Metropolis - Great or Average?

I only recently watched Fritz Lang’s Metropolis for the first time. So much excitement had built up, because I was seeing the film in my film class with a great projector and a great transfer. After seeing the film, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

The narrative seemed a mess. I understood the social commentary on class struggle and really appreciated the mise-en-scene, but I just found the film sorely lacking. I’ve seen many silent films, and enjoyed the vast majority of them. Metropolis, however, I felt just didn’t work. The pacing was not well executed, and I found the writing to be very mediocre.

Schufftan’s visual effects were fantastic, and I can see why the film is a benchmark for science-fiction, but I feel that the film is extremely dated and receives much more acclaim than it deserves.

Basically, I was wondering if anyone else shared my opinions, and if you disagree, I’d like to know what exactly (other than the great visuals and mise-en-scene) do you find “great” about Metropolis.

Thanks.

No takers? Either agreeing or disagreeing?

I think that there is a select group of films that are immune to hype. I loved Metropolis but I don’t think it falls in this category. The film at first a slight disappointment got better and better as I thought about it and I remembered certain scenes that were perfection. I don’t disagree with you that it might feel disappointing after all the hype, but honestly most films are disappointing after hype. Think about it, watch it again, and maybe your opinion will change. Or maybe not. No one is going to like all the “masterpieces”.

Odd, I definitely had the same feeling when I saw it for the first time. I waited years to see it (just one of those films I never got around to), eventually got to see it about a year ago in one of my film classes, great projector/theatre, great print. And I was kind of disappointed. I’ve watched it a few times since, and I can certainly appreciate why it’s a great film, but it definitely isn’t one of my favorites, or even one of my favorites of Fritz Lang. M is definitely my favorite of his.

It’s been a while since I last saw “Metropolis”, so you can take these next comments with that grain of salt.

Like so many other great silent era films, it is a distinct product of it’s age. For Lang in particular, “Metropolis” was ambitious, but in many ways not a great departure from the popular epics that he put out both before and after it. I think what has caused “Metropolis” to stand apart from films like “Spies” or “Die Nibelungen” is it’s link to science fiction. Obviously nothing I’m saying is anything new to you, but I think that “Metropolis” needs to be taken and understood in it’s context. Lang was the most powerful director in Germany, and a celebrity in his home country. This was a man who could do just about anything that he wanted to do as a filmmaker – and did do. “Metropolis” was the most expensive film made up to that date, and it nearly sunk the great UFA studios. Lang is not unlike other directors, both foreign and domestic, who struggle to produce works of great power and distinction under circumstances beyond their control, but when given absolute power, waste it on egomaniacal safaris.

Lang, though not one of my personal favorite directors, seems to thrive under monetary and creative constraints. “M” is a perfect example of this. By the time he made that film, he no longer had UFA to back him up from a financial perspective. In America (and briefly France) he lost the power that he had been used to. He was forced to operate under a different set of rules that included unions, god-like producers, and more limited budgets. While Lang chafed against the Hollywood studio system, it forced him to make lean, explosive films. He could no longer indulge in crazed fantasies. Instead, he had to answer to the likes of Mayer, Fox, or the Warners. He had to accept the scrips given him, or the projects forced upon him. These circumstances make for an uneven body of work (compared to his German films). “Fury”, “You Only Live Once”, “The Woman in the Window”, and “The Big Heat” stand out as dark meditations from the mind of a man constantly at odds with the world around him, with a constant need to control his space.

“Metropolis” is so much more antiquated than most of his American output. What it ought to be recognized for is clarity of vision; if not in storytelling, at least in imaginative power. It’s bigger and bolder than just about anything else in the silent era. It’s epic sweep and frenzied pace are, for better or worse, unlike anything else around. It may seem clunky at times, and overblown, but it still manages to explode with a maniacal power.

For the record, I would take “The Passion of Joan of Arc”, “The Crowd”, “Sherlock, Jr.”, “The Man With the Movie Camera”, “I Was Born, But…”, or “Sunrise” long before "Metropolis.

I think this is a great film, perhaps my favourite silent film. Lang is presenting to us a vision of a future where technology rules everything and human beings are reduced to cogs in the machine. Compare it to a serious version of a similar theme in Chaplin’s Modern Times. He also deals with the class system that has a small elite ruling over the masses – who are slaves to them. This was a very progressive and radical statement from Lang on the evils of capitalism – as he saw it. What makes the film great for me is the visual language – astonishing for its time. His world is very cinematic and rich – look closely at any scene in the factory. The whole doppelganger theme of the robot Maria and real Maria just adds to the suspense. The expressionistic art deco sets, the scene with the man turning the hands of the giant clock, the robot Maria, the flooding of the factory are all very impressive for the time. This film also exists in many botched versions, so trying to find as complete a version as possible is a must. But, like any film, if it doesn’t work for you, no amount of argument will change your mind no matter what anyone says. I think it a masterpiece – and will leave it at that. Remember the context of the times and the fact of when this film was made (1927 Germany) when judging it.

I agree that a lot of the plot elements of Metropolis haven’t aged that well. But I don’t think that it can be taken lightly that a film made in 1927 is still such a huge influence on how all films that followed it envision cities of the future. Also I think the archetype of Maria and Robot-Maria partially inspired Sean Young and Daryl Hannah’s characters in Blade Runner as well as Ripley in the Alien franchise and countless other heroes, heroines and villains in action films set in the future. Many of them also include the same story-line that can be seen in Metropolis of the hero/heroine battling against a major institution (though now they’re usually fighting against corporations and not class systems, because that better fits the ethos of our time period). Metropolis is not that exciting to us because we know all the films that followed it, that were inspired by it, and a part of me wishes I could understand what it was like to see it 82 years ago. But all that being said, I agree with Rory. M is my favorite Fritz Lang movie as well.

Thank you for the replies.

Bob: I agree with you on many of your points. Metropolis still looks great visually and has a powerful message for its time, it also is a benchmark for science fiction films, due to the amount of great works it influenced. I also agree that it is best appreciated when viewed in the light of the era in which it was created, but great art is timeless. Shakespeare is timeless. Magritte is timeless. Mozart is timeless. And I feel many of the other films of the silent era are timeless (Greed, Sunrise, Nosferatu, Napoléon, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and even Lang’s own M). I just feel that Metropolis is not timeless, and doesn’t deserve to be seen as equals with this work.

It is still impressive, however, in its visual themes, in the amount of sheer intricacy in its shots, and as one of the earliest films to take a pointed shot at class struggle and its own society. It is noble in all of these capacities, but I feel, it simply does not hold up as a great piece of art…a noble, not failure, but a noble piece of … good … cinema. Not great.

I do appreciate all of your responses though.

I think the acting in Metropolis looks particularly dated when stacked up against the ultra-modern sets, visuals, and robots. It’s like we’ve gone thousands of years into the future to still have pancake make-up and broad takes, etc. But that’s something that probably couldn’t have been helped. Maybe if Dreyer had directed it, but I doubt that Dreyer ever would have.

Justin, I agree completely. I have recently criticized the writing and pacing, but the acting is definitely a major problem with Metropolis.

Freder is particularly bad, I thought, due to over-acting. Alfred Abel, however, who portrayed his father, was very effective.

Rotwang and Maria are both a mixed bag of great scenes and shaky ones.

>>I only recently watched Fritz Lang’s Metropolis for the first time. So much excitement had built up, because I was seeing the film in my film class with a great projector and a great transfer. After seeing the film, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
The narrative seemed a mess.<<
Well, first I have to ask: Which version did you watch? Did you see the most recent restoration which restores the order of the scenes to Lang’s original vision & has black frames with supertitles explaining the missing footage?
Or did you watch one of the PD versions that follows the Paramount cut from 1927 (or whenever). That version doesn’t make a lick of sense … and I’ve yet to see a copy that isn’t dark & blurry – which does the film’s extraordinary visuals no favors.

As to the question: >>Metropolis – Great or Average?<< … well, both, actually. The political/philosophical message of the film is naive, admittedly, but its symbollism is rich and subtle. Take, just for instance, the physical levels that the film plays out on. There’s the underground Workers’ City (from which they descend even further to work the machines) which connects with the ancient burial catacombs. Then there’s the street level which contains not only the bases of the towering skyscrapers but also, incongruously, Rotwang’s Medieval house and a Gothic cathedral. Then there’s the sky-high offices of the ruler of Metropolis (as much a corporation as a city) and the pleasure gardens and athletic stadia of the privileged … and let’s not forget that the finale takes place on the rooftops of the cathedral.
A few years ago I received review copies of DIE NIBELUNGEN and METROPOLIS to review for FILMFAx and watched them practically back-to-back and was struck that METROPOLIS plays very much like part three of NIBELUNGEN. There are the same mythic archetypes for characters and the same sort of soap-operatic situations that prevail in mythology. METROPOLIS may not be science fiction as we have come to know it (but the genre literature of the time would hardly be recognized as sci-fi today, for that matter), but this misses the point that it was always a cautionary allegory kitted up in futurism, not actual science fiction.

>>Lang was the most powerful director in Germany, and a celebrity in his home country. This was a man who could do just about anything that he wanted to do as a filmmaker<<
And UFA was anxious to prove that they could do super-spectacles as well thas Hollywood, so they gave Lang carte blanche. They were as responsible for the film’s financial excesses as Lang was.

>>the acting is definitely a major problem with Metropolis.<<
The acting is of a piece with other German films of the time. The style was called Expressionism & called for the actor to express externally his inner emotions. Yes, it’s big, yes it’s hammy (only Conrad Veidt, to my mind successfully employed Expressionism), but it’s not bad. It’s just a style you’re not used to (and possibly better suited to the stage than the screen).

I may have seen one of the cut versions; I don’t remember any explanation or mention of missing footage.

And I understand that the acting was fitting for the time and movement, but even if it was perfect for the time, that doesn’t exempt the acting from feeling dated. The Passion of Joan of Arc, Napoléon, and Sunrise are three great examples from the era that do not feel dated whatsoever.

The symbolism and mise-en-scene were superb. I just felt that the film, as a whole, left something to be desired. This might be due to the fact that I found the imagery and symbolism so fantastic, and the basic plot intriguing enough. Basically, I liked enough of the movie to feel strongly about its merits, and wished that a few tweaks here and there were made to elevate it into something extraordinary.

Still, I recognize the film’s importance…and I need to track down a copy of Lang’s approved version.

It’s an absolute mess. The script is incoherent. I’m not sure if he’s commenting on totalitarianism, utopia, Marx or Freud. It’s a mess.

Luckily the visuals completely overwhelm the narrative and it is a glorious mess. They found some additional footage in Argentina last year so the saga of Metropolis lives on.

It’s a cool movie but yes, I was a bit disappointed in it as well. I found it to be waaaaay too dated, which is something maybe it can’t help since it was made in the twenties, but still, it is what it is. I appreciate and respect it for what it is and how it helped evolve sci-fi filmmaking, but probably don’t want to see it again.

Great movie. Doesn’t mean it’s not sloppy, or overlong, or a mess, but it’s great.

It has an Art Deco feel which makes it an art film in that sense despite the flaw in acting. I got to watch it once on a large screen with live music (a quartet with keyboard) and it proved to be a highly aesthetic and enjoyable experience. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts so it is a fine film in my opinion.

I saw the restored, longest-possible version and it really didn’t help much to pull it together as a film, because the lost scenes are replaced by stills and intertitles, which pretty much destroys the original pacing, whatever that pacing was.

I don’t like big anonymous DeMille-like crowd scenes, they make me nervous and I just feel like detail is being sacrificed for some overall spectacle effect.

For many of us, me included, seeing images from this film reproduced in books was probably one of our first cinematic experiences. I know it fascinated me as a boy. So it’s funny, because even seeing those images again makes me feel nostalgic in a way, but it’s not a silent film I can relate to all that well, not like Keaton or Dreyer or Murnau.

2 Justin – Interesting. I must have watched a shorter version, then. I don’t remember the intertitles interfering with my experience and the live music which accompanied the film probably helped pace the film. The crowd scenes, I think, is meant to instill and reinforce the feeling of alienation and discontent of the workers since the film is about dehumanization of individuals in a highly industrialized society where the mass is exploited by the privileged few. If I ever see it again, I will pay attention to the crowd scene, though, to see if details are being sacrificed for some overall spectacle effect.

>>And I understand that the acting was fitting for the time and movement, but even if it was perfect for the time, that doesn’t exempt the acting from feeling dated. The Passion of Joan of Arc, Napoléon, and Sunrise are three great examples from the era that do not feel dated whatsoever.<<
But neither PASSION, NAPOLEON or SUNRISE are German Expressionist films … The acting in METROPOLIS is specific not to just a certain time but a certain art movement in a certain country. While METROPOLIS is not fully an Expressionist film (like, say, CALIGARI) it does have Expressionist elements.

>>I saw the restored, longest-possible version and it really didn’t help much to pull it together as a film, because the lost scenes are replaced by stills and intertitles, which pretty much destroys the original pacing, whatever that pacing was.<<
Tru enough on the pacing (just as it is whith the “restored” GREED and – God help us – LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT). But the plot seemed more coherent to me and a lot of WTF? moments had rationale.
Definitely a flawed film, but not necessarily for some of the reasons usually cited.

Am i wrong or did they just discover more scenes thought lost. I think I read somewhere that they (whoever they are?) discovered extra footage and they previewed a more complete version recently in Germany. This may help the pacing and the storytelling.

Other than that I think it may be the most influential silent next to Birth of a nation and Nosferatu. Those two created the template for realism and horror respectivly and I think one can see the influence of Metropolis in alot of sci fi such as the cyber punk sub genre. It took science fiction very seriously and posited that with the increase of technology, society breaks down. A motif in much science fiction rooted in realism rather than space alien type stuff. Very beutiful movie. Was not dissappointed at all but it’s all just opinions right?

I’m feeling like I need to see it again some time because it’s been a while. I would probably check out the less ambitious, pre-restoration version.

AHA!
On July 1, 2008, Berlin film experts announced that a 16 mm reduction negative of the original cut of the film, which runs over 210 minutes in length, had been discovered in the archives of the film museum Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina.⁸⁹¹⁰ The find has been authenticated by film experts working for ZEITmagazin. The print is badly scratched and will require considerable restoration before it is viewable.¹¹ On July 3, 2008 the film with many lost scenes restored was shown to journalists in Argentina.¹²¹³ The rights holders of Metropolis, the F.W. Murnau Stiftung, later confirmed that the newly discovered footage largely completes the missing footage, except for a single scene which was badly damaged due to being at a reel end, although the new footage is said to be in a “deplorable” condition. They announced in February 2009 that they had begun restoration work on the rediscovered film.²

Passed from film distributor, to private collector, to an Art Foundation since 1928, The Museo del Cine received the copy of Metropolis in 1992, where it stayed ‘undiscovered’ in their archives. After hearing an anecdote by the cinema club manager, who years before had been surprised by how long a screening of this film had taken, the curator of the Museo del Cine and the director of the film department of the Museum of Latin American Art reviewed the film and discovered the missing scenes.¹⁴

Online sources have reported that this footage will appear on a new DVD and Blu-ray to be released in 2009.¹⁵ However, it is yet unclear whether or not the footage will be released as an extra feature or will be fully integrated into the film. Given the damaged state of the film discovered in Buenos Aires, extensive restoration will likely be needed before the film can finally be viewed as it was during its original release in 1927. (minus the single scene that was too damaged to repair)

A possible 9.5mm copy of the movie was found in 2005 in the film archive of Universidad de Chile. The copy has been sent to Germany for verification.¹⁶

Another possible copy, located in New Zealand shortly after the restoration was discovered but there has not been an update regarding its status.¹⁷

>>Online sources have reported that this footage will appear on a new DVD and Blu-ray to be released in 2009.<,
According to Rodrigo Brandao, it will more likely be 2010 … that may be based on it needing even more restoration tha initially thought.

<<<
Justin, I’d really urge checking out the version Kino currently offers, rather than the garbled version that had been the only one available for years.

That was the version I watched. I got their two-disc Niebelungen around the same time, and felt kind of the same way — apart from the iconic images I had been studying in books for years, there wasn’t much there that held my attention.

I really thing Metropolis is perfect for re-making, but probably not now-a-days…If someone would have re-made in the late 30’s, or 40’s, during the rise of Nazism, it could have been magnificent.

It could have even worked amidst the Cold War. Tarkovsky’s take on it might have been interesting.

I absolutely loved it…..It was little long but it didn’t bother me nor bored me….One of the best silent movies..

I absolutely loved it…..It was little long but it didn’t bother me nor bored me….One of the best silent movies..

>>I got their two-disc Niebelungen around the same time, and felt kind of the same way — apart from the iconic images I had been studying in books for years, there wasn’t much there that held my attention.<<
Even more so than METROPOLIS, NIBELUNGEN is very … er … deliberately paced. Add that to the very formal camera compositions in Part One & I can see how it might not be to everyone’s taste. Lang doesn’t seem to very emotionally involved in his characters here, either.

Its hard to be impressed with this ‘dated’ 1927 film, its “bad acting, bad plot, and extinct philosophies. But how could it not be? How can we be impressed by this film when we live in the days after Star Wars, 2001, Blade Runner, AI?

I believe that to best appreciate this film is to close your eyes for a minute and forget every sci-fi film you’ve ever seen, every modern and post modern philosophy you’ve studied, and all the “advances” in filmmaking. Put yourself in 1927. You are walking on a crowded street and you are going to the movies. You are going to see a film called Metropolis. Its Friday morning and you’ll be one of the first people in the United States to see this movie. You walk into the movie theater… and you watch Metropolis for the first time.

Now how do you think that would have felt like?

To me watching films is an experience one has to learn to… experience. Even watching the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still is an experience if you take yourself back to the 1950s. The same goes for Star Wars and 2001. These are great films that have stood the taste of time, but there is something very special and indescribable, maybe irreplaceable about watching a film, not for the first time, but when the film itself is new.

Well, Berjuan, METROPOLIS got a pretty chilly reception from both the critics & the public back in 1927 …
I think it’s magnificent visually, with brilliant symbollism and the story/message conveyed visually is excellent.
The story conveyed through the title-card, courtesy Thea von Harbou’s script, however, is a confusing mess.