Against the Tide and with the Flow: Water and Urban Masses in Weimar Cinema

abstract: This article explores the vital role of water in conjunction with the depiction of urban masses in three Weimar-era films: Metropolis, Berlin. Die Sinfonie der Großstadt , and Menschen am Sonntag . I argue that attention to water, within the range of new materialisms, weaves together the symbolic realm (dreamlike, mythical) and a hydro-material dimension as it relates to contemporary environmental and social critical discourses around metropolitan crowds. Juxtaposing select sequences of these films reveals shared socio-environmental subtexts of modern industrial control as well as aesthetic-representational affinities, which extend to aquatic imagery for describing audience perceptions of movies themselves, the modern mass media.