Metropolis (1927)

Mollie Bowman, Tori Hyder and Bailey Fallon

Summary

Metropolis is about a futuristic high rise city that is meant to look like a Weimar republic era city. It is told through the speed of a symphony with three movements like a classical concerto (Prelude, Intermezzo and Furiosa). Freder, the protagonist, is the privileged son of Joh Frederson, who is the master of Metropolis. Freder meets Maria and all of the poor children of the lower levels of Metropolis when she brings them to the upper levels. Freder follows her down to the depths and witnesses an explosion. Class traitor Grot, the Heart Machine foreman, reveals a pattern of explosions in the underground factory which Joh Frederson, Freder’s father, seeks to put an end to. After witnessing the explosion, Freder wants to help the workers so he switches places with worker 11811 and starts doing shifts on the machine. After his shift, he watches Maria preach to the workers and is inspired to help her. Soon, Frederson looks to The Inventor, Rotwang, to decipher the codes that workers speak in to organize their meetings. When there, Rotwang shows him a Machine Girl he built to resurrect Hel, the mother of Freder and unrequited love of Rotwang, who died during childbirth. Frederson and Rotwang soon discover that Maria is the face of the workers’ revolution and Frederson has Rotwang kidnap Maria and make the Machine Girl a copy of her. They have this false maria elicit the workers to leave their children behind, storm the factories, and destroy them. However, this causes flooding in the lower levels, and the children are trapped there. Eventually, the real Maria escapes Rotwang and makes her way down to the lower levels and attempts to save the children. Freder joins her there and they take the kids up to the higher level. The false Maria then leads the workers to the upper levels where they realize they forget their children. The workers then burn Machine Maria at the stake, melting her human flesh to reveal that she is in fact the machine girl. While this is going on, Freder is battling Rotwang, as he believes that the real Maria is being burned. This battle results in the death of Rotwang. The workers are then reunited with their children, and the real Maria finally inspires Freder to become the mediator between the head – his father – and the hand – the workers. 

 

Transnational Elements

Metropolis offers one of the clearest examples of blending between national and transnational film. The film’s director, Fritz Lang is Austrian-German, the cast and crew are mostly German, the original language is German, the studios (Babelsberg and UFA) that produced it are German, it is filmed mostly in Germany, and it has an original soundtrack by German composer Gottfried Huppertz. However, it is a silent film, which brings back into light our discussion of gesture as a ‘universal language.’ Indeed, the film may well be understood with the help of a few intertitles, making it appeal to non-German speakers. The intertitles themselves have also been translated to other languages such as English so that there is no true language barrier in this film. Additionally, Metropolis is available on YouTube and Kanopy, making it accessible to practically anyone with access to a device and the internet. Further, the film’s extensive history renders it a product of international cooperation, without which we would not have the film today. Originally released in Berlin in 1927, Metropolis made its way to the United States and the United Kingdom the same year, but as versions that were substantially edited and reduced from the initial 153-minute cut. For many decades to follow, much of the original film was thought to be lost. However, in 1984, Italian composer Giorgio Moroder compiled restored versions of the film and added a new modern soundtrack with music from popular artists like Freddie Mercury. From 2001 to 2006, cinephiles from around the globe worked together to locate lost or damaged versions of the original film from museums and archives in Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany. In 2010, a version that most accurately reflects the original cut, aided by the original score, premiered at the Friedrichstadt-Palast theatre in Berlin and in Los Angeles later the same year. This is the version that is most widely viewed today. Such an international effort permanently transforms what was once a very German film, into a transnational gem. 

 

German Expressionism

This is an artistic genre that originated in Europe, specifically Germany, in the 1920s. It focused on creating subjective and emotional responses to films through contrasting colors, sharp angles, visual distortion, and very expressive performances. Its goal was to reject realism in order to create this emotional response to the film and tried to express the inner turmoils of the people in Germany during that era. In Metropolis, the lavish set designs, stark contrasts between black and white, jagged movements, and expressive performances all showcase the use of German Expressionism. 

 

 

Clip Analysis

This scene occurs about fifteen minutes into the film and follows Freder as he goes into the depths of Metropolis in order to find Maria. Freder, the son of the creator of Metropolis, has lived a rich and pleasant life; he has never had to work and is constantly lounging and playing in the pleasure gardens. This scene is the first time that he sees the conditions of the workers that keep Metropolis running. He is struck with horror as he watches the machine malfunction and, as workers are killed or get injured, he imagines that they are being sacrificed to Moloch, the god of child sacrifice. This scene is very striking and immediately sets the tone and conflict of the rest of the film. Freder has lived in blissful ignorance of the horrible conditions of the working people, and now that he has been exposed to it, he cannot revert back to who he was. This moment pushes him to join Maria to fight for the workers and rebel against his father. The costuming in this scene is very striking, as all of the workers are dressed in black, but Freder is in white. This highlights his ignorance to the hidden horrors of his father’s Metropolis through the stark visual contrast between the depths and Freder himself. The design and choreography are also very interesting; the machine is towering and the movements of the workers are sharp and angled. This movement and set design portrays the way that the workers are seen as replaceable parts of the machine itself, as after the incident, they are immediately replaced by a new group of workers. However, the most striking part of this scene is when Freder imagines the temple of Moloch. This portrays that the work that these people are doing is no different than them being forced to sacrifice themselves. It is haunting to watch the workers march their way up the steps of the temple into the fire, just as they march into their shifts at the beginning of the film. Because of the class divide and structure of Metropolis, they have almost no choice but to sacrifice themselves to the machines for the benefit of the wealthy. Without this scene, the threat of the working conditions would not be as strong and the plot would not be able to kick off. Freder needs to be exposed to these horrible conditions so that he can be inspired to fight against them and become the mediator between the head and the hand. 

 

Larger Themes

The main larger themes are exploitation and mass production. The exploitation is portrayed through the robotic movements of the workers, as well as the absurd length of their shifts. When Freder takes the place of one of the workers, he is basically unable to complete the shift without collapsing due to the physical strain over ten hours. For mass production, not only is the work itself mass production, but the workers are. They all wear the same clothes, make the same movements, and are numbered rather than named. Because of their class and working conditions, they are no longer individuals, but part of the larger mass of the working class. 

 

Roger Ebert on Metropolis

Ebert showcases some of Metropolis’ most awe-inspiring aspects. He recalls that the production took the work of 25,000 extras wading for hours in cold water and that Brigitte Helm (Maria) was subject to real flames and jumped from substantial heights for stunt scenes. He reminds us that visual effects need not require state-of-the-art technology as the film’s effects specialist Eugene Schüfftan used mini sets and mirrors to produce the effects we see on screen. Though these effects may seem crude and elementary to the modern eye, Ebert argues that their oddity is part of what makes them so effective today; they are confusing and weird, which only adds to the general look and feel of the film. Additionally, he notes that many of today’s science fiction tropes like the mad scientist and robots posing as humans hail from this film. To Ebert, Metropolis truly is one of the great movies. 

 

References

 

Ebert, Roger. The Great Movies. New York, Broadway Books, 2002.

 

“What Is German Expressionism? A Beginner’s Guide.” Movements In Film, 

www.movementsinfilm.com/german-expressionism.