German Expressionism is an interesting artistic style. Just looking at it alone, without any knowledge of the period it came from or why it came, is fascinating enough. But, learn a little bit of the history of the style (click that there link to learn a little bit about it), the country it came from, why it came to be, and that adds a major wealth of fascinatingness to it all.
We watched some pretty historically important films this class, one of the first science fiction feature length epics and the most expensive movie made ever at the time - seriously, Metropolis was the Star Wars of the '20s, and one of the very first feature length horror films, Nosferatu was the very first vampire movie ever made.
Which one did you like more? Why?
What did you like about each of these german expressionistic films we watched in class? What didn't you like? And why?
i thought it was a awesome movie but i got a headache to the billy joy music .well i bet the origin music is better but. i also love the effects in this movie . knowing what they did was good especially cuz .special effects were so hard and not really out yet. i thought everything was good but i did like the animations better but no the less its a great movie .you need to watch it just not the billy joy music the origin music ~yamigaia
ReplyDeleteMetropolis- It's very good. It mostly depends actually I watched the Billy Joel version and I am not a fan of his music so instead I listen to my own music to watch the film. I would have to see the Orchestra version cause I don't really have a opinion on music. But for the most part I loved this movie. I liked the story, I liked the acting, but I mostly love the background and the set designs it is amazing to look at it makes me think how did they do this in the 1920's. Overall great movie defiantly a classic.
ReplyDeleteA(SOLID)+
Nosferatu- This is one of my favorite silent horror film and up there in my top 10 favorite horror movies. What makes this film great is the style it has this twisted messed up backgrounds and characters. The actors are brilliant my favorite is Max Schreck as count Olaf (Dracula) he brings in a very creepy performance. Overall it's up there in my favorite horror movies.
A(SOLID)+
Which one I like better?
Thats hard I liked both. But if I had a gun in the head and being forced I say Nosferatu I liked the si-fi in Metropolis but I liked horror movies back then it has a lot of imagination and creepy scares.
It's kind of hard to decide which of these two films I liked better, but if I had to choose one, I would pick Metropolis because it had a good story and good acting and the sets just looked really awesome and the set design was really good. And the Billy Joel version was good and matched the movie really well, but I would have liked to have seen it with the original music.
ReplyDeleteI think that I actually liked Nosferatu more. The reason why is because I just thought that it was really dark, and it had a great horror feel to it. Even though it didn't have its original soundtrack I thought that the music they put for it fitted with it really well and made the experience better. I really liked how they did the Vampire makeup and such, it definitely looked creepy. I think that I might of liked Metropolis a little bit better if we had watched the version on Netflix. I just really didn't like the soundtrack and it was missing 30 minutes of film to it.
ReplyDeleteI really liked that these films were dark and eerie, I loved it. They were nightmarish which is just great. I really liked how they made the sets of Metropolis and how they made most of the movie. It was a great science fiction film, it didn't feel like it was horror or anything. It was amazing how they made the cars move with stop motion and how they made the huge buildings. I really loved Nosferatu, it had a great scary feel to it. The town was plagued, people were dying because of the vampire. It could of had a little more to it though. There wasn't really much that I didn't like about these films.
Metropolis- I don't think I can have a good opinion on it at this time, I feel like the original music would make it sooo much better. Not that I don't think that the billy joel version wasnt greatly put together its just that I personally don't feel like it fit the vibe. Although it was really entertaining and intriguing it was just kind of confusing. Because I feel like the music helps the story progress but...the billy joel for me put it to a grinding halt.
ReplyDeleteNosferaturu: This film was great. It creeped me out a lot and even thoughf from a modern perspective it was kind of cheesy looking at the time period it was made it was a rather entertaining brilliant piece of cinema. The music we picked for it was more than fitting. Some parts admitting-ly were awkward with the sound but they were still creepy so they were "Awkwardly Creepy"
Both of these films are good its just I don't think I can compare them the way I'd like to but from what I've seen I like Nosferatu better. Just because I could tell what is going on, but I will watch the actual Metropolis Restored and have a much better educational influenced opinion
I liked both Metropolis and Nosferatu a lot... They are both up there with City Lights as my favorite silents films, but I like Metropolis more than Nosferatu, and I think it (Metropolis) is at this point my single favorite silent film. I kind of hated the Billy Joel version because of the unfitting-ness of the music to the pictures, and then there was also a lot of missing footage in that version, too (but that didn't bother me as much as the music, though. And I actually really like Billy Joel music, always have, it just didn't go with Metropolis at all.). As I have already told you, Will, I watched the version with only 5% of the footage missing rather than 25% of it missing, that also had the original score written for it attached as the audio, at home on Netfilx. This was the version (the one I watched at home) that I really loved. I thought it was great. Reasons I prefer Metropolis to Nosferatu: Metropolis's story was a lot more complicated and of bigger scale, there were lots more cool pioneering-type special effects in Metropolis, I preferred the directing style of Metropolis to Nosferatu, the acting was noticeably more memorable in Metropolis than Nosferatu, and this is all I can think of at the moment.
ReplyDeleteWhat I liked about Metropolis: It was a complicated science fiction tale with a great story and pioneering special effects, making it very inspirational. It was like the 2001 A Space Odyssey of the 20's. I really liked the acting of the main lady who played Maria and her robot counterpart. It was incredibly exaggerated acting as you would expect it to be in a movie made at this time, and the way she pulls off being incredibly evil for one character and also being extremely good for another character I love. I think, also, that the directing for this film was noticeably better and more stylized than all of the other silent films I've seen. There were lots of cool shots, the camera angles were very exact, and I specifically really liked the shots that had all of the different images merged together like collages, with blinking eyes, crowds of people, faces, and other things. I liked how they did all of the complex tricks they did in the category of special effects, to make the cities look huge, to make robots move, and the huge (for the time) budget was definitely worth it. I loved this film, Metropolis, it is my favorite silent film.
What I didn't like about Metropolis: I can't really think of anything I didn't like about it other than that Billy Joel score we watched it with in class.
What I liked about Nosferatu: The dark story and the scary atmosphere really helped this film become a great horror film, and these were some of the elements I liked, but the main thing was the vampire character. Count Olaf must have been really darn scary back in the twenties, because he scares me now. I really liked him because every time you see him it feels like some kind of an iconic moment, from him slowly creeping through the doorway, to him spying upon the female character through a window, to him quickly stepping up the stairs in shadows. I like horror as a genre just as much as I love science fiction, and this was a scary and great horror film.
What I didn't like about Nosferatu: Nothing, really.
I, indeed, liked these films for many reasons, so I may have forgotten to write some of the reasons I liked these films, and excuse me if I did. I couldn't, as you have already seen, think of any reasons I disliked these films (with the exception of that Billy Joel score), and I really do like the whole idea of this German Expressionism. I will surely watch more German Expressionist films at home, and I plan on watching one in particular very soon: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
I cannot listen to Billie Joel, so I was listening to Nine Inch Nails and The Gorrilaz. So, watching Metropolis to that music, in my opinion, made a really cool industrial feel to it all. Noseferatu was really cool, especially because it's what moved horror into a more popular light, and horror is one of my passions in life.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I liked Metropolis more. I liked the feel to it, and I found it to be a really cool film. I would like to listen to the original score, because I'm interested in seeing how they wanted the real tone of the movie to be.
~Brennan Hanks