Central Argument of the Films 'Last Laugh' and 'Metropolis' and Their Relation to History

Analysis of the Last Laugh and Metropolis
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Analysis of the Last Laugh and Metropolis
In German, the Last Laugh, or Der Letze Mann, is a 1924 German film produced by Murnau and written by Carl Mayer. The Last Laugh film is about a prominent hotel doorman who takes tremendous pleasure in his profession and status. However, his boss determines that the doorman is becoming too elderly and frail to maintain the hotel’s image, so he demotes him to a less demanding position as a lavatory attendant (The Last Laugh). He attempts to hide his relegation from his family and friends, but he is found, much to his dismay. His acquaintances mock him viciously, believing he has lied to them about his famous career the entire time, while his family rejects him out of shame. The doorman proceeds to the hotel, astonished and troubled, to sleep in the bathroom where he works. The night watchman is the only person who is sympathetic to him, covering him with his cloak while he falls asleep.
The film “Metropolis” was produced following Europe’s industrial revolution, culminating in several effects in the 20th Century. As a result, Metropolis illustrates the various components of the industrial revolution. The movie takes place in the year 2026, precisely one hundred years after it was first released. Affluent residents of Metropolis City are largely industrialists and high-end employees who work for them. This group of people lives in opulent buildings (Metropolis). There is, however, a “worker’s city” where underprivileged laborers dwell. These employees toil in the factories, operating the equipment that keeps the Metropolis city running. Workers toil to make ends meet, and some perish in the process.
Central Argument of the Films and Their Relation
It’s probably unexpected that the Expressionist association, which seemed explicitly designed to externalize fear and anxiety, came to a head in the 1920s. Murnau’s cityscape is a slightly dehumanizing image of early-century modernism with its peeping high-rises and hive-like downtown. This additional cultural jolt would throw an artifact like the porter off. Murnau uses the Atlantic Hotel’s rotating door as a reoccurring motif in line with this idea, serving as a constant prompt that change and, more threateningly, repetition is unavoidable (The Last Laugh). The Last Laugh depicts a country’s painful change from kingdom to a commoner, military to reluctant diplomacy, and affluence to severity. It’s a doorway throughout which the doorman is pushed day after day as he tries to reclaim some semblance of his previous self.
Similarly, the main argument of the “Metropolis” film is about inequality. The film’s backdrop is a futuristic dystopian populated by two distinct groups: laborers and philosophers. The film highlights class problems, such as between laborers and philosophers and a caste system. Several conceptual problems are also addressed in the film. First, the film is focused on the more significant political and cultural themes that are graphically represented. The film’s social preoccupations are based on the political climate in Germany at the time and serve as a warning for where Germany may go in the future. Inequalities are both physically and conceptually expressed (Metropolis). The industrial workers’ rebellion reflects societal disparities that may define modern capitalism in the future. Social inequality, leadership and tyranny, modernization, and feminism are some of the other themes explored in the film.
The social, cultural, or political context of the films
The last laugh film expresses social class differences. In the film, the doorman is stripped out of his uniform and demoted to bathroom assistant, wrestled into a gloomy basement bathroom - one of the movie’s most prominent examples of physical place turning mind space in a moment of remarkable visual and performance efficiency. According to legend, a studio supervisor derided this story device since lavatory attendants supposedly gain more than the doorman, which, if accurate, defines the picture as more concerned with senility and outdated than poverty and working-class adversity, at least at first (Germany and America notes). Countenance with many humiliations, ranging from guests’ disparaging stares to the schadenfreude of people who formerly detained him in high regard; the doorman hurtles into insignificance. His fall may not have been from the highest of peaks, but oh, is the earth’s harsh.
The film Metropolis has influenced the social-political setting since it depicts a high-status family versus a low-status family. The aristocracies of Metropolis reside at the top of the skyscrapers. This film segment is introduced at the most significant level, emphasizing that the capitalist class lives in a heaven-like realm and is revered as gods (Lotte, n.d). Skyscrapers, pricey jewels, and ostentatious attire characterize the privileged world. The film opens with Feder in a park surrounded by lavishly dressed individuals. In this scenario, the garden represents paradise, and the la...