, it's not going to be from us. It's going to be.
00:10:08
Speaker
not purely, but mostly a costuming lens. And especially with a film like this, you can't just talk about costumes. And even if it's like ah another type of fantasy or you know another type of movie, you can never just talk about costumes because costumes are influenced by everything. It's influenced by everything that is accessible to the costumers and to the filmmakers and also what is informing the world that they are creating so that's that's kind of another thing that sort of got me excited to like join you on this podcast is that when people think of costuming they think of oh fashion
00:10:45
Speaker
And that's it. And like we've both had people go like, oh, you must be in love with fashion. And it's like kind of yes, kind of no, where yes, there is you know innovative thinking and design that can be very cool, but that's not really where we come into costuming. There are other people who come in through that venue. But for us, it's a storytelling device and it's also where a lot of um skills come into play and both you and I I think are our makers where we we are craftspeople who like to work with our hands and this is the field in which this this is our craft where we get to work with our hands. So we like seeing how other people have done that. This is vibes only. Vibes only. Vibes and I like it or I don't like it. um and Yes. ah to To bring it back to this this film today which
00:11:36
Speaker
we have not fully introduced. um no I just really want to hammer in this warning about vibes where I press play and when my smart brain is not in the room with us today. yeah i did I did try to watch this when it was re-released in theaters, which I think was around 2010. with my mom, who was like, let's go see a film today. And we went to our local theater that was, um it it's kind of art deco inside. So it was kind of a cool place to see this film ah that I, that Shana'll be named. But we ended up walking out. So that, that kind of tells you how I'm coming into this. Wow. Yeah, I know.
00:12:27
Speaker
Okay, not an intellectual. hush Hashtag not smart. no I will say that I have never seen this movie before watching it to like do this episode. So I came into it with like, oh, this is an important film that is important in the history of film. and It's great. and Every great director from the 20th century loves this movie and it's the best. and You just have to like sit back and get ready to enjoy like the best sci-fi movie ever made. That is absolutely. There are quite a few others on that list that are always touted that way. and This is one where when people talk about it and they talk about how it influenced their career,
00:13:19
Speaker
I think i I support that and I get that when you're talking about scenic design, when you're talking about even cinematography, when you're talking about um all these other- Special effects. Yeah, special effects. Special effects. What a dummy. I didn't mention that. But yes, like all these other areas of design, this like really, you can see how it is the ancestor of so many things that came from it. And you can with costume as well. There's there's no no question. But when you actually, let it happen to you, especially today. It's been a century. It's been almost an entire century. And I will say this even about movies made in the 1970s. It's a different time. It's a different time. And it's a different form of storytelling. And um it's just a different cultural existence. And so like having it happen at you,
00:14:19
Speaker
is You're going to receive it differently depending on when when you see it in your own life and when you've seen it like actually on the timeline of human history. Absolutely, yeah. And I feel like I've watched a few movies in the last couple years that are movies that were really groundbreaking when they were made for you know whatever reason, storytelling or effects or you know this famous director's first big movie or whatever and it's really hard to watch it and appreciate it for what it was and what it meant to people when it came out because I wasn't there and I didn't experience it when the movie came out and I've seen the movies that came after it that built upon it or took those ideas and
00:15:14
Speaker
did something new with them that's more recognizable and relevant to me in the year 2024 or you know whenever I saw it. But it's it's hard to watch the movies like that and just emotionally experience how groundbreaking they must have been and how it like blew people's minds at the time because it doesn't blow my mind I can appreciate it more intellectually but i can't appreciate it emotionally the way somebody watching this movie in nineteen twenty seven who had never seen a movie like this before would have seen it and felt about it. Absolutely impossible walking into a theater especially.
00:15:58
Speaker
Back then, like the culture of movie theaters was very different in so many levels, but it was like you were looking through a window into a different world. Even yeah you know even when they were silent film, it was a whole experience that was overwhelming and exciting and thrilling. And like I definitely did not watch it the way that it was originally consumed because I had my laptop open and I was tippy tapping away into the vastness of the intranet looking for um historical context and information about the screenwriter and the
00:16:36
Speaker
the um director and the conditions of the filming. And so there was a lot of context that I knew that people who watched it when it came out might never have known because they might not have even thought about it twice, even as they got older and stories came out later from the actors talking about what their experience was like. So there's you know so much more while looking at it because I'm looking at it as an object. So the movie that we are talking about today. but What movie are we talking about today? We are talking about Metropolis by Fritz Lang from, is it 1927? 1927 from Deutschland, Germany. Yes, indeed. And this movie, what a time to be creating art like post World War I, going into World War II.
00:17:27
Speaker
And, um yeah, just talking about Marxism, communism, and- All the Marxism. Our deco, and like- The Bible. The Bible. the but Okay, just put a pin in it. We're gonna talk about Ms. Babylon herself when we get there. Who is that? miss The original Ms. Thing. Oh my God. But this this film is one that when you talk about film history, it's always going to be a part of the conversation because it was such an epic
00:17:59
Speaker
epic creation. And even the version that we have right now is not the complete version because it was lost, deteriorated, all of these different things. It wasn't, the full version wasn't found until like the fifties and Buenos Aires. There was like a negative that had been taken from an original like silver nitrate. I'm talking about something I don't know about, but apparently silver nitrate would like burst into flames. So they would yeah normally take copies. and I think 16 millimeter was more stable like it wasn't going to combust, but I also thought it was interesting that that whoever did it deliberately mislabeled it so that it wouldn't be destroyed in a political uprising. and i mean It kind of makes sense when you think about where it was found because like let's get into it, the political of all of this. so Yes, this was made before the rise of
00:18:52
Speaker
the extreme rise of fascism in Germany, it was like at the very beginning. And so there was World War II, which broke out in a lot of stuff, especially that wasn't well, so complicated, but it was taken to Buenos Aires. And we talked about a lot of like Nazis who after the war, after the war went to South America. Yeah. So I feel like it makes sense that it would have found its way down there. And this was a favorite. of some people in that regime, which is pretty terrible. It's so interesting to me because I feel like one of these sort of evergreen aspects of sci-fi is for it to be misunderstood by the people that it is about oh and for them to take completely the wrong message from it and be like, wow, this movie's great.
00:19:45
Speaker
I am not understand that it's criticizing them. I find it that fascinating. It's endless. It's endlessly fascinating because it always happens over and over and over and over again. Like you can see it with big responses to Dune when Dune came out. Not the movie, the book. And the author was so annoyed and frustrated by people's responses to the book he wrote and the misunderstanding that he wrote a sequel to be like, you're dumb. And I need to spell it out for you in graham crackers, you babies. And and it will be 900 pages long of me going, you're dumb, you're dumb, you're dumb. This is what it means. Star Wars is always a perfect example, right? Star Wars is in a distant future or a distant past. And it has the empire, which is always like,
00:20:35
Speaker
just but Just pure fascism. your fasc pure acism And you always have people understanding the message that this block is bad. It's bright bad. The things that they do is are bad. And then you have people just walk out their front door and enact those same ideals. It's wild. It's because fascism is bad, but I'm a really cool guy and I would never do anything for the wrong reasons. I would never. and um And so it's it's pretty crazy. And um yeah, there's a lot that goes into the story itself that like that feeds into that. And like the screenwriter herself, um her name, let me actually. Thea Von Harbo. Thank you very much. She was an avowed Nazi.
00:21:27
Speaker
but She did like them. And that's so... If I remember History Class, which was many years ago, um I believe ah Mr. Adolf Hitler himself ascended to power in 1933 in Germany. That was like the hard and fast beginning. That's like, I'm in charge. So this movie's coming out six years before that happens and it was you know it was made a cup so it was made about 1925, 1926, released in 1927. We have the known entity of this political movement coming and gaining some momentum in Germany at this time, but they have not fully taken control of that country yet. Yeah, fully being the key word. Right.
00:22:19
Speaker
because like there's and I don't know how apocryphal the story is, but the director Fritz Lang, who is who is her his heritage is Jewish. He was raised Catholic, I believe, and then later was like, I'm basically an atheist, but um his mother was Jewish. so like, according to historically speaking, according to Judaism, he would be a Jewish man. He was called by somebody high up in the the Nazi regime and said like, we love this and we want you to be basically like one of our national like directors because we love like how you made this. And and of course I'm saying in my own voice like, hey girl, you're going to be our national director. hey And Fritz Lang said, oh no, and you know, probably politely ended that call. And then
00:23:07
Speaker
that maybe this is where the apocryphal part kicks in, sold all his wife's jewelry and oh led to Paris. And like there apparently are records of him returning to Germany a couple times until like in the early 30s. But he basically was like, I'm out, I gotta go. And then he went to Paris and then came to the US. and directed in the US for a very long time. But we bring all this up. We're not historians, so obviously- No. Oh, please, please. No, no. Do your own research. Just do your own research. And this is very surface level that I am talking about, but it is a part of it. And it's a part of, when you're watching this, you can see certain ideas coming in and
00:23:48
Speaker
how maybe hard they hit when the film came out and how soft they are now. ah Yeah. Yeah. So we have to talk about context when we talk about costume. We have to, we have to, we have to. like Yes, I think it's important to say all the time, every time over and over again that costuming a story is not about making pretty clothes that the actors wear. It is a storytelling tool that is used to further the story, to make it understandable, to tell you things about characters and place and time. It is not ah a you know little trifling matter. and Anyone who works as a professional in this industry takes it seriously because they understand that they are helping the audience
00:24:44
Speaker
feel, see the story unfold before them and that they have a tool of clothing to do that. It's like any other artistic medium. All of the other artistic mediums that go into this visual industry are all a part of the same wall that we're building, right? So it's like each one is a brick. And if you don't have one of these bricks, the wall isn't going to be this like brick wall isn't going to be sturdy. And so it's like, scenic, sound lights, all of them are important. And unfortunately, some people kind of blow past those things because they think yeah, like they reduce them to oh, pretty, pretty close. But
00:25:27
Speaker
You know, if the Lord of the Rings, like I mentioned, Star Wars having like jeans, if Star Wars had jeans or if the Lord of the Rings had like denim shorts, you know, and like crop tops, I wish these would be different stories. They would be different and they wouldn't be bad per se, but they wouldn't be these other worlds. the way that we know them to be. And so we wouldn't be able to turn off disbelief and just immerse ourselves because every single artistic medium that goes into storytelling, especially visual storytelling, every single one has a part to play. And it's it is very frustrating for us when it's reduced to pretty close, which are fun pretty close and do tell their own story, but that's not the whole of it. Because even if you're wearing like a
00:26:12
Speaker
a potato sack. Why are you wearing the potato sack? Where did it come from? How did you get it? How old is it? Where was it made? Who made it? Why are you wearing it? You know, there's all sorts of of elements that go into it. And so it is interesting watching this movie, this film, excuse me, capital F film ah um from the lens of costume, because it's not a costume-y film. There's really one costume that you think about when you think about this film. And you think about it for good reason, but all the rest of it does what is very often I've heard, you've done a successful job as a costumer when people don't notice that they're costumes. And that is exactly what happens with all of the workers, right? And all of the other people in this film, except for one, is that you you notice that these are clothes.
00:27:11
Speaker
These are clothes that these human beings are wearing. I think, I mean, there are are some comments to make, but like when you think about the workers, they are not meant to be individuals, right? They are a collective that are faceless to the people who live above them. And they are just meant to work and work and work until they cannot work anymore and then someone else will take their place. And so they're just wearing work suits, jumpsuits that are dark because this is a black and white film and you don't see any details except for there there was a scene, and I'm sure it happens like a few times because of angles of lighting, but there was a scene later on in the film where you're seeing somebody on like a video screen making a panicked call about like all hell's breaking loose.
00:27:54
Speaker
And he leans forward over a control panel and you see his back. And I think that you do see some distressing on the work suit. And if it's not purposeful distressing, I think it's distressing that came about through all the stuff that the extras had to actually do um during the process. Sorry, monologue. monogue Monologue, monologue. OK, so let's Should I summarize the plot? please Okay. So I would, well, and I would first like to say, as you mentioned earlier, this movie was directed by Fritz Lang. It was written by Sia von Harbo, who was married to Fritz Lang. And she originally wrote a, this story as a novel for the purpose of then making it into a movie. So the movie was the intention from the beginning.
00:28:52
Speaker
And um the costume designer for this movie was I think pronounced like Ene. It's kind of spelled like Anne um with an extra E and her last name is Vilkom. And she only designed costumes for a few movies in the 1920s. And she primarily worked for Fritz Lang and this production company in Germany. She retired in 1931
00:29:25
Speaker
when she married Eric Kettlehut, who was the production designer of this movie. He continued to work in film until the 1960s as a production designer, mostly it looks like German films. I don't think that he came to like America when I looked at his IMDb. Almost all of the film titles were in German and a couple times they were in English, but it looked like maybe an English translation of a German film. So ah we should note that the special effects were also primarily done by Yujin Shufden, who developed a lot of interesting special effects techniques that were very like groundbreaking when they happened, and they were used in this movie and then used by other people later. So he was very influential in developing some early special effects for film that was then like carried on.
00:30:23
Speaker
Also IMDB listed a wardrobe person named Herman J. Kaufmann that is not credited on the movie. So I don't know how IMDB knows about Herman, but he's listed as a like wardrobe supervisor. So that would be a person who's on set. managing the light organization use and care of the costumes, as far as I can tell. There's no information about him. And technically, this is this is like a perfect moment to talk about something that is always like vexing when when we talk about the industry of costumes. that
00:31:00
Speaker
people like this often go, I mean, yes, now their names are like in the credits, but it's not something that people really think about is like a coordinator like this. On this film, there were 1,000 extras and um they visually like tried to double that to make it look like there were even more like workers and stuff, but that's like a thousand people that have to be given their wardrobe have to have that wardrobe be cleaned presumably, hopefully, and then tracked like where is your clothing? Did you leave in this? Are you bringing it back? Did you put it where I told you to put it? um And just like having to basically wrangle all of that and it
00:31:46
Speaker
potentially wouldn't have just been this one man. It potentially would have been quite a few other people, but it's one of those kind of jobs that especially in the past would have been just like wiped off um up a little bit. Yes, yes. And especially watching older films, there's very few names that make it into the credits of movies and I feel like a lot of older movies also don't even have end credits. It's just at the beginning. And the information that you get is all that you get. And Anna Wilcombe, her name is not in the credits for this movie.
00:32:24
Speaker
at all. But we know that she did them. Yeah, and I think that's something that came out of union discussions, presumably union related discussions over time, is generations of these designers and technicians not having their name be associated with anything that they've done. And then just that kind of disappearing unless somebody remembered you being on it or you know you had like a pay stub presumably again presumably um hopefully it's like you can't point to it and say i did this work and then put it on your resume if your name is not attached to it and back then no internet
00:33:00
Speaker
any of these like written receipts and stuff would have just been dumped and you know the records would have just disappeared. So anything that does survive about like the technicians and the people who worked behind the scenes is pretty amazing and this information that we do have lasting is because it's a part of Metropolis and like how how massive this the history and like the legacy of the film is. Yes. And so hopefully, as we like progress through the decades in this, we will get more information about the people that worked on and made and cared for costumes in these movies. But we're starting back at a time when people just didn't really keep records of that kind of stuff as thoroughly. And there's nothing in the credits. So you're kind of going yeah off of like film history
00:33:52
Speaker
people who make it their business to know about these things, and I'm relying on them. Hopefully that was correct. I don't know. um Okay, so what is Metropolis about? What is this movie about? This movie? This crazy film? What is it about? All right, let me read the summary. In the future, technological achievement has created a staggering city of skyscrapers. The wealthy live in the sky and reap the benefits. The workers who maintain and power the city are forced to live underground and work long, hard hours. Frieder is the son of the city planner architect, John Friederson.
00:34:30
Speaker
When he is gently confronted by the working-class children via Maria, the Savior, he's changed. He goes underground to find her and listens to her sermon about the Tower of Babel. He sympathizes with the workers and even trades places with one to experience what the workers are experiencing. When his dad finds out, all hell breaks loose. I think that's that's like a That's where I'll like overarch it. And then there's like a robot that comes into play that is kind of an ultimate worker slash um replacement of a lost love of an inventor.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, this whole dynamic between, okay, so the there's like the crazy inventor character named Rotvang, who I feel like Rotvang walked so that Doc Brown could run in Back to the Future.
00:35:27
Speaker
He, imagine Doc Brown in your head from the 1920s, that's what this man looks like. one with With a robot hand. With a robot hand robot hand and everything. Yeah. um There's, I feel like, a very unexplored past between Rotvang and John Friederson, where they are both in love with the same woman named Hel, who ends up marrying John Friederson, and she's the mother of Frieder. but she dies giving like giving birth to him, so we don't meet her. She's a tombstone in this movie. That is her presence in this film. I don't know why that is part of this movie necessarily. So I watched this and you can watch this movie, this film on Amazon and Amazon now has this thing with trivia. So this is a piece of trivia where, um, let me actually see if I can find it. Okay. so
00:36:29
Speaker
The film's subplot about the characters Joe Friederson, because they they shorten John Donovan to J.O.H. Joe Friederson and Rod Vang, both being in love with the same woman, was almost certainly inspired by the real-life love triangle between Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbo, and Rudolf Klein Rogge, who played Rod Vang. Wow, that's a lot. So again, trivia. potentially apocryphal story, but it seems like this was a real life thing that was happening that they put into the film. And when I was doing some research on Thea von Harbo and Fritz Lang and their marriage, it seemed like pretty much as soon as they got married, Fritz Lang was stepping out with all sorts of young ladies. And so Thea von Harbo was like, well, I'm gonna do it too. And their marriage ended because Fritz Lang discovered her in bed with
00:37:28
Speaker
ah a lover and who she ended up marrying and he was an Indian man which is interesting because then their relationship ended because this was not approved of by Nazi Germany. And she was a big Nazi. And like what's interesting is that she got him out, blessed his next marriage and like there's a lot of contradictions and I'm not trying to like rewrite history here or say that anything she did was cool because No, but like there's a lot of contradictions in which some people say that she was active in the Nazi regime because she wanted to do things for Indian immigrants. She and Fritz Lang, when they met, had a connection over their love of India. And so she always seemed to have this lifelong love for the country of India. But um i don't I don't know. I don't know.
00:38:24
Speaker
And there are probably, we don't know we don't know. So there are smarter, more academic folks who've probably explored this um to pieces. And i I definitely suggest that you look that up. but she made films and wrote things for the Nazi party. So that says enough right there. um But Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbo's relationship was very complex and had a lot going on. And this seems like it was kind of early in their marriage. Maybe I'm incorrect, but it doesn't seem like it was right at the end. And so having that complication
00:39:03
Speaker
be put in as a subplot feels like some self-insert therapy happening. It's like this is what's happening outside and I don't love it. So we're going to- Kind of curious that the female character in that story though in this movie is dead and not alive anymore. Yeah, yeah. There's um there's a little- I have a lot of feelings about, and this is early, right? This is the 1920s. So yeah yes, we have had literature and European literature and obviously Eastern literature, literature from everywhere. Every culture has existed for a hot minute, but um we wouldn't be referring to those things necessarily as tropes until more recent history. And there is like a massive trope here of the world-changing woman
00:39:55
Speaker
yeah who does not do anything on her own. It seems like it's all pretty um created by a man. Yeah, she exists to be dead and perfect. yeah and inspire male characters to do great things. And both, well, not both. there So there are three essentially women, right? There's Hel, who is Frieder's mother, who is at the root of this triangle, this love triangle that inspires the robot.
00:40:29
Speaker
and then inspires the transformation of the robot into looking like but evil mar yeah Evil Maria, the woman that the son, Frieder, is in love with. um So there are three women, Hell, Maria, and Evil Maria. And each one really does inspire men, but inspires men in a way that is so not not her own... I don't know. It's it's like maybe Maria... They don't have agency. They don't have agency. And it's like maybe Maria has some agency, but her agency is such a stereotype of an idealized woman that is looked at as like this saintly, delicate, um pacifistic woman. And it's not like I'm touting like, we should all go to war, but it's like... I think that is what you're saying. But the way that this woman, and also we'll get to her costume in um in a moment, but of course context is key. um She is, I was reading a discussion on Reddit led by, I took down the name so I don't like take credit for this, but um led by, I feel ostrich sized.
00:41:43
Speaker
ah Where he talks about, He, what an ass I am. They, this person I don't know, I feel ostracized. Ostrich talks about how Maria is, is pretty ineffectual, and her version of revolution is the one that is supposed to be the one that we follow. That is the one that is the ideal. Because Evil Maria, um when she comes around and is taking over the message and trying to convince all the workers that like this is real, Maria, and this is what we should do, and we should like mess up the system and rise up and take over,
00:42:22
Speaker
She's punished for that because it's supposed to be evil. But that's actually revolution. and yes And at least as far as we know, right? Like it changing things manually is revolution. And what Maria is saying is we should work with this system to change it and we'll change it gently and we'll just talk to each other. And historically, there's been a lot of response to this film being naive. Apparently, H.G. Wells hated this movie. Hated it. Hated it. And um like a lot of other big names would basically create responses to this um in their own art form because you can't walk hand in hand with a system and change that system.
00:43:08
Speaker
Not one that violently oppresses you. No. And so like, you know, the it's it's really interesting coming at it now in 2024, almost a century later, and um very close to when this film is supposed to take place. because it's supposed to be happening in 2026. So get ready everybody. So this is also perfect to talk about the the costumes, what we're here for. So in in recent years, I'm sure you heard this too, when COVID hit and like everything kind of like shut down for a bit and you know politically things but went haywire, all this stuff. People were talking about how the 2020s are like they're seeing similarities to the 1920s.
00:43:54
Speaker
Yeah. and I think that's not quite accurate. I think that we're seeing similarities to the late 1800s before we hit. The era of railroad tycoons. Exactly. We're in that in that era and we're just seeing like, oh, Netflix, ah the kids. It must be the 1920s again. But um it's interesting to see this film talking about this oppressive future. And I don't even know where I'm going with this, exactly. but like It's all bad. It's all bad. But um the fact that there' their view of a century later still looks like the 1920s, that they weren't yeah quite able to come up with.
00:44:42
Speaker
um And that's just me speaking lazily. I don't know what the reasoning is, but they weren't quite able to imagine people wearing different clothing, i.e. women wearing pants. Like, there's there's a lot that is, like, just more of the same, which you could look at being a part of the story. um But, you know, we've been able to see other sci-fi future-looking things that that have people wearing, like, bubbles, you know, like, There's a lot of different ways of looking at the future, and this one was just like very much more of the same for such a thing. I find it interesting that this movie comes out seven years after the US law you know that gave, quote, all women massive, massive caveat there, the right to vote, basically like middle and upper class white women, the right to vote.
00:45:39
Speaker
And he yet this future of this movie cannot envision a future where women are working outside of the home? Yes. all of the workers powering the city are men, and all of the women of this workers class, this sector that they live in, are only seen at the end coming out of their giant apartment building. We've never seen them before. They do not participate in laboring. They could not imagine that in the future. And even though what they are doing is laboring domestic care and potentially raising all the children who show up ah when all the water is like, busting and flooding. um It's not even looked at as labor. It's not talked about as labor. It's not even referred to. It's just not a part of the the visual world. The only woman we see
00:46:33
Speaker
is Maria slash Hell slash Evil Maria. And we don't even see Hell because she's been dead and gone for a long time. She's dead. She's like a stone. There's like a face of her carved on a stone. Actually, I'm a liar. That's not the only woman we see. We do see some of the women in the pleasure garden. We do see some of the upper class women, and we see the way that their clothing, their costumes are made. And it's interesting because no matter what, all of these women are wearing dresses. And dresses are not inherently evil, skirts are not inherently evil, that's no clothing is inherently evil. It's the motivation behind how they're used. And so like these wealthy women in the pleasure gardens had kind of like panniers. It was very 18th century looking. It was very 18th century and that did have a big come up in the 20s. There are some society girl dresses from the US that are very much based on
00:47:32
Speaker
late 18th century garments and like mid and like just like big giant panniers but like reach the mid leg and have no sleeves and have all this like stuff dangling from it and flowers sewn to it but it's it's funny that the female clothing that we see for these higher class ladies follow that thought process of clothing that is basically wearing you and it's not something that's going to enable you to work or to to move regularly. It is for display and so like we do see these women for display and then Maria comes in with these children around her to show them like these are your brothers who live above ground and we will all like become one family and she's wearing
00:48:22
Speaker
this school marm dress with a giant collar, which kind of makes it like more like innocent, right? Where it's modest. It made me think of like Puritan. Yes. She's got the big wide like white cuffs and the like the long pointed white collar. It made me think of a very like Christian Puritan, yeah like Mayflower, founding fathers kind of vibe. Covered. Not from head to toe, but covered modestly. Very modest. Just like everything very, very contained. Her hair is very sedate. And she had this lacing down the center front of the costumes, kind of the only other visual detail. And it made me think of a very like rustic, you know, back to the past kind of feeling. And I was wondering if that was intentional. Obviously, I don't know.
00:49:13
Speaker
Yeah, because it's like, where's the zippers at? Where are those? Where are like other forms of technology on closure? and um Yeah, she just, she comes in and she's very much this idealized, pure, young woman. Yeah, she's very beautiful. Very beautiful. She's got this like kind of halo effect around her hair. She does and her eyes are very, very wide and she has that very silent film makeup going on so that everything is pretty stark, like mouth, eyes, everything. But she is
00:49:49
Speaker
very, like, angelic, if you will, especially, yeah, with the lighting and the way that she shot and the way that they speak to each other. Everything she does to hold herself is very, very much beautiful. She also has this, like, shawl draped over her arms that to me was a very, like, biblical tableau reference. Yes. And I can only assume that was intentional. Oh, yeah. I mean, come on. They were so subtle with all the I mean, this is kind of a little bit all over the place and it it's going to be that way because of the costuming. But um to kind of contrast Maria, who is like the the working class level woman that we see for most of the film, um all of the men that are upper class are wearing suits and all of the men. So it's of the time, totally what men would be wearing.
00:50:46
Speaker
And then all of the men that are considered workers, even the inventor, I believe, are wearing the jumpsuits, the worksuits. He's got this long, the Rotvang, our crazy inventor, he's got this long utility duster coat. over everything that also made me think of Doc Brown. um But it's very much the same material look, the same kind of utilitarian ah type of garment that the workers have. He's definitely more aligned with them than yeah the upper class people. And it's visually, when you look and think about it, it does show how he's an intermediary before between both levels. Because he has a coat, we don't know if any of those workers do, because I don't think we see any other worker has one. So it ties him in with the upper class, that he has this coat, and um that he he freely walks
00:51:53
Speaker
between both worlds, it feels like. And the workers are like completely oppressed and they have to stay underground and kind of out of sight. And I mean, cause like, isn't one of the workers manually moving a clock. Is that like one of the things? Okay, if someone can explain to me what that piece of machinery is and what it does, I would be very grateful because I do not understand what it is at all. I just understand that when the lights move up, you have to manually move the arms to where the light is. And I also want to say that the most horrifying vision of the future provided by this movie is that
00:52:31
Speaker
their clocks are on a base 10 instead of 12, and I hated that. I hated it so much. What evils have the future wrought? We have completely changed how we record and measure time, and I hate it.
00:52:51
Speaker
Such a great observation. I can't even say that I noticed that exactly. like I was like, oh, there are numbers, and that's it? Because I was just like, oh, No. I could not understand it because above it, there's also a tiny clock that is numbered one through 24. So if someone could explain to me how time works in the future, I would be very grateful because when I did not understand. please write in I wasn't trying to understand. I was just like, this movie is happening. It's happening at me. So just
00:53:28
Speaker
I also have an admission to make. I made it about 45 minutes in and I was like, I can't listen to this anymore. So I muted it and I put on an album by Sigi Ross, which actually lined up pretty great at minute like beginning at like minute 47 and some change. And it was much easier to follow because the music styles, the music is beautiful, but I can't stay focused yeah when that music is meant to be paired with telling the story. I can't do it. It's very like heavy music. I would feel like I don't know anything about music. I would like to preface that and make that abundantly clear. I'm just somebody who experiences it. That's it. I don't make it. I am, but
00:54:12
Speaker
A common idiot watching this movie and um yeah I found the movie kind of heavy and obviously like it's pretty like repetitive in its like themes obviously it changes like scene to scene and like based on what's happening but it it was a lot the music was a lot. And so speaking of music and bringing us back to some costumes. Yes. How do you feel about our, I'm going to use the word because it's what it's based on, our Whore of Babylon retelling, our Lady of Babylon, um the grand dance that comes through.
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so first I want to say that I did not know that this movie was going to be so very biblical and very Old Testament biblical. Oh, straight up. And I am not a ah biblical ah scholar, and so I have a pretty surface, nor was I really raised with any particular kind of religion of any sort, so The story that Maria tells in her kind of like sermon that she gives to the workers is a recounting of the Tower of Babel, which I only have like a very basic surface level, any kind of knowledge of.
00:55:33
Speaker
um And I feel like the horror of Babylon I know even less about. I know the title. I know she's bad. I know there's a lot of bad women in the Bible who did bad things. And that's why we have to hate women for a long time, thousands of years, apparently. So um I came up. I was raised in the Catholic Church. I went through parochial school until fifth grade. And then I went into the public sector and was no longer really super religious. Like my family was Catholic, but I was not anymore. And I am not a religious person to date.
00:56:11
Speaker
So my experience with the biblical stuff is basically what I experienced in my formative years when it was truth to me. right And so it was like, I don't remember specific details, the way that you know somebody who is studying biblical stuff or religious texts would be able to recount now. I remember, like we said in the beginning, vibes. so The Tower of Babel is just basically all about excess, right? It's about excess. It's about um not focusing on just God and faith. And so again, apologies to people who hold this in their hearts, and I'm not meaning to be dismissive, but I'm going to tell it from my memory. So if this is not correct, apologies, but it does seem to line up with how it's being used in the film Metropolis. ah So the Tower of Babel was just like all of this stuff and and then it comes down, maybe plagued. I don't know. But like, it's pretty sharp. And like another part of the retail, I guess that yes, like you said, anytime there's a woman who's a part of anything, it's the whole idea is that it's her fault that like, yeah the sins are going to be paid for. hurting And I might be wrong in my memory here.
00:57:29
Speaker
Again, apologies, but the way that I've always seen ah ah the lady of Babylon is that she potentially was a woman who made her own money and had her own power through the lens of the world that existed then, which was somebody who has their own money and can make their own decisions. And there's nothing that makes people feel more vulnerable. um in religious history than women who don't rock with. Don't need them. Yeah women who don't need the the letter of the religious law that always makes everything fall and so it's it's how you tempt all these men who are doing it right like um when she comes in for the dance right like these are all upper class men
00:58:15
Speaker
she's exposing to this dance, who are following the letter of the law and following the societal rule. And then she gets into their minds and just like warps their crazy brains. And she introduces them to sin and they take all seven sins into themselves because they're like, well, the hell with it. She can wiggle like that. Then that's what I want. Then she, you know, flip side dresses super innocently like original Maria and goes underground. and Foment's actual revolution and rebellion um by like still looking innocent but saying the words that make everything go crazy. So they're following their pure ideal into into battle, if you will. But like this this costume
00:59:07
Speaker
for the erotic dance. The temptress. The temptation is really a gorgeous costume. It's so beautiful. I think it's beautiful. She looks incredible. She looks absolutely incredible. And it's a costume that I would love. I really want to know what the first Maria and Evil Maria's dress is for the underground, what that's made out of, if it's a wool or if it's some something else going on but it doesn't seem like a regular cotton it has a different like weight and drink to it and and later on it's got a nice like heft to it a nice hand and later on when she is like
00:59:45
Speaker
wet and she's trying to like like after all the flooding and she's trying to like move this um lever you can see that the dress is heavy because it's she's it's soaked up a bunch of water so it makes me think it might be like a like a lighter weight wool or something but yeah i would love to touch it that's one of my thing about costumes is that i want to touch everything and so this like temptation outfit i want to feel that head dress I want to feel like what the skirt and the bodice is like made out of, if you will. I want to be able to see it up close and see what it what colors it was because, yes of course, in black and white, there was a lot of strategy in what color you're putting people in so that it would show up a certain way on film. and That could have been almost anything.
01:00:34
Speaker
the colors on that. It could have been bright, it could have been really saturated and that would be really amazing. um But I do have to just comment on the choreography. ah this dance Oh, it was wild. I sent a link to my husband because he was in another part of the house while I was watching this. And he just out loud went, whoa. I will say, I want to give all of the praise to Brigitte Helm, who played Maria, because she is playing two characters Well, kind of three. She's playing three characters in this movie. So she's playing Maria. She is in that robot costume. The director insisted that she be in that robot costume, not a stunt person. Oh my God, let's talk about it.
01:01:29
Speaker
and but But she's also playing the evil version of herself. So she, she plays this robot who's this gold medal robot. And then through, I don't know, science magic, she gets it science magic. There's tubes involved. I don't think we get much of an explanation about how what is happening is happening. But she, her image gets transformed onto this robot. So the robot sort of transforms into a lookalike, and that's Evil Maria that we've been talking about. And I loved what Brigitte did with her face.
01:02:07
Speaker
to signal the two characters. She also, like all of her physicality. All of it changed. Which is pretty great. And like, she was tell it's silent film, so it has to be telegraphed like really big physically. But there's, um later on in the film, when Evil Maria, i.e. the robot, undercover, has convinced the workers to rebel, they're all running through like the under city basically and like messing stuff up and she's leading them. And there's a moment where she basically does this like Naruto run to like leave them where her arms go straight behind her and she just like straight forward. And like there's a corner and the camera is like farther away so that you can see the mass of workers behind her and she just like straight arm like.
01:02:56
Speaker
like a Barbie doll just like mirror you to change directions and it's just like so amazing watching her move that way and yeah sorry like the the physicality like going into the dance. Yes because like as Maria she's very soft and she's very gentle and she completely abandons that style of movement when she's the evil robot version of herself and she her face looks different, her makeup is obviously different because we all know that being evil gives you a natural smoky eye. Oh, absolutely. ah That's just like, it's just the excess evil coming out of your eyeballs. Like, yeah. But yeah,
01:03:38
Speaker
um but yeah she loses any kind of sense of gentleness and her movements become bigger and more, a little more wild and like more forceful. And I do think that she incorporated that a lot into the dance. It's not a, it's not like a soft seductive dance. It's like hard. It's like more athletic looking in her movement. And what's interesting, too, like to go into costume, right, is that a lot of the time, for a lot of film history, the way that people have expressed, especially when they're talking about a very um compressed society, like a very puritanical society, the way that they've expressed visually, especially from the Western gaze, um sexual or like erotic you know movement, they've really gone with this like stereotype of like Middle Eastern
01:04:32
Speaker
um clothing like Arabic clothing because or just anything from like a hotter climate where like well let's just even go like almost like biblical like ancient the dance of the seven veils like there's like filmy veily things being removed so that skin is being shown and it's like usually very like light things which you think would tie in with like original Maria and the softness. And instead of incorporating kind of like any of that into the movement, I mean, like you could argue that it is in the shape of the clothing, um like a Middle Eastern influence. um But
01:05:12
Speaker
instead of incorporating that into the physicality of it. It's just like total hard robot like making 90 degree angles with your body. Yes. And okay, I have to say as I was watching that scene, so she's like performing this dance to this like mass audience of men that are all in, like, tuxedo tailcoat situation. In evening formal wear. Evening formal wear. And my mind immediately went to Moulin Rouge. Yes. And I ah would not, i I would not bet money against Baz Luhrmann being inspired in some way from that scene for his depiction, particularly the kind of opening
01:06:00
Speaker
dance sequence of Moulin Rouge when we see this huge mass of men in these tail coats and they're all dancing and they're like so obsessed with Nicole Kidman as she like comes down. and I could not help but think of that scene when I saw this. and yeah i I hope that he was inspired by the scene, otherwise it's a really weird coincidence. Yeah, it it really did strike me the same and also like the shininess of everything that she was wearing. and And another interesting thing about the, I think it's the very first shot that we see where she starts to dance. If you look at her body, I believe you can see some bruises.
01:06:39
Speaker
on her wrist. And so that would have been from the robot costume, which was created by a sculptor whose name is escaping me at the moment who created this costume, took a body cast. And then I believe that he made the costume out of wood filler. And so it was not movable. and it was not breathable. And she actually, the actress passed out during, I think probably more than one scene, but there was specifically like one scene that was talked about where she basically had to hold one position and the director wouldn't let her rest and it just kept getting warmer and warmer and warmer and she couldn't breathe and she passed out. yeah And so the rigidity of that costume and its material
01:07:25
Speaker
is the kind of thing where somebody goes, oh, this is a great idea and it will look super cool. And it does. It looks incredible. And it has influenced a lot of cinema, but it was made without any consideration of the actor. Yes. And that's kind of funny because the dress that Maria is wearing and evil Maria, the dress that might be wool might not with the puritanical um collar, et cetera. That one seems very movable because even when Evil Maria is running and doing all of these physical things in it, she has movement. Like she can raise her arms. She can, she can obviously move her legs because the skirt is not constricting her. And it seems like the waist is not constricting her. Like everything about that seems like a garment that she could do.
01:08:09
Speaker
basically like minimal stunts. And like be free and not feel like she's going to tear her clothing. But this robot costume had no consideration of the human body that was going to go into it. It seems like like it fit just perfectly enough that she could just cram a person inside. Yeah. And that her lungs could expand to a point and then constrict. And so you can see that physical
01:08:41
Speaker
like, remnant, I believe, like on her when she's dancing in this erotic scene. And so that was like that context that kind of took me out of it. I was like, Oh, man, come on. Why? Oh, my God, like I've definitely as a costumer put actors we all have in the situations where they have to be less comfortable than they normally would be in their normal clothing. And sometimes that just ranges from an actor being in a period piece where they have to wear a collared shirt and they're they're not used to buttoning the top collar on a shirt and they feel like they're choking, but you can fit your whole hand between their skin and the the fabric of the shirt. So you know that they're not, it's just more constrictive than they're used to or high waist pants and not knowing how to function in those because you're used to wearing your pants
01:09:32
Speaker
below your waist or, you know, stretch pants versus like a wool. Or like a shoes with a hard sole when people are only used to wearing tennis shoes and suddenly they're like, I can't dance in these. Absolutely. And like not really knowing how to move, their like having to relearn how to move their body in certain garments. But as costumers, we usually try to find a way to to meet a human need. yeah Sometimes it's like, well, this is 1919 and you are a young kid on the streets. You need to look like a kid would then so that we can create the world that we're you know promising to the audience.
01:10:11
Speaker
but um if if what they're wearing is constantly tearing and they can't breathe, then we try to give them another pair of pants that won't tear and will let them breathe. And it's just like so interesting. that itz And this sculptor, again, whose name is ah evading me that they would have created this piece without thinking of the actual human need at all. Not at all. Not being able to drink, not being able to move, not being able to breathe properly. And it is such an iconic costume. I do think it could be kind of emblematic based on the other things that I've read about the experience of making this movie for the the actors involved. that
01:10:57
Speaker
I do think there is a bit of a mentality with certain directors that like actors are just pieces that they move around on screen to do what they want. And they don't really think about the humanity of their actors. And that's kind of inconvenient for them because they just want these dolls that they can place how they want. And it does seem a bit like that was the experience of a lot of the actors in making this movie. um A lot of them said that Fritz was really, really demanding in terms of doing take after take after take of really physically demanding things and not really considering safety because he didn't care about that. He cared about what it looked like on camera. And so I do unfortunately think that is a mentality that persists. Perhaps it's not as widely
01:11:50
Speaker
ah Fingers crossed, not as widely prevalent as it was maybe back then, but there are definitely actors that seem to think of their actor or definitely directors who think of their actors as this inconvenient human element that they have to use. Yeah, and I mean, that that was like famously Hitchcock. Yes. It definitely is an attitude that has lasted and I'm sure is still in existence today. And it it's just like it's one of those things where even if a director looks at their performers as essentially props that talk and move, one of the jobs of a costumer is like the dream to facilitate that without draining.
01:12:34
Speaker
the life of that actor or harming that actor. That's kind of where we try to come in and make it. Sometimes we try to make it. But one might say that the director is the head, the actors are the hands, and the costume designer acts as the heart that mediates between the two. And we hope And sometimes sometimes we we try to achieve that because you know ah the role of a costumer and the role of any other designer um or you know art department on the film or theater piece is to support the vision of the director. like that is That is the whole point of the breakdown of all of those departments is to create what this director has been envisioning.
01:13:24
Speaker
but Yeah, one of our roles is to step in and say, OK, well, how can we do that and not kill this person? Yes. And sometimes that's a stunt coordinator and sometimes that's a costumer um or a costume designer saying, OK, yes. How do we make, ah let's say, like a character who needs to have scissors right now? yeah How do we create that without it being actual scissors? Actual scissors. like how do we Even if we need to make a new prop technology, how do we create that? And that's where like the the interdepartmental thinking and and collaboration and innovation comes in really amazingly is that you go, how do we do this so that we can make something really cool that
01:14:10
Speaker
sort of tricks our audience into believing that it's real. And so because this this robot costume was um essentially, I'm putting a word here, but like commissioned ah for a sculptor to make, I'm curious about that sculptor's like work history, where did they do other costumes for other films? right Or were they just, were they an artist, a visual artist whose focus was sculpture and they could answer a question, but because their background was guls sculpture, that did not have to do necessarily with fabric or forgiving things, was there somebody who thought about costumes who could step in and say, maybe we could or should? like Was that even a conversation? Yeah. Because like it's still early in the century, still early in this tradition,
01:14:58
Speaker
So even now, costumers kind of have to fight for a lot of stuff. So back then, it seems like it would have been a significant afterthought instead of really being a conversation. So there's a lot of interesting stuff just around this one costume and that is like the most sci-fi-y part of like visually speaking um from the costume perspective of Metropolis is the robot costume. And it does not necessarily shout out at first glance that a costumer was involved. Right. Yeah, it's so hard to know. why and it's And so maybe somebody does know, because again, cursory investigation. Just the first page of Google results only. Just real quick. But like it you know for something that is an iconic costume, was there a costumer or did that sculptor
01:15:55
Speaker
kind of evolved into a costumer because I mean, he basically became one because he had to make a costume. But was that something that he'd done before? Was it something he did afterwards? Because the the considerations you would normally give to an actor did not seem to be present. No. And it is something that I think continues to be a big conversation. now with the prevalence of superhero movies and the big suits that kind of come along with it and the evolution of how those are made in terms of how the actor is interacting with them. Like there's, I mean, how many anecdotes about Batman who haven't been able to turn their head because the Batman cowl was so restrictive and made out of it crazy rubber
01:16:44
Speaker
And there's also the conversation about, oh my God, I'm totally blanking on his name. Comedian who played the Grinch. Oh, Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey had to undergo torture training. yeah Training on how to withstand torture. so that he could have those prosthetics put on. Like we're not saying that these issues are gone. They're still here. They've just changed. But now the people who are a part of those decisions and the people who are part of putting those things in place are people whose industry is that thing. So it's like, even though um it was so in incredibly famously uncomfortable for Jim Carrey,
01:17:24
Speaker
the people applying the prosthetics were makeup professionals, makeup artists, so they could understand what was happening and talk to him even though he needed additional training and additional support. they understood how things were functioning with his body and like, costumers making these super uncomfortable Batman costumes where yeah, you can't raise your arms of a certain level or turn to look to the right or to the left. Um, those are people who are understanding again, how that person is interacting with what they are inside and can,
01:18:02
Speaker
you know, foresee issues and try to come up with solutions. Even unfortunately, if that solution is just, I have ice packs, right? We're building in like an ice pack, an ice pack pocket to be like, we're going to try to cool you down. And sometimes later on advocating for budgets to expand the budget enough to be able to build in fans or whatever, right? Like those are conversations that happen because people are caring about and looking at those issues. Okay, so we should start to wrap up a little bit. So we should give kind of our final things that we have to say before we finish this episode. And one of mine is just that I really think that head, hands, heart is the new live, laugh, love.
01:18:53
Speaker
I think Live, Laugh, Love had her moment. She was there for us. And now it's time for head, hands, heart. I am going to be doing a needle point of that to put in my bathroom. Could you please, as soon as you end this? Could you please then beneath that embroider the death's head from the Grim Reaper with the scythe? I will. would be Yes, that is the last thing you have to talk about. And that is like a great segue into those costumes, which I did kind of misspeak in hyperbole, if you will, by saying that basically the biggest like costume was just the robot. That's not true. We also have. It's the most iconic. And it's like it's definitely what comes to mind when you think of Metropolis. And I mean, it it
01:19:41
Speaker
It inspired Nancy Threepio in Star Wars, which is the more modern version that we know that hopefully was a little bit yeah more movable. It was definitely sweaty and uncomfortable for the actor. And he was in like Tunisia in that costume. brutal brutal microwave, it was just cooking him. But um yeah, the the seven sins, um which are portrayed as statues in the above ground city, and then they kind of come to life, ah sort of influenced by evil hell flash Maria, they like
01:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, her crazy dance casts a spell over everything, including statues. And then they just kind of appear at the base of this thing that she comes out of. It's pretty impressive and magical, but these statues are... I wonder what they were made out of. because they do not look like maybe it was stiffened cloth. Maybe it was more of the wood filler that the the um the robot was made out of. But they are effectively creepy. And like yeah they do not seem inspiring. they They definitely seem to have been sculpted and shaped by the voice of oppression. So you look at them and they feel haunting.
01:21:06
Speaker
And when they come to life and start moving, it is very much like there there are two Doctor Who comments I have, but they feel like the stone angels in Doctor Who the same way that I feel like the robot influenced Cybermen in Doctor Who. There's just like this detachment, even though they look humanoid in two different ways. They are very predatory. They look scary, the the robot and the stone statues that are the seven sins. But thats those are very effective costumes whenever they were made up.
01:21:44
Speaker
Yes, and I was particularly in love with the Grim Reaper. There's like the the the seven deadly sins are, are they in kind of like a half circle kind of behind him? And then he's kind of in the middle, um, set forward from the rest. And as soon as he started moving, I fell in love. I loved him so much. I know, and I felt like he got like a visual moment too, like like a pan up, you know, like to really experience it. And he got like some some moves with that scythe and everything. And it was just very memorable, like for a movie that has very suits, evening wear, puritanical dress, worksman's gear, robot. Robot. Then you have these stone angels and like,
01:22:32
Speaker
Yeah. And they're not really like highlighted very much. Like we have like a little scene with them and that's kind of it. And it's not something that I saw, you know, just looking up like reference images for this to like to look at while we were talking. I didn't see any reference images of any of those costumes come up. And I don't know anything about them. They were so they were good and really good. And the benefit of black and white film is that they could have been made out of anything, but they are there is a certain rigidity there that if there is, you know, whatever fabric is there seems to have been stiffened. And um like that could just be heavily starched or some sort of glue like mixed in. There's so many different ways that they could have been stiffened, but they still had movement. So it didn't feel like, oh, there's an actor under there. It felt like, oh, there's these statues have segments that can
01:23:27
Speaker
create motion and here they come. Here they come. I know. And I think it was so like, because, you know, both of us working in live theater, you have to kind of make these magical moments happen in real three-dimensional tangible ways, like we can't use CGI on stage. So to make um something like a statue come to life is a very, very practical task if you're you know doing, I think like the stage production of Mary Poppins, instead of jumping into the chalk pavement drawing, they have statues in the park that come to life. um So stuff like that, where it's like those techniques continue
01:24:14
Speaker
not necessarily in film, but in other mediums like theater where you have to make something live that can happen in front of your audience. And I think that that is just particularly intriguing to us that have worked in that medium more. And it's like, i I'm sure that there is in in all fields of like the art side of um of filmmaking that there are still old things that you use like from the vaudevillian days but it is really funny when you can kind of identify a moment that is like ah that's something that somebody would have done 60 years ago that somebody somebody would have done like 80 years ago we just have different
01:24:52
Speaker
different tools, like a different kind of glue, a different kind of paint or whatever, but the idea would still be the same. And that definitely felt like one of those moments of being like, we could go to work tomorrow and we could make that. It could have like the same kind of effect or a vibe. Like you could, you know, except we wouldn't have a black and white camera, but we could paint it black and white and achieve right a similar effect. I don't know. they They were really cool. And I was not expecting them. And i this movie was so hard to watch. because like you know is that It is that pacing and that that language that is so that has evolved with faster paced filmmaking and faster paced
01:25:37
Speaker
Like we just don't have the same attention spans and we don't have budgets that can translate to making things take so long that they're over two hours. And this film almost broke the filming company, the production company that made it. Like it was so wildly over budget and took 17 months to film. which, you know, that's a very long time now. I feel like back then that was like, unard I mean, you see, yeah, you see, especially like in the US with the studio system and the way that these companies just churned out these pictures, just keep going like you boing boom, boom, boom. And the idea of spending 17 months on one movie sounds
01:26:36
Speaker
so hard, especially, you know, spending weeks filming those scenes where they're in the flooded city, how awful, everyone said it was pretty awful to work on. I mean, it's just, there was no consideration to the humanity, I think during the process of this making. And I'm just like imagining being a costumer as I understand a costumer to be now on that set back then. And like, let's say that, you know, wardrobe, Had to function the way that we do now where you follow the costumes you track them you you keep them you Care for them you launder them all of those things repair all that stuff like there are so many children On set there were so many yeah So many like unemployed folks who, there was a different attitude towards clothing back then too, because it wasn't like you were going to go, not everybody could go into a department store. I don't think department stores, no department stores existed, but they just weren't accessible to every level of economic.
01:27:36
Speaker
um existence And at this time when this film was being made, ah there were a lot of people unemployed, which is why they were able to get a thousand like um extras and all these kids. And hundreds of children. Hundreds of children. and and um People would have cared for their clothing, their costumes differently than they do now. They would have been far more conscientious. I think especially adding in that they were unemployed and weren't really bringing in money into their households unless they were being paid for this, that they would be extra facetious if they could.
01:28:11
Speaker
but Could they take these home and wash them? Or did it have to be a crew that was like gathering all of this and then redistributing it the next day? This is stuff that I would love to know about how this functioned. like It had to be a lot of hands at play. But whose hands? Whose hands? Yeah. And what were they doing? We don't know. um Anyone who's a a silent-filled era costume historian, please, ah please inform let us. Please tell us. We would love to know. We would love to talk about it, because that's that's one of our biggest things, is knowing who did this.
01:28:50
Speaker
the Because it's there's so much of that just gets ah devalued in the industry. Even now, you know the the crew members from every department just don't get the recognition. And without them, like movies don't happen. You can you know be a director and wax poetical about your ideals all day, but if you don't have you know wardrobe crew and grips and lighting technicians and teamsters. like You don't have a movie. Yeah, you need the people to make it happen. and it's not We don't get into this necessarily for recognition. That's not the point of why
01:29:38
Speaker
A lot of people get into the industry. Sometimes it is because you have a knack for something and sometimes it's because you like to keep asking the questions and finding the answers. And that's like what drives your art form is how do I do this? Let me figure it out. But completely unrecognized labor is different than holding somebody on a pedestal. And it's something that definitely is pervasive in the industry. All the the visual arts industries to this day is that you get one person who gets the acclaim.
01:30:13
Speaker
It's not like you get the name of a team unless they are all the heads of a team. And then it's like, you know, like American Zoetrope, right? With George Lucas. Those are people who are basically like the heads of a team, but you don't get recognition for just the the regular people who are showing up and clocking in and clocking out. And it's not like it's a nine to five either. It's a pretty grueling job even to this day to work as a costumer in film. Maybe you get like lucky on a certain project where you can be there for a really long time and it's like pretty regular because you have a set schedule. schedule But as a costumer, you're the first in and the last out. And maybe sometimes that's like,
01:30:55
Speaker
again to use the word apocryphal, but like it's pretty true. You have to be there to set up the clothing that people are going to step into, and then you have to be there to gather it and to clean it. So you are there outside of the times that other people would be working on their certain things, um, on set or, you know, whatever. Like you are, you're working hard and everybody's working hard, but like you're, you're working hard and it's in a way that people don't think about. So massive, massive films like this that are legendary. and you just don't know what the conditions were. Because if the conditions were painful for the actors, you can only imagine what they were like for the crew. Yeah, and it's amazing because you know the reason that we picked this movie is because
01:31:44
Speaker
It inspired so many people and still so inspires people to get into this industry, to imagine things, to create things. And it's like, OK, that's such a wonderful positive effect of the movie, but you can't ignore the other stuff, too. I think that would be it's disingenuous yeah to just pretend that that other stuff doesn't happen. yeah So, I mean, You know, you we have to recognize that this movie kind of in a way launched sci-fi films. Obviously the genre already existed and had for some time, um but there weren't very many science fiction films, especially feature length that existed.
01:32:36
Speaker
before this movie and this movie was monumental in changing the film industry. And just I'm sure you can also see its effects on opera and other stage performance too, like especially from the costuming lens, being able to make things that are not normal clothing that you would see every day. Any time at the beginning of this um adventure of filmmaking that that was possible is is a landmark moment. And so like this this robot costume, those, especially the robot costume, it's it's one of those where it's like, you can do that. You can do that. And then seeing people go, oh my God, we can do that. And then getting inspired and putting that out elsewhere. Because we talked about like the seven sins. You could do that in theater.
01:33:26
Speaker
That was probably a thought that people have already put into play before this movie came out. The the clothing that the workers, that the rich people and that the um but Maria and the other women and the children were wearing, those are all clothes that you could make wholesale, that you could make based off of patterns that already existed and that you could see on the street or in a ballroom. But um yeah they were ones that you could conceive of. And so anything that inspired people is worth talking about. But um I do have to say, not my favorite film. And ah no I think that um as we move our way through the century, it's gonna there are going to be some painful moments. But you know one one of the things we're here to talk about is the stuff behind the scenes, like we keep saying. It's it's about the costumes and the experience of the costumers.
01:34:21
Speaker
in design and in practice. Yeah, and um I look forward to um movies with sound. And I look forward to a better record keeping about who those people were and um just having a little bit more information readily available about the process of making the movies. um And just I think one of my favorite things about sci-fi, and I'm not an expert by any means, but I do enjoy the genre. And I i love how, you know, sci-fi purports to be these visions of the future, usually sometimes visions of the past, but usually visions of the future.
01:35:15
Speaker
But almost always, it just holds a mirror up to what people are afraid of right now, whenever it was made. And we know that Fritz Lang was directly inspired by the skyline of Manhattan in conceiving of this movie and a future like that. And he was inspired and I think scared by the prospect of this untempered progress and what that could mean for people. And he made a very imperfect film about that. Yeah. And you can feel it today. You can see it and you can feel that fear and that kind of cautionary conversation that's being held in the movie. um So it's very effective in that.
01:36:07
Speaker
Yeah, part so thank you Fritz. um I guess, I don't know. um I'm glad he he wasn't a Nazi. yeah What a strong ending. Question? Okay. Good. We'll take the victories we can take. and it's It's a movie we're talking about. Sorry, a film. We've definitely like to talked about it. But it is definitely one we're talking about. So thanks for listening to us talk about it.