ROTWANG GIP

[prog]

I swear to god I just happened to find this image on my hard drive a minute ago. It's Rotwang, the batshit insane cyberneticist from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", and a template for the mad-scientist visual stereotype that would develop over the 20th century. It's pronounced ROHT-VAHNG but believe me he's heard it all.

I am fixing problems with exploding filehandles. It causes me to find things like this.

Comments

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Metropolis rocks. I saw a showing at Brandeis in the mid-90s with live music by the Alloy Orchestra, and it was among the coolest things ever. One of the few things that came close to spoiling the experience for me was, in fact, the representatives of Brandeis' fratboy community sitting immediately behind us and making Rotwang jokes. :P

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

i find it amusing when the alloys play to the moroder print -- at the end you see all these 1980s bands in the sound credits, and the alloys are rocking out. "hey, this doesn't sound like loverboy..."

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I opened my friends page and lo I beholded, and exclaimed hey, that's Rotwang from Metropolis.

[rserocki.livejournal.com]

I saw the movie on a big screen. But I've got Metropolis by Kraftwerk in my head. I wish I had it in my HD, too.

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

Metropolis is one of the movies I want to get on DVD some time.

I'm not sure which version to get -- they've had a few re-releases.

[prog.livejournal.com]

My favorite was the ~2002 restoration, which I think is the most complete and narratively coherent version now available.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The Kino version, right?

The title cards explaining the missing bits are nice, but what really makes that one excellent is that they included the original score, which turns out to be fantastic! Who knew?

[poetgeek.livejournal.com]

Which would not be the $1.99 version found at Marden's natch.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I always liked mimisoliel's user icon, myself.

[ianmcin.livejournal.com]

I had a professor in college who showed us Metropolis. He went on to claim that Rotwang - with his single glove and twisted hand - was the inspiration for dozens of mad scientist archetypes in movies thereafter. In particular, he cited Peter Seller's character in Kubrick's classic, "Doctor Strange-Glove".

I didn't have the heart to correct him.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Oh!

Someone on my friendslist, bibliogirl, often refers to her husband rotwang. I mean, I knew that wasn't his name, but I never really wondered where it came from. And now I know!