Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927)

In it's time Metropolis was considered a masterpiece, and it still remains one today. German director Fritz Lang created the first great science fiction film that has influenced countless sci-fi films, including Star Wars & Blade Runner. In 1927 it was ahead of its time, for production, story, and cost. The film cost nearly 5,000,000 franks, which for inflation makes it about a $200 million dollar movie today, and took nearly two years to shoot. It has many great trivia facts about it such as they hired nearly 37,000 extras, robot Maria's look in the film inspired the look for C3Po, and supposedly Adolf Hitler loved the film which would later make Fritz Lang despise it.

I was lucky enough to see the film on the big screen Tuesday night. The Complete Metropolis is currently playing at Chicago's own Music Box Theater. I urge you to not miss this chance to see the complete version of the film on the big screen. This is the first time the film has played as a complete version in nearly 80 years. The original film was re-cut and re-edited to make it shorter for American and European audiences, so director Fritz Lang's original vision was thought to be lost. That was until 2008, a complete copy was found in Buenos Aires, at the University of Chile's film library. Now the film is complete once again in all it's original glory. This 153 minute version of the film only deepens the reasoning for Metropolis remaining a classic. If you are unfamiliar with the film, I thought a trailer would be helpful to get an idea of the scope and charm of the film:

Story

Fritz Lang and his wife, at the time, Thea Von Harbou developed the screenplay, then released a novelization to coincide with the films release. The plot of Metropolis takes place in a future city where humans are split into two groups: thinkers & workers. The thinkers are the wealthy people who live in the above ground metropolis, which is ruled by Joh Frederson. Joh's son, Freder, goes down below to the sub-city, where all the workers work on the machinery of the metropolis. He gets a wake up call about what is happening in the worker city when an explosion injures several workers. After seeing a beautiful woman, Maria, giving a speech to the workers, coupled with the injury of the workers, Freder switches lives with a worker. He "wants to live with his brothers," in the underground city.

At the same time, Joh Frederson goes to his old rival, the mad scientist; Rotwang. The two loath one another since they both loved the same woman, Frederson's wife Hel, who died giving birth to Freder. Rotwang shows Frederson the machine-man (robot) he intends to make look like Hel, and marry her. Rotwang captures the woman who has Freder's attention, Maria, and uses her image to transport it onto the machine-man.

After the transformation is complete, Rotwang has his new machine-man Maria, play both sides of the city. He has the Maria look-a-like to go to the worker city and convince them to rebel, and also has it give an erotic dance to the upper class that makes them grow homicidal over sexual jealously for her. With this act Rotwang tries to destroy the city from the top and the bottom. After the workers have destroyed the lower city, they realize what they have done and decide to burn "the witch" (Maria) for her trickery. They tie her up and burn her, but while she burns she reverts back to her robot body and they see that they truly were tricked by something or someone. Meanwhile Freder battles Rotwang over the real Maria (who he mistakes for his robot), and Rotwang ends up falling to his death. In the end Freder unites his father with the chief foreman of the lower city, and ends the brutality of the metropolis.

The story is large in scope, and in meaning. A quote that continually pops up in the film is, "The mediator between the head and hands must be the heart!" This idea, I believe, is still relevant today. I think of it more in a corporate way, the heads don't know the hands who run their business, much like Metropolis, and perhaps a mediator of the heart is needed. I think the best parts of Metropolis are it's statements on class, and the working class. There is one great sequence where Freder is working on a machine and soon the circular machine, pictured left, becomes a clock and he becomes the slave to that clock. Brilliant. The best parts of the class statements are how the rich/powerful make the "hands" work for nearly nothing and suppress them, what occurs when you do this to human beings? They revolt. I think that is still relevant, since America seems to have a growing bubble between the rich and poor. And if your film/story still has resonance after 83 years, I think that is the definition of classic.

Directing
Fritz Lang was a German filmmaker who worked in the German film industry until leaving in 1933. He was supposedly called into a meeting with prominent Nazi member, Josef Goebbels, who offered him the job of production supervisor at his studio. Lang said he would think about it, then left the country within a week of that meeting. He left his wife, writer of Metropolis, behind since she had recently joined the Nazi party. He fled to the United States and worked within the Hollywood system. Although Lang is most well known for his two classics while in Germany, Metropolis and M.

Besides the story of Metropolis, I think the scope of the directing and the imagination within the frame is astounding. Lang is able to take on a film that had never been attempted before, and churned out a classic. With the use of miniatures, simple effects shots using mostly mirrors, and a realistic robot, he creates the first major science fiction film. Although I think that storytelling in filmmaking has only gotten better with new techniques and tighter scripts, I think that Lang's Metropolis is the finest silent movie I have ever seen. With not much dialogue and relying on the use of images and facial reactions, Lang takes you above and beyond his world. He shows you the struggle of the worker, the fear of the people, and the scale of a great Metropolis, with nearly no dialogue.

Acting
I can't say I've ever reviewed or discussed silent era acting, but for the time it seems to be in the same vein as other films of the time, but a step above. Although at points the movements of the actors are violent and over the top, at other times they barely move their bodies or face and you know what they are feeling. I think the film is above standards for the time.

My favorite performance in the film is the mad scientist Rotwang. Somehow I understand his pain and his plot for revenge against the all powerful Joh Frederson. Since Frederson stole his woman, only because he was more powerful, Rotwang has a distaste for him that is understandable. The best thing about Rotwang is that his look, acting, demeanor influenced mad scientists for the rest of film history. He wears a black glove on his right hand which has been homaged in several films since then. His wacky hair and jacket seems to be mirrored by Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future. True or not, Rotwang is still the most enjoyable performance in the film for me.


Seeing this complete version of the film was great experience and I encourage others to see it on the big screen with the original orchestral score. Like the trailer says, before The Matrix, Blade Runner, Star Wars, and 2001, there was Metropolis. You can see it's resonance throughout all science fiction films afterward, and if you can influence a genre for over 80 years, that is the definition of a mainstay, a true classic.