Metropolis and music

I've been peripherally aware of the 1927 silent film Metropolis for a good long time, but have never seen it. In fact, I never even read the plot synopsis until today.

I'd always heard it was an early sci-fi classic of sorts, but the plot was quite different than I expected. Class warfare, secret plots, unrequited love, biblical prophecies, references to red-light districts in Tokyo and figurative witch hunts for robotic decoys. Dang!

This movie serves as a curious intersection between a bunch of things I like: Freddie Mercury, who worked with Giorgio Moroder on a 1984 soundtrack for the re-release of the film, who in turn has a song named after/about/featuring him on the Daft Punk's Random Access Memory, who also has a hilarious impersonation on the final installment of Yacht Rocky ((I contend Yacht Rock might be the funniest thing on the Internet. It just gets better every time I watch it.)). Lately I've been listening to Janelle Monae and learned about her 7-part concept album that loosely borrows from the theme/aesthetic of the 1927 film.

I guess I'll need to sit down and watch the thing one of these days and bring all these loose-ends together.

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Published on Friday, March 7th 2014. Read this post as plain-text.