Metropolis. 1926. Directed by Fritz Lang.

(3/10/00)

Metropolis is always enjoyable. It grabs the attention by its visual conception of a futuristic city and holds it by good storytelling. There are so many fascinating moments: the mysterious plans found on the bodies of the workers, Rotwang's abduction of Maria in which he trains his flashlight's (or some kind of light's) beam on her, the creation of the robot, the flooding of the city, the fight with Rotwang on the roof of the cathedral. It's continually inventive, continually interesting.

There is a really beautiful sense of design in the early parts of the film. I'm thinking of the masses of workers going towards the elevators, the giant machines. And it is exhilarating. But then we come to Rotwang's home and we're in a totally different world. Rotwang's house is like something out of The Golem. It is old, hinting of ancient knowledge and ancient secrets--which is puzzling because Rotwang is an inventor working on modern technological marvels.

I have a problem with Metropolis. There is something spatially wrong with it. By that I mean that I find it difficult to relate things to each other. There are these vast views of the great city, but then we see Rotwang's house and it is hard to locate it, in my mind, in relation to such things as Fredersen's office. The same thing with the cathesral--is it in the worker's city or above the ground? We only see workers in at at first and Maria tells Fredersen's son to meet her there, so it could be in the former, but at the end when the crowds approach it seems clear that it is above ground. Rotwang has a tunnel down to the catacombs which are below the workers' city which is below the machine rooms which are below ground. It is difficult to think of the tunnel going down that far. There is one scene in which we see cars on the ground and it just looks out of place. And the workers' city looks as if it has regular buildings which would be out of place under ground. The film is confusing in a spatial sense.

Metropolis is a film about men and machines. The workers are de-humanized, turned into machines. Fredersen plans to replace them with robots. The robot is made to imitate a human--Maria. One fascinating touch is that Rotwang has one mechanical hand; he is the perfect image of man and machine merging.

Brigitte Helm has a tour de force, playing both the real Maria and the false Maria. The look alike, yet they are about as opposite as they can be. One is totally good and the other is evil incarnate. Helm plays what seems like a female version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
John Fredersen, master of Metropolis, seems to me to be the most interesting character in the film. He is dynamic and has presence. His son, supposedly the hero, seems something of a simp. Maybe it's because we first see him at play in a garden of the idle rich, but even though he obviously means well he doesn't seem very forceful. He even passes out when he sees the false Maria with his father.

It's interesting that at the meetings in the catacombs all the workers that we see are male. The only female is Maria who wields a hell of a lot of influence over all these men. It appears that the workers' city is completely populated by men, although later on when they tear up the place we see women too. But the image I remember is Maria acting as priestess to a crowd of men and nothing but men.

When they revolt the workers become a great natural force, something like a tidal wave. The film certainly doesn't speak well for the proletariat in that they are so easily influenced. When Maria urges peace they are patient; when the false Maria tells them to riot, they riot. The masses are presented here as so irrational as to destroy their own city, completely forgetting about their children.

The end when Fredersen and the foreman shake hands is well-acted. They actually give some poignancy to the scene. After the cdrisis has passed both men want to make up, but they are tentative about it. The son manages to help them surmount their hesitancy.