MUBI

From the looks of it at the beginning, one can tell movies of the dystopian sci-fi genre have gained a great deal of influence from Metropolis, from Blade Runner to Dark City. Its expressionistic qualities in its geometrically fantastical massive city and the high bridges connecting the buildings makes it a towering fortress of a city that is slowly turning chaotic under oppression and robotic forces. The movement of which we see the underground workers moving in straight lines and making repetitious movements to their machines like clockwork shows how structural Fritz Lang wanted the film to look to embody how heavily structured this city is in its class division and mechanical reliance. The people below are treated as mechanical slaves while the upper class, represented by the city’s chief Joh Fredersen, live their life of luxury and power in their vast rooms and playboy routines, with only Fredersen’s son Freder brave enough to see the inequality and exploitation of the underprivileged and sets out to set things straight with the help of the idealistic Maria. At the same time as making a social/political statement about technology and society, it makes heavy use of biblical images, from the image of Babylon brought to life by the evil robotic clone of Maria to the religious figures of Freder and Maria leading the children of the workers to safety from an apocalyptic flood. It’s also telling another story about the drawbacks of technology in a way that’s similar to Frankenstein with its mad scientist Rotwang building the gold robot to replicate his lost love, which then sets out to bring chaos and destruction to the city of the workers. The characters are filled with colorful differences in their heavily emotional expressions of fear, sadness, anger, madness, joy, and sadism that they bring out the distortions of humanity that’s common in German Expressionism, from the tall dark and imposing Thin Man to the maniacally sadistic Maria clone. The look of the city isn’t CGI as we would use to see in futuristic sci-fi films or has flying cars, but its designs that are based on models and paintings brings to life what Expressionist art should be with its jagged geometrical style to look more convincing as a strange and imposing society of the future. It brings out the possibility of sci-fi as its was one of the earliest big sci-fi films of cinematic history, maybe not as colorful and action-packed as todays sci-fi blockbusters, but a nostalgic vision of the future that is epic, bizarre, and mesmerizing.

A visual masterpiece. Absolutely stunning sets and cinematography. The story is much more comprehensible with the lost footage restored. Still heavy handed with outrageous overacting but, since Lang sought to use minimal intertitles, the film is essentially a pantomime and some overacting is necessary and appropriate. This is especially true for Brigitte Helm who must play two identical and identically clothed characters and make them instantly recognizable as different characters without a voice. She accomplishes by imbuing both of her very strong characters with distinct physical vocabularies. Besides the sets and cinematography, the movie is worth a second viewing to appreciate Helm’s performances, intense physicality and the surprising strength and independence of her characters which comes as quite a surprise given what we expect of womens’ rolls in films of the Silent Era.

Of all the great silent films, few approach the curiously hip appeal of Metropolis, director Fritz Lang’s 1927 futuristic German classic. It was the Cleopatra or Heaven’s Gate of its day, nearly bankrupting the studio—Ufa—that produced it. Yet its influence, principally in Lang’s extraordinary visual design, has been monumental. More than 80 years after its release, Metropolis remains the Citizen Kane of the science-fiction film.

Despite its influence on such movies as disparate as Blade Runner, Dr. Strangelove and Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, some present-day audiences may yet agree with the famed British author H.G. Wells, who called it a “most foolish film.” Its campy, ponderous absurdities are no less apparent in a historic new edition, which adds 25 minutes to the extant two-hour version first released in 2002.

Like too many cinematic milestones, Metropolis has suffered a long and torturous post-production history. Originally 2 1/2 hours at its Berlin premiere, it was almost immediately hacked down by its American studio backers (principally Paramount) to 90 minutes for international release. But like any good Hollywood monster, the film refused to die. It’s been resurrected several times, most notoriously in a 1984 pop version by music producer Giorgio Moroder. The latest reincarnation comes amazingly by way of Buenos Aires, where archivists in 2008 unearthed a scratchy 16mm print that’s as close to Lang’s original as exists. That print, digitally cleaned up and married to an existing 35mm master by Germany’s Murnau Foundation, has produced a 147-minute Metropolis, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February and is now touring U.S. theaters.

Achtung, cinephiles: Before you jump on the autobahn, take note that this is exclusively a digital—not 35mm film—release. In Denver, for example, Lang’s masterwork screened in a tiny matchbox theater and the digital projection was a mere shadow of Lang’s (and cinematographer Karl Freund’s) richly hued black-and-whites. If this is the dystopian future of the world’s cinematic legacy, we were far better off in the reel analog past.

What’s still fascinating about Metropolis isn’t the kitschy pseudo-mythology of screenwriter Thea von Harbou (Lang’s then-wife), but its trend-setting technical innovations and deliriously Expressionist architectural pastiche. Set in the year 2000, the story itself is a rickety synthesis of Christianity, Marxism and Freud. In a stunning skyscraper city crisscrossed by elevated highways (said to be inspired by Lang’s trip to New York), a class of downtrodden workers toil away in underground factories for the moneyed elites, who lead lives of luxury and decadence in the world above. The feared “Master of Metropolis” is tycoon Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel), a merger between John D. Rockefeller and Goldfinger.

In von Harbou’s heavy-handed allegory, relations between the owners (the “brain”) and workers (the “hands”) need a mediator (the “heart”), and her chosen one is Fredersen’s epicene son, Freder (Gustav Frolich). He sees the light on first glimpse of the saintly Maria (17-year-old Brigitte Helm) preaching a message of brotherly love amid a horde of orphans. Down to the underworld Freder goes, exchanging places with a worker while nearly crucifying himself (“Father, will ten hours never end?”) on a giant, clock-faced machine that literally demands “hands on” attention. Clocks are central to Lang’s compositional mise-en-scene, brilliantly representing how modern man has been made a slave to time.

For feminists, the alarming part of von Harbou’s script may lie with the creation of the beatific Maria’s robot doppelganger, madly brought to life by the scientist/sorcerer Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) on Fredersen’s orders. Tapping into the dark side of the archetypal female duality, the false Maria is a sexy, leering vamp who drives men wild with lust and unleashes a Pandora’s Box of chaos onto the city. Though Fredersen’s scheme to sabotage the workers’ secret gatherings seems diabolically illogical, Lang’s visual bravura is electrifying. Along with the metallic art-deco robot, Rotwang’s laboratory—crammed with boiling beakers and flashing electrodes—virtually invented the look of the Hollywood horror and sci-fi genre, beginning with Universal’s Frankenstein in 1931. The closed-circuit surveillance cameras that Fredersen uses to spy on his minions are frightfully prophetic.

Explicitly designed to rival the 1920s Hollywood blockbusters (complete with an astounding 36,000 extras), Metropolis was engineered by a German cinema second only to America’s in status and influence. But with the film’s disastrous failure, the Ufa studio and Weimar filmmaking were toppled from their airy perch, the crowning blow arriving in 1933 with the demonic whirlwind of the Third Reich.

Classic zeitgeist-minded critics like Siegfried Kracauer have argued that movies such as Metropolis covertly portended the rise of Nazism, and keen eyes will notice just how cynically anti-democratic (as well as anti-Marxist) the film is. Lang’s downcast, machine-like masses are easily duped by the phony Maria; transformed by her hysterical, Hitlerian harangues into a mindless mob. Only the heroically individualistic efforts of Freder and the good Maria can save the city—and another horde of kids—from apocalyptic destruction.

Not uncommon in today’s “director’s cuts,” the extra scenes added to this classic are important historically, helping to unravel some gnawing plot tangles, but on the whole they subtract from the overall impact. Fringe subplots involving a spy and Fredersen’s secretary reminded me of the long, marginal “plantation scene” that director Francis Ford Coppola restored to Apocalypse Now Redux: chaff added to an already overgrown crop.

After the film’s box-office failure and re-editing debacles, Lang went on to make several more films through the crippled Ufa, triumphing in 1931 with M, his first sound film, but soon after made his getaway to the West. Legend has it, Lang’s escape from Nazi Germany (he was half-Jewish) came after a job overture from Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Lang eventually wound up directing in Hollywood, where he continued his career until the 1950s, though never again on the lofty, ubermensch scale of Metropolis.

(Also playing at Deeper Into Movies linktext and on Facebook.)

“Metropolis” finally (mostly) looks like it did in 1927 before Paramount butchered it for American audiences, thanks to a remarkably still complete print found in an Argentine film archive. If anything, a few of the minor characters are more fleshed out, scenes are longer, and the decadence of the upper class is more stinging and gross, but it doesn’t change the overall effect, which is still of huge scope and daring.

Wow! The visuals and effects were amazing. Seeing it on the big screen with the original orchestral score re-recorded was a treat. Also it was special to view the scenes restored from the 16mm film from Buenos Aires. The plot, structure, and character development made sense with the restored footage reinserted even though the quality and aspect ratio of the image from the 16mm film was obviously worse. The film is only missing maybe 5 to 10 minutes of its German premiere length. The length was around two and a half hours, but the action was very exciting and was able to keep my attention throughout.

Gustav Fröhlich as Freder, Joh Fredersen’s son, is the most histrionic of the actors. Otherwise, besides the claw-like hand clench that everyone uses, many of the other actors seem fairly natural for the time. Freder is purposely overly expressive and empathetic though since he represents the HEART. I would say the plot is sophisticated and complex, but not convoluted like I have seen many reviewers describe it. Many of the restored scenes I think make the story flow better. The Christian overtones bothered me a bit, but in the end Freder, as the mediator (Heart) between the rich and powerful who live above ground and the slave workers who live below ground, didn’t fit my understanding of a Jesus figure. It could be interpreted that way, but I choose not to. Instead the message was simply one for general human improvement and brotherhood. Heinrich George as Grot, the guardian of the Heart Machine, is just one face of the mob of workers that the audience is allowed to connect with a bit more. He represents the HANDS of all the workers who built the city and keep it running. Alfred Abel as Joh Fredersen, Freder’s father, represents the HEAD because he is the businessman who makes firm, and some would say unjust, decisions about running the city of Metropolis. Freder rebels against the wealthy, leisurely, unsympathetic life of his father, yet because he comes from that life and submits himself to the workers’ lifestyle, he grows into the mediator that is needed by the disparate classes.

Klein-Rogge as Rotwang, the inventor, is a classic mad scientist. Many of Rasp’s scenes as The Thin Man were part of the restored scenes. He stalks and keeps tabs on Freder and his associates Loos playing Josaphat and Biswanger playing Georgy. Then of course there is Brigitte Helm, Freder’s love interest Maria. She also portrays the fem-bot and the robot disguised as an evil version of Maria. She is marvelous. Metropolis is a big science fiction movie that has been a major influence on so many other things in pop culture.

Metropolis is certainly the best film made before the 1930’s, one of the best ever, and probably the single most important sci-fi film ever, bearing in mind just about any subsequent sci-fi/dystopia film was heavily influenced by this one, one way or another.

This was like the 1920’s “Star Wars” or “Avatar”, the difference being it has a much more important and original artistic concept, and nothing like it had been done before.

It may be a hard watch for someone who isn’t used to silent/old films, but it’s quite rewarding once you get in the right mood.

Highly Recommended.

Metropolis really is year zero for the sci fi genre. Fritz Lang delivered one of the first blockbusters in the history of cinema and in the process would influence every dystopian future-noir film that would follow. I run a film magazine here in the UK and we had a spotlight feature on both the artwork from the film and a further look at how the future has been envisioned in film over the course of the last 80 years. Go have a look: http://www.thebigpicturemagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=134:issue-3-available-july-20th&catid=37:news-and-events&Itemid=63