Modern Anxiety
Unskilled laborers were paid to do one specific part of the process and do repeated motions for the duration of their work shift. Machines were introduced that made manual work on certain products easier, though it was separated into many steps. Products went out more rapidly, therefore increasing sales. People became machines cranking out product after product as the consumer rushed to the stores to purchase them. This was the big boom in the economy.
With these changes in life came the widespread panic or anxiety. The people had not adjusted to the advances that had been created in their time. It was still new to them and it scared them a lot. First came the roads and the trains. People began to see life pass before them at alarming speeds and did not know how to see things anymore. The more advanced the times became, the more alarmed people became. They had never seen things that moved with such speed and such force and were wary of how it could benefit them. Many did ride on the trains, though in the beginning, it was used more for transportation of goods rather than people. Cars emerged after and became widespread in the once peaceful streets. Horses and carriages soon were replaced by steel beasts with motors inside.
Many tropes did appear in the media and artwork of the time that showed the concern of the people. In the magazines there were articles about innocent pedestrians being ran over by the electric trolleys that ran along the streets. The public became very interested in these articles. They often were very descriptive and expressed the full details of the incident. Headlines would read “Innocent Child Killed by Merciless Trolley Driver” or something very similar. Many of the newspapers that sold large amounts supplied some of the most gruesome details. Stories speaking about a man “being dragged to pieces” or “having his skin being torn from his body” further instilled the idea that man is fragile and that machine is harsh, feeding the public’s frenzy over these deadly creations. These themes often appeared on front pages. Cars emerged after the electric trolley. At first it did not seem so dangerous because very few people had a car in the beginning while horses and carriages were still moving through the streets. Soon cars dominated the road and it was impossible not to have seen a car at that time.
There were often illustrations and stories speaking of a horse drawn carriage crashing into a trolley or a car. The two technologies literally collided and showed the public that one had truly replaced the other. Everyone became more aware of their morality with these steel creations. Steel could always crush bone. It was no contest. Other illustrations began to deem women as the cause of many of the car accidents. Magazinea illustrations of a road with all female pedestrians and car swerving around a corner, haphazardly driven by another female, began the talk about women being bad drivers and a danger to the community. The wandering female pedestrians were made to address the issue of females traveling alone in a city environment without being escorted. Building even became a scare after a while. Buildings began to get taller ad taller and soon there were several deaths caused by people falling from buildings, whether in the act of suicide or an accident while painting or washing windows.
With all of this fear of the world they were living in, people of the 20th century found a way to try to cope with it. They became interested in the strange, basically things that they had not seen before or have not had exposure to. With all of the shock that they had been receiving on a daily basis, it had become built into their system as the years passed. They needed something new and shocking to counteract the everyday shock they get. This way, their system is not programmed and in constant fear. With a shock, that is self-inflicted, they would be able to deal better because they are exposing themselves to outside things. This is the theory that explained the sudden interest in cabarets, circuses, sideshows, strange wonders and thrill rides. With themselves in charge of the amount of thrill they would get, they were adding time to their life. Many of the thrill rides, still toddlers at that time, had already claimed a few lives, and yet people continued to go. These things interested them greatly. Coney Island and other places similar to it were placing people in the first roller coasters and then the Ferris wheel.
In the films, there were several that showed this modern anxiety. Hans Richter’s piece Everyday showed exactly what this modern anxiety was about by focusing on only one facet of the modern life. He shows the stockbrokers computing, very quickly, amounts for trade and the rise and the fall. They did the same thing everyday. Everyone waking in their beds in the morning the same way. While the feet were hitting the ground, the sound that played in the background sounded like a train. The tracks sound similar to that of a roller coaster or something out of control, symbolizing the horror of that kind of life. Over and over again their day continued to repeat. They were not people anymore; they were computing robots.
In Berlin, Symphony of a Great City, this rush in life was also expressed. People moving quickly to get to work and people doing their various duties and chores throughout the film. It is similar to the montage films shot during the early times in the United States. Even comparable to Koyaanisqatsi , which translates to “life without order.” In this film the parts of life we never really see are sped up and dragged on so that we can notice all of the events that we neglect. It shows traffic and has an entire segment based within an assembly line, in which we see how hot dogs and various other items are made. It is also a film montage, in the same style as the films previously listed, but it is in color and has a soundtrack by Phillip Glass. At the beginning we see these fragments that look beautiful as they shine in the sun. It is slowed down so we do not see what it is. Near the end we see what it is. It was a rocket launched by NASA that exploded in mid flight. These montage films feel the same way. There is such a hustle and bustle in them and long and short shots, but always some type of movement. Many of the films showed dancers at one point, which counted toward the entertainment but added to the odd and interesting of that time.
Changes in lifestyle has been seen to have cause widespread panic, but it seems we always find more ways to deal, though the solutions seem like the nightmarish creatures that we are running from. These solutions have been incorporated into the culture so that it has become a permanent stitch in time. We still have dancers, sideshows, circuses, and thrill rides. Some things do not change as drastically as imagined, but are always programmed to pull us through faster.
