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When we go to the theaters these days, in a post-Marvel, post-COVID world, to watch bright, flashy movies full of archetypal characters, quippy dialogue and easy resolutions, we're living in a world that has forgotten the magic of movies. This isn't to say that movie magic doesn't still happen; but somewhere along the line, we lost track of the fact that films as a concrete medium of expression was around for forty years before we ever heard an actor speak. We speak of "silent film" as a quaint and antique novelty, the realm of Charlie Chaplin and, uh... that's kind of it, as far as the modern consciousness of film is concerned. Just a stepping stone before "real" movies started being made... in 1977 with Star Wars. (As someone once told me.) But it's not true, is it? There were lots of great movies being made in the early 20th century that didn't have a single spoken word. While enthusiasts and film historians like the irreplacable Fritzi Kramer at Movies Silently will gladly point you to a wide range of forgotten classics, today we're going to talk about one of the era's most famous names: Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
It's hard to know where to start with Metropolis. It's a lot of things all at once: a triumph of special effects and cinematography, one of the all-time great early science fiction epics, and kinda muddled in terms of its overall theme. I suppose we could start with the routine film-school discussion: Beginning in 1919 with films like Harakiri and The Spiders, German filmmaker Fritz Lang was making movies in the immediate aftermath of World War I, which had left Germany, like the rest of Europe, devastated and struggling to rebuild. After a series of movies based on pulp horror villain Dr. Mabuse, as well as a two-parter adaptation of the Nibelungenlied myth cycle, Lang had built a reputation, with the help of his second wife Thea Von Harbou, as one of Germany's preeminent voices in cinema. It's this reputation that enabled him to make Metropolis, itself an adaptation of a book by Von Harbou, and launch himself into the kind of celebrity that kept him famous after he fled to America in the wake of the Nazi rise to power.
Hugely influential, the visual language and themes of Metropolis can be found far and wide. C-3PO from Star Wars is a clear visual reference to the robot from this film, featured prominently on the poster. The film is a regular source of inspiration in music, with acts ranging anywhere between Madonna to David Bowie paying homage to it. Osamu Tezuka (yes, the Astro Boy guy) claimed to have written the entirety of a manga also called Metropolis (or sometimes Robotic Angel) on the basis of a single still image he saw; while the manga is an absolute fever dream (as early post-war manga is wont to be) the (extremely loose) 2001 anime adaptation borrows much more from Fritz Lang's film and is honestly a work of genius in its own right.
With CGI and even outright "AI" being used for effects these days, the conversation on special effects in film seems to have almost completely dried up. I never hear anyone talk about innovation in modern superhero movies: everything is done on green screens. Practical effects seem to be dead in all except the indie scene. But practical effects, for a long time, were the only effect. Using carefully-constructed miniatures, Lang constructed a city of the future, the titular Metropolis, in the distant year of 2026. The centerpiece of the city is Babylon, the monstrous central tower that serves as the corporate headquarters for the city master, one Joh Fredersen, who rules over the city with an iron fist. The city, with its flashing lights and moving cars, is by far the film's greatest technological achievement, inspired by Lang's visit to New York City in 1924.
The city is divided into two levels: a glittering upper level, home to the carefree wealthy and their mindless entertainment, and a squalid lower level, a dark warren of caves, catacombs and vast subterranean dormitories, which are home to the tired, filthy masses of workers who operate the massive power facility that the city relies on to function. Somewhere in between is Rotwang, a brilliant scientist and apparent alchemist whose ancient home squats in the shadow of the city, thrust into a perpetual night as he plots his revenge against Joh for winning the heart of Hel, the woman they both loved years ago. That woman has since died, but she left behind a son, Freder, who lives a life of luxury in Babylon Tower. One day he spots Maria, a beautiful young woman from the undercity; following her, becomes aware of the horrible conditions down there. He resolves to do something about it, unaware that Rotwang is hatching a plan to use a robot, made in Maria's image via unexplained occult science, to destroy the city just to stick it to Joh.
On its surface, it's a really interesting thematic soup, with the gleaming upper city contrasted with the crumbling ancient tunnels beneath. Lang chose a variety of locations to demonstrate the varying strata of the city, from superhighways, luxury apartments, and theater-encrusted streets, to dank caverns, hellish industrial complexes, and an old cathedral, with a statue of the Grim Reaper standing watch. The obvious message of the haves and the have-nots, of the upper city treating the workers with disdain unaware or uncaring, that the city needs them to function, likely resonated in the decade following the Russian revolution and the rise of Communism. But its core message is as centrist as they come: Freder is positioned, and indeed does most of the positioning, as a median between the workers and their masters, a guy who has been on both sides with a direct line to the city's master. The conflict between the upper city and the lower is framed not as an underclass oppressed by the bourgeoisie, but as a fundamental misunderstanding between two peoples who are not as different as they think they are. It's a profoundly muddled message, one coming straight from Von Harbou, with whom Lang repeatedly disagreed with and they eventually split as Lang fled the Nazis and Von Harbou stayed to write movies for them.
For a long time about a quarter of the film was considered lost. Various attempts were made at putting the pieces together, most notably in 1984 when composer Giorgio Moroder made a really weird version with a new score guest starring everyone from Freddie Mercury to Pat Benatar. In the late aughts, someone found a mostly-complete copy of the film in a box somewhere in Argentina; two years of intensive restoration work later and the 2010 "Complete Metropolis" was released, a version that's probably as close as we're going to get to a full restoration. Some of the new scenes are in poor condition, but were cleaned up as best was was possible at the time; nevertheless, I think there's room for a new version with new technology.
In spite of its mixed messaging and long years of sad disrepair, Metropolis remains one of the greats of the era, a sort of Star Wars of
its day, in every sense: a big-budget sci-fi romp with lots of
innovative special effects, a mix of big-name actors and brand new
talent (including Brigitte Helm, who was just 17 when they started
filming) and, finally, a story that has all the moral weight of a cream
pie falling on the floor. But I could watch Metropolis again and again, no matter how insipid its finale comes to be; because its messaging doesn't actually matter, when it's such a visual and technical feast.
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