Fritz Lang…

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis… Certainly, the film’s profusion of religious imagery can be traced back through Lang’s lineage. Although his lapsed Catholic father and Jewish mother began their union at best uninterested in religion — they requested a marriage ceremony stripped of all spiritual trappings, though they did not get it — they did eventually embrace the tenets of Catholicism. The doctrines of that faith insinuated themselves into Lang, shaping his worldview, his politics, and his cinematic vocabulary. The language of Metropolis — the themes, the images, the characters — are all rooted firmly in the language of Judeo-Christian theology.