Time to Work
Lecture Overview
 History of Cinema
 German Expressionism
Metropolis Themes
• Time and Work
• Moloch
History of
Cinema
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First photograph in about 1827
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Daguerreotype
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Printing on light-sensitive paper
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Negatives
History of
Cinema
• Image-sequence animation
History of Cinema
• Phenakistiscope
• Invented 1833
History of Cinema
Cinema
•
Zoetrope
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Developed in 1830s
Cinema
Cinema
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Flipbook animation
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1868
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History of
Cinema
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Image-sequence animation and
photography came together in 1878
Eadweard Muybridge (English
photographer)
Leland Stanford (governor of US state of
California)
Debate about race horses
History of Cinema
History of Cinema
History of
Cinema
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Lumière family (1890s)
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First cinematic films for projection
History of Cinema
History of Cinema
History of
Cinema
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Silent film era 1895-1927
Ended with the 1927 film The Jazz
Singer
Fritz Lang
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Friedrich Christian
Anton "Fritz" Lang
1890-1976
Austrian/German
Jewish
Married actress Thea
von Harbou
Fled Germany 1934
Hollywood career
German
Expressionism
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1910s-1930s
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Not realistic representation
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Exaggerated, warped
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Conveys subjective emotional
experience or mood
German Expressionism
• Franz Marc
• “The Large Blue
Horses”
• 1911
German
Expressionism
• Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
• “Berlin Street”
• 1913
German
Expressionism
• Käthe Kollwitz
• “The Widow I”
• 1921
German
Expressionism
In cinema:
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F. W. Murnau
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Robert Wiene
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Fritz Lang
German
Expressionism
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920)
German Expressionism
Metropolis
• 1927
• First sci-fi movie
• Not all of the film has
survived
Metropolis
Time and Work
“The value of a day’s labour-power amounts to 3
shillings, because on our assumption, half a day’s
labour is objectified in that quantity of labour-power,
i.e. because the means of subsistence required every
day for the production of labour-power cost half a
day’s labour. [...] The fact that half a day’s labour is
necessary to keep the worker alive during 24 hours
does not in any way prevent him from working a
whole day.”
- Marx
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Time and
Work
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At the height of the Industrial
Revolution, the workday was at least 10
hours long and could be much longer
Marx was critical of “the capitalist”
extending the workday
In many European countries,
governments shortened workday to 10
hours maximum
1917 Soviet Russia was the first country
to have an 8-hour workday
Time and Work
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Frederick Winslow Taylor
Industrial Engineer
Studied the process of work
Particularly in factories
Time and Work
• The Principles of Scientific
Management (1911)
• Focused on improving
efficiency
• Wildly successful in
management
• Became known as
Taylorism
Basic rules of “Taylorism”:
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Time and
Work
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Replace common sense methods of
completing tasks with scientifically
proven methods.
Choose the best workers and train
them.
Provide instruction and supervision.
Divide the work equally between the
workers and managers.
Time and Work
Ford Motor Company
Model T Assembly Line
ca. 1924
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Time and
Work
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Managers = planning and instruction
Mental / Brain work
Workers = physically completing each
task
Manual / Hand labor
Time and Work
Time and Work
Scientific principles:
• Perhaps the most prominent single element in modern
scientific management is the task idea. The work of every
workman is full planned out by the management at least one
day in advance, and each man receives in most cases
complete written instructions, describing in detail the task
which he is to accomplish, as well as the means to be used in
doing the work. [...] This task specifies not only what is to be
done but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for
doing it. And whenever the workman succeeds in doing his
task right, and within the time limit specified he receives an
addition of from 30 per cent to 100 per cent to his ordinary
wages.
Time and Work
Briefly, to illustrate some of the other elements which go to make
up the science of shoveling, thousands of stop-watch
observations were made to study just how quickly a laborer,
provided in each case with the proper type of shovel, can push his
shovel into the pile of materials and then draw it out properly
loaded. These observations were made first when pushing the
shovel into the body of the pile. Next when shoveling on a dirt
bottom, that is, at the outside edge of the pile, and next with a
wooden bottom, and finally with an iron bottom. Again a similar
accurate time study was made of the time required to swing the
shovel backward and then throw the load for a given horizontal
distance accompanied by a given height. This time study was
made for various combinations of distance and height.
Time and Work
The subtext to “Taylorism”:
Time and
Work
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Workers are not intelligent enough to
effectively plan their own labor
Managers must constantly watch
workers to make sure they are working
efficiently
Moloch
Moloch
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Ancient god
Seen as idolatry by Israelites
Human sacrifice by throwing
people into a fire
How is the factory explosion in
Metropolis like human
sacrifice to a pagan god?
Moloch
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The Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory Fire
New York
1911
145 people were killed
Moloch
•
Tazreen Fashions
Factory Fire
•
Dhaka, Bangladesh
•
2012
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At least 117 killed
Moloch
• Moloch is capitalism.
• We consumers sacrifice human lives—in the form
of factory accidents—in order to receive benefits in
the form of products.
The End