CineBooks' Motion Picture Guide Review: 4.0 stars out of 5
120 min, No rating, Black & White, Available on videocassette and laserdisc
Director Fritz Lang was inspired to make METROPOLIS when, while visiting New York, he first saw the vast and seemingly endless peaks and canyons of skyscrapers from the deck of his ship. His wife, Thea von Harbou, at his suggestion, wrote a futuristic novel (some historians believe the screenplay came first) and the director, using all of his considerable skills, eventually put it on film. The result was the biggest production of the silent era (surpassing even the mighty INTOLERANCE, 1916 and ROBIN HOOD, 1922, as well as Lang's earlier two-part DIE NIBELUNGEN, comprising SIEGFRIED and KRIEMHILD'S REVENGE).
Synopsis
Futuristic city. The story is set in the year 2000, and tells of a mighty city which is ruled by Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel), a heartless capitalist, whose only son Freder (Gustav Fr÷hlich) lives an idyllic life, enjoying the beautifully sculptured gardens, which are his birthright. Then one day he meets Maria (Helm), a saintly figure who cares for the children of the slaves who toil in the workers' city below to keep the wheels of industry rolling. Fr÷hlich follows her and is appalled to see the conditions that exist there. Returning to the surface, he confronts his father, and when he's told that that's the way things are, he decides to desert his class and become one with his downtrodden brethren.
Humanity replaced. Before long, Fr÷hlich is invited to attend a meeting where the Christ-like Helm is addressing the workers and imploring them to reject the use of violence to improve their lot, and to think in terms of love and the Savior who will some day come in the form of a mediator. But even this minor act of defiance is too much for Abel, who has observed the speech in the company of Rotwang (brilliantly played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge) his mad scientist hireling. Given the green light to do his worst, Klein-Rogge abducts Helm, creates a robot in her image, and programs it to return and lead the workers in a revolt.
Forces unite. Then follows some truly spectacular footage in which the lower city is flooded as a means of making the "subhuman" populace who dwell there forever subservient. Fr÷hlich, however, rescues the real Helm, and together they manage to save the children. Then, fearing that his own son may have been killed in the madness, Abel surveys the ruins and comes to the realization that Helm was right, and that love is the most important of human emotions. The picture ends with Klein-Rogge's death and the capitalist shaking the hand of the representative of labor.
Critique
Visual masterpiece. The storyline may at times seem a bit silly, but this is a visual work of art and the narrative is really only an excuse for Lang to overwhelm us with his masses of humanity forming incredible geometric patterns, his expressionistic moods, and his art-nouveau sets and futuristic creations which leave the viewer stunned.
The special effects astound to this day, and much of the credit for this must go to Eugen Schⁿfftan, who invented the "Schufftan Process"ùan ingenious mirror device that gave miniatures the appearance of enormous buildings which could be used as backdrops to live action. (Schⁿfftan later won an Oscar for his cinematography on THE HUSTLER, 1961). Added to all this technical achievement , of course, is enough pure, melodramatic thrills to satisfy any devotee of the Saturday afternoon western, or for that matter, the serial genre.
Background
Initial reception. Critics of the time (and, later, historians) widely condemned the picture because of its sociopolitical content. English writer H.G. Wells (no slouch at futuristic themes himself) was offended by the message he saw in the film that machines might make slaves of people. Quite the reverse, he averred. Others objected to the suggestion that the differences between capital and labor could be resolved through charity (the head and the hands need the heart as mediator). Lang himself escaped most such criticism; people were eager to place the blame for the picture's message on von Harbou, whose sloppily sentimental novelization was published after the film's release.
Perhaps the picture appeared in the wrong temporal context: Endless toil was not the problem in depression-ridden Germany during the 1920s; finding something at which to toil was the problem. METROPOLIS' socio-political content would have seemed relevant to the Luddites of the early 19th century, who had smashed the machines that displaced their labor in the English textile mills, machines that condemned them not to the slavery of endless toil, but to that of poverty and purposelessness. Nor would the message have seemed so unlikely at a later time, when the governments of great nations deliberately avoided automating some industries in order to give their people useful work to do (overpopulated India had an oil refinery redesigned after purchasing it from the US; the refinery had not required enough human hands for its operation).
Enormous production. Two years in the making, METROPOLIS did its part to help create labor; Lang hired 1,000 unemployed men who were willing to have their heads shaved for the tower of Babel scene, and wanted to hire 5,000 more (this striking segment, like the rest of the film, was shot at the aptly named Neubabelsberg studio of UFA). In all, approximately two-million feet of film were shot, and 25,000 actors, 11,000 actresses and 750 children were part of the project.
Nazi offer declined. As a result of the film, Lang was summoned before Dr. Josef Goebbels in the early thirties (the propagandist had seen METROPOLIS with Adolf Hitler when it was first released) and was offered the position of head of the entire German film industry. The director told the Nazi that he was "tickled pink," honored beyond words, in fact. Then he took his leave, packed everything of value he could find, and grabbed a plane for Paris. His wife, writer von Harbou, remained behind and became a Nazi.
Film altered in release. The monumental picture no longer exists in its original 17-reel form; even on its initial English release, it was severely edited, whole sub-plots being excised for fear of censorship.
In 1984, Giorgio Moroder re-released METROPOLIS with new tintings, new title cards, and a repulsive rock score (the score featured Pat Benatar, Loverboy, and Queen, the latter of which also ruined the 1980 version of FLASH GORDON). Moroder must be given credit for bringing added life to this classic and initiating a new audience of teenagers to the film, but he should have stuck with his own synthesized score.