Man Versus Machine in Colson Whitehead's "The Intuitionist" and Alex Proya's Dark City

The Use of the Noir Metropolis to Define Humanity

Almost 80 years after the birth of the modern science fiction epic in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, the anxieties leading to its birth still plague society. Like any newly developed genre though, Lang's vision evolved over the century, and as one based almost solely in the social consciousness of its audience, reflected the preceding evolution of the aforementioned anxieties. How then should we approach two works created at the end of the century, as opposed to the beginning? I present for discussion a film, Alex Proyas' Dark City, and a novel, Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist as representatives of the development in Lang's vision. Through these two contemporary works of noir science fiction, I will highlight the use of the genre to display the anxiety of the metropolitan space - how the city as a construct (or machine) is used to define humanity in absolute terms - and the human capacity to overcome that anxiety. Specifically I shall highlight how and why these works deal with that relationship. What changed in 70 years that redefined how these anxieties translated to the arts if anything?