The Haunting World of Metropolis Is Not Unlike Ours
Metropolis has been and will remain to be one of the pioneering forces in cinema (science fiction in particular) and a is revered as a wildly innovative depiction of early 20th century technological advances. It is a beautiful, yet slightly insidious, vintage yet still relevant illustration of the continually-developing relationship between man and machine, and also presents an insightful narrative of the social hierarchy of a dystopian future that may not be as far from the future as we think. While the film can be slow and seem disjointed at times, it quickly picks up at full-speed after the first hour and jumps right into the action and chaos that ensues in a riot-like fashion. The film is one of director Fritz Langâs (the âMaster of Darknessâ) finest works, and at the time was the most expensive film ever produced (which, while crazy, is not surprising considering hardly any other large productions had been released at the time). Brigitte Helm and Gustav Frohlich, the filmâs leading acts, were also launched into fame after the film released, solidifying them as the silent film actors of the Weimar republic era. Metropolis seemed like an overly-dramatic, silly production at first (what with the animated acting to replace the absence of spoken words), but touches upon morals and topics that are still applicable 90 years after its original release and was an original adapter of many new filmmaking techniques that were never-before-seen at the time.
In the year 2026, an unnamed city (presumably the âMetropolisâ) is inhabited by the privileged and wealthy, where they live carefree lives in a bustling, innovative landscape where planes fly close overhead and the streets are filled with expensive vehicles. Much to this elite groupâs ignorance, the only way their city is powered is by another place just below them: an underground city filled with workers who toil away in dangerous conditions to keep the city above functioning at such a high technological level. One man controls both cities, Joh Fredersen, who dwells in the city above, and when his son Freder witnesses the conditions below them, he is shocked and dismayed. A key player attempting to inform the workers of the gravity of their placement is Maria, a saint-like woman who brings worker children to the city above to reveal the difference in living conditions. Seeing that the workers respond to Maria in such a strong way, Joh hatches a plan with a local scientist kook to create a robot with Mariaâs visage, send her down to the world below, and incite a chaotic revolt on the world above, thus justifying to people of both cities why they have order. Just this happens, and while the people of the underground city are storming the city above, they fail to realize theyâve left their children in the city below and while they destroy the âHeart Machineâ (the machine that powers the whole above city), this causes the underground city to flood with the children hastily fleeing. The film concludes with the workers and Joh Fredersen coming to a resolution that âThe Mediator Between The Head (the above ground world) and The Hands (the below ground workers) Must Be The Heart,â with Johâs son Freder as âThe Heart.â
This overall message is so relevant in todayâs times not just from creative aspects like in the fashion industry or the trickling down of expressionist film techniques in todayâs cinema, but in the relationship between the upper and lower classes of today. The fact that this film was released in a time where the Nazi regime was in its early formation stages (which was a party that believed in anti-communist/capitalist sentiment), and Hitler himself was said to be a fan of the work, fancying himself as a Freder-like character. In this model of the social landscape of the cities in Metropolis, Hitler would essentially see himself as the elevator between the two places, the mediator between the high and the low class.
In the Hitler-commissioned propaganda film Triumph des Willens, directed by Leni Riefenstahl, the Nazi party took cinematography techniques from Metropolis like aerial shots of large crowds, the use of percussion to evoke feelings of leadership, and Hitler being hailed as a crusade-like figure. The use of âcrafty editing and carefully choreographed shotsâ were the give-away factors in exposing that this film is manipulative and misleading, as stated by William K. Boland in his article for an Inquiries Journal (Boland, W.K.). The film attempted to âconvince the German people of the Nazi Partyâs ânobleâ causeâ which, in reality represented âevery ideal the original Metropolis stood againstâ (Boland, W.K.). Below is a snippet from the film depicting this manipulated representation the regime presents.
A big difference between Triumph and Metropolis is the unsuccessful attempt to make Triumph seem like an unbiased documentary, whereas Metropolis is obviously a work of fiction designed to make you feel and believe a certain way. Metropolisâs messages of elitism are what makes the film as impactful as it was at the time and continue to hail it as âfreshly urgentâ by the New York Times (Scott, A.O.). The article also touches upon the âbrutal inequality that makes the machine runâ as a major flaw of elitism, while the conclusion of the film shows a society that does not wish to topple the system, but to work within it by communicating and stressing the needs of both the upper and lower classes (Scott, A. O.). The film does not have a Hunger Games-like view on the patriarchy that aims to destroy the social order, it exemplifies the fact that the lower class needs ruling, the upper class is not always fit to rule them, so they need a mediator presence to achieve compromise.
The imagery in Metropolis is not only hauntingly beautiful, but reminiscent of biblical stories and characters throughout. Freder not only depicts a Jesus-like character, but the Metropolis itself closely resembles the biblical city of Babylon, and Maria personifies the âWhore of Babylonâ character spoken about in Babylonian prophecies.
Images like these are used to evoke a sense of apocalyptic chaos and help the audience be able to mentally relate the main character Maria to an ominous character like the âWhore of Babylon,â thus helping us to place traits on her overall character and motives.
Some of Metropolisâs more prevalent themes include that of technological innovations and its influences on our constantly evolving view of futuristic fashion on red carpets and in popular culture around the world. Riccardo Tisci of French-based brand Givenchy and Italian-based Versaceâs Donatella both presented spring/summer collections a few years ago that âchannelled the movieâs gothic-industrial vibeâ with âmetal ridge details, flaring on the hip, and accentuated cups on corseted topsâ which a fashion blogger from The Guardian described as âfem-bot chicâ (Hutchinson, P). The filmâs blending of beauty, sex, corruption and immorality has been mimicked in a wide array of global pop culture pieces, one of them being in Madonnaâs music video for âExpress Yourselfâ where she exudes Maria-like visages and ends with virtually the same quote from the end of Metropolis. The blockbuster hit Titanic also depicts a very similar class structure with first, second and third classes of the boat, with literally the third class being below the waterline of the boat and flooding first when the ship is sinking, very similarly to Metropolis. The fashions of the lower class passengers in Titanic also strikingly resemble the workers from Metropolis with their loose fitting button-up shirts and trousers, even Leonardo DiCaprioâs character Jack from Titanic looks almost identical in hairstyle and dress as Freder in Metropolis.Â
Metropolis is often hailed as the first science fiction film ever created, and is seen as the first motion picture depicting technological advances of the age. Matt Novak from Smithsonianmag.com found the June 1927 edition of Science and Invention, which featured an inside look behind the magic of Metropolis and how the film was created. It includes the âuse of miniatures, sparks of electricity with forced perspective and television-telephones,â which, of the few filmmaking techniques of the time, was even unheard of (Novak, M.). The article itself was titled âMetropolis - A Movie Based on Science,â which at the time was probably the only theme anyone ever focused on, but today the technological scenarios seem near-archaic (Novak, M). Really the only scene of real innovative technology would be the iconic one when the robot form of Maria is being created in a Frankenstein-like fashion. Itâs interesting that a film so focused on revolt and a corrupt system in 90% of its scenes is remembered by most of the time as THE movie about science.
While the city depicted in Metropolis does not have a specific name, it closely resembles Berlin, which was âone of the worldâs cultural centersâ of the 1920s, as Charles Runnette describes in a Wall Street Journal article, and was a city âobsessed with the arts, caught up in sĂ©ances, striptease acts and transvestite ballsâ (Runnette, C.). Berlin today is not much different than its counterpart nearly 100 years ago, with a lively art, music, and nightlife scene reminiscent of the 20s with burlesques and soirees to match. Runnette even speaks of the home of an old Danish silent movie actress named Asta Nielsen being turned into an affordable bed and breakfast with â18-foot ceilings, an old cage elevator and crystal chandeliersâ and also includes âWi-Fi and fairly up-to-date bathroomsâ (Runnette, C). Berlin, and Germany today for that matter, is a fairly progressive culture that does not typically look to the past (which, I mean, how could they?) but also one which likes the idea of the grander days of the 20s infused with their everyday life.
When Metropolis was originally released, it did not garner nearly the amount of critical acclaim that is associated with it today. According to Wikipedia, many critics did not like the dark, harsh light that Metropolis put on technological advances setting us back. What they didnât see at the time was the long-term effects that the film would have on later filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock and Tim Burton, and I think thatâs what Fritz Lang was trying to create with his piece: an at-the-time bizarre and dark story of corruption that would be examined and mimicked in later films. He wanted to discuss a broader topic surround the film, not of science inventions simply because itâs on the surface, but about political and socio-economical issues that were far more ahead of its time, and ended up being almost prophetic with his plot.
Overall, I really did enjoy this film. It was very slow at first, mainly talking about the backstories of the characters and their lives in the bustling city above and the harsh city below, but it gave a good leeway into the second half of the film, which was action-packed and gripping at times. The use of shadows and mise en scene to evoke an uneasy feeling were very effective in helping guide me as a viewer through what was happening in the plot and what was to come. It was also kind of a fun mind game to see if I could decipher what was happening when there were no spoken words, and it was actually fairly easy to get back on track as a viewer and understand the emotions the characters were evoking. German expressionism as a film and art movement has been so influential and trickles down into some of the greatest classic films of our time, including Citizen Kane and Blade Runner, and this is a great example of early pioneering efforts of this art form.
A few of the negatives that really struck me throughout the film include the musical score used, and the longevity of some of the action scenes. Since I watched the two and a half hour long version, some scenes, like the sequence where the underground city is being flooded and children are running out to the square to Maria, whoâs ringing a large bell to signal everyone to evacuate, were way, way too long and drawn out. Maybe this is just a characteristic of silent films, but we donât need to see 10 minutes of children running out of their homes and of the water level of the city rising. The shorter version of the film probably cut long drawn-out scenes like this so as to not lose the viewer. The musical score utilized was also not cohesive with what was playing out on the screen: when Joh is told that his son Freder was in the mob of the underground workers, a dramatic, serendipitous soundtrack (like one you would hear in a cheesy love movie) played in the background, which to me seemed overdramatic and confusing to the point where I didnât know what to feel. I almost wished I would have tried to watch with the mute on. Other than these few flaws, the rest of the film was very well-done and fantastic.Â
Metropolis will be forever solidified in silent film history as one of the greats. The socio-economic climate of Germany at the time helped set the stage for the types of issues and themes the film narrates, including social class corruptions, elitism, dictatorships, and overall chaotic societies filled with unrest. Also, though many have never heard of the film, itâs lasting impact on the fashion, science fiction, and film communities will continue to be seen for a very long time.
Works Cited
Boland, W. K. (2010). "Hitler's Use of Film in Germany, Leading up to and During World War II." Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse, 2(03). Retrieved fromhttp://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=206
Hutchinson, P. (2012, February 27). Future-proof: How Metropolis still inspires fashion ... Retrieved October 22, 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2012/feb/27/metropolis-inspires-the-fashion-world
Novak, M. (2012, July 19). 1927 Magazine Looks at Metropolis, âA Movie Based On ... Retrieved October 22, 2016, from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1927-magazine-looks-at-metropolis-a-movie-based-on-science-4328353/Â
Runnette, C. (2012, January 14). Experiencing the 1920s in Berlin, Germany - WSJ. Retrieved October 22, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203471004577141353667947254
Scott, A. O. (2010, October 21). Full Vision of 'Metropolis' Includes Lang's Vivid Wit. Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/movies/22metropolis.html?_r=0
