Includes a comment on the launch of the video breaking down the symbolism in: Metropolis:
A great new tune by Autarchos (Greg Reese) made better using Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis for the images of the video. Here is a comment on the launch of the video breaking down the symbolism in: Metropolis:
In Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis, the number 219 is displayed above the massive elevator cage that transports the exhausted workers. The number is highly intentional and ties into the film’s deep biblical symbolism in two distinct ways:1. The Babel Reference (Genesis 11)The primary biblical motif of Metropolis is the Tower of Babel. The wealthy elite live in the luxury of the “New Tower of Babel,” while the workers are crushed beneath it. While the Bible story itself is in Genesis 11, Fritz Lang used 219 as a visual “chapter and verse” stamp to echo Galatians 2:19 or Ephesians 2:19, highlighting the spiritual and physical division between the masters and the servants. In the film’s opening shift change, the workers under the 219 sign move in a robotic, uniform, and completely dehumanized fashion, visually representing a society punished and divided by a modern Babel.2. The Worker Identity In the dystopian world of the city, workers do not have names; they are stripped of humanity and assigned numbers. Freder (the master’s son) experiences the brutal reality of the depths when he trades places with a suffering laborer named Georgy, whose designation is Worker No. 11811.The numbers on the machinery and gates, like 219, emphasize that every human in the lower city has been reduced to a simple digit or mathematical component in a massive, uncaring corporate machine.
