Pains-taking Plus Metropolis

A bemused follow-up to my Frankenstein post. Here’s what you get tangled in, trying to edit this stuff into shape (plus YouTube goodies!). From the 1912 Everyman edition:

“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand. I am practically industrious—painstaking;—a workman to execute with perseverance and labour:—but besides this …”

From the appendix to the 1993 World Classics (Marilyn Butler ed.) edition, purporting to collate changes from the 1818 to the 1831:

“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand. I am practically industrious—pains-taking; a workman to execute with perseverance and labour:—but besides this …”

Finally, from the 1992 St. Martins, (Johanna M. Smith ed.) edition:

“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand. I am practically industrious—pains-taking;—a workman to execute with perseverance and labour:—but besides this …”

And I’ve probably perpetrated some typo somewhere, entering that in. So the circle of editorial life rolls ever on.

Bah. I guess I’ll just stick with the Everyman. But I assign Ben Wolfson the task of defending this wretched style of punctuation. The mad (mad, I tell you!) Gayatri Spivak writes of Frankenstein: it exhibits a “sympathetic and supportive colonial staging of the situation of the refusal of the withholding of specular exchange in favor of the monstrous colonial subject.” Me, I’m in favor of post-colonialism and post-semicolonialism. I’m going blind here. My specular exchange is shot!

Anyhoo. I do sort of have a reason for being interested in Frankenstein. I’m teaching philosophy and film and I focus on SF film. It so happens, in my syllabus, Dark City and Metropolis are back to back. So I was amused to discover, on YouTube, this video – a 10 minute remix of scenes from Metropolis, set to a techno beat that, peculiarly, incorporates a voiceover from Dark City. Kiefer Sutherland, as the quisling Dr. Schreber: “First, there was darkness. Then came … the Strangers.”

There are actually several Metropolis mash-ups and remixes (whatever you call them) on YouTube. As well as clips from the film itself. First, you should check out – but who can ever forget it – that classic, 1989 Madonna video, “Express Yourself”, directed by David “Fight Club” Fincher. It’s a big Metropolis goof: “There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as a mediator.”

I have a soft spot for the Moroder version. Here you get the flavor, if you can stomach the “Yes”. Plus some random bits stuck on the beginning and end. Give Moroder credit for realizing that actually Metropolis is a music video born before its time. Here’s Freddy Mercury, “Love Kills”. Or “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

Or if you prefer: Bonnie Tyler, “Here She Comes”;

I kinda like this Pearl Jam “Do The Evolution” remix.

Here’s The Melvins.

The Mannheim Steamroller remix has Commander Cody and singing cowboy’s under the earth. “Unless the heart acts as a meteor.”

And don’t miss: some guy’s Pat Benatar Metropolis Karaoke nite!

If you just want the original, here’s a nice clip of Freder’s Delirium, plus the False Maria kicking it in the Yoshiwara District.

And here’s Rotwang bringing the robot to life.

And the True Maria narrating the story of the Tower of Babel.

I was reading Thomas Elsaesser’s BFI Metropolis [amazon] book on the bus. But then I left it on the bus, apparently. So now I have to buy the library a new copy. Sigh.