Mein gott, I had forgotten how incredible this movie is. It has influenced many tropes that have been repeated not only in movies and TV, but have formed the basis of the sci-fi zeitgeist for the last century. You don't need to have seen this movie to recognise it's elements, because they have seeped into so much later fiction of all kinds. The futuristic upper levels, the dank blocks of the lower levels, the mad scientist's lair, the mistaken identities, the well meaning but twisted tyrant, all have been repeated countless times in the last hundred years after this film. I urge you to read Roger Ebert's fantastic review of this movie, to which this one can only really be a shadow.
The story follows Freder, the son of the ruler of the huge city of Metropolis. He has been brought up in seclusion, frolicking with scantily clad women in a garden paradise (complete with an impressive array of exotic bird life), while his father runs the city and countless workers toil in the under-city, slaving to keep the heart machine running. He falls for Maria, who looks after the children of the workers, and soon is intent on helping the workers out. This creates conflict, obviously, and there is the added complication of the mad scientist who has built a sentient robot and who is still grieving Freder's mother's death. Oh yeah, and Freder's dad is extremely protective, and ends up sending a tall creepy spy after him.
The version I watched had a series of lost scenes added, from a copy of the film that was near-complete (that was found in Argentina, I think). There is still a missing part where Freder's dad and the mad scientist have a fight that I'd love to see, but the movie is now nearly complete. With all the new scenes, the film has become much more complex, as it now explores the several mistaken identities as well as the base sci-fi story that features a Frankenstein's monster and class struggles.
The sets are brilliantly imagined, and huge in their construction. The heart machine and the vast under-city street set are particularly impressive. One of my favourite scenes was where we watch, from a fixed camera position (the point of view of a watching Freder), as a team of workers work the levers on the heat machine. It is layed out a little like a pyramid, with several floors (each of which have stalls for each worker, and rows of levers). As the people toil, there is a problem with the machine, and pressure begins to build. After a huge explosion, the whole structure morphs into the shape of some kind of satanic sphinx, and Freder watches in horror as the workers march slowly into it's open maw, and the gates of hell. His view then wobbles back into reality, and we see the burn marks, and the masses of dead and dying men being carried away on stretchers. Possibly most disturbing of all, as soon as the bodies have been cleared the machine starts up again, and a new set of workers hurry to fill the empty spaces. The effects used here are superb, as well as the use of steam and fire in the machine, and all the moving parts must have been a nightmare to build and have working simultaneously. The other huge set-piece, the under-city street (complete with sculpture, working doors and lights in flats, and an industrial sized working elevator that we see taking whole teams of workers up and down) is equally, if not more, impressive. Towards the end of the movie the lower levels of Metropolis flood, and we actually see it happening - that's right, the whole set begins to fill with water, and we see the actors wade through waist height gushing water in a set the size of a football pitch. All of this was really built, and it amazes me that so much trouble was gone to, so early in cinemas life.
The sets are all ridiculously original for the time, depicting scenes the like of which had only been described in literature. The models and pictures used for the towering sky scrapers (and raised streets, railroads, and the odd bi-plane flying about between buildings) of the upper levels of Metropolis are amazing, almost on par (and I'm not just saying this) with Blade Runner, which came out over 50 years later.
It's a very visual movie. There are few hidden meanings, as most themes are fully explored. Very few inter-titles are used, with the actors often talking without their use when it is clear what the sort of thing they are saying is. Being a silent film, the story telling is mainly visual, with the accompanying music changing gradually depending on the tone of the scene, or occasionally the sound of a bell playing when a bell is struck in the film, etc.
Darkness and light are used effectively to aid portrayal of character and place personality. This all seems obvious to us now, but back then a lot of this sort of thing was pretty ground breaking. The spy that Freder's father sends after him is always standing in shadow, tall and leaning forward slightly like a skeleton on a rack. Maria is bathed in light as she gives speeches and, most notably, when Freder first sees her (in this scene she stands amid children with a halo of light behind her, like the Virgin Mary or something). The use of light is later turned on it's head when Maria is being hunted down and is being chased by a spotlight, in a scene much like the original 'The War of the Worlds' movie. The acting is good too, as far as I can tell. All the characters are very expressive, and they interact nicely (even the action sequences aren't as stilted as they usually are in films this old).
The moral is simple, and I don't think there are any hidden points to the movie, but it is saved from being cliche by being so visually perfect, and creating tropes that have become cemented in filmography over the last century. What, possibly, I love most is that the upper class are not totally evil. They run everything, but they genuinely believe that they're doing good. They're just greedy (because they're people) and they don't allow themselves to be aware of the horrors that they inflict upon the people below them. It's neither clever nor original to think of the people in power as any different from ourselves. Conspiracy theories are a little like religion, as they allow people to blame everything that happens to them or someone else (weather it be the Cigarette Smoking Man or God) when really the people in charge are just as useless and unhappy as the rest of us. On the other side, the workers aren't portrayed as undertaking a perfect revolution. They get all riled up by the fake-Maria, and then make mistakes. After destroying the heart machine, they are so overjoyed at their new-found power at having destroyed what they have been toiling under for their entire lives, that they start dancing around the wreckage, forgetting that the machine is what keeps the under-city from flooding, and that all their children are still down there. When they discover their error, they blame not-Maria as she is the closest thing they have left to an authority figure. No matter that this is the future; rich and poor, they're all just people.
If this was 1927, I'd have given this movie a 100. I feel kind of bad about that, because it's getting a lower rating now, and I try and judge movies not by date, but by quality. It has started so much, and it was so original, but so many films have done what it has done, and done it better. If it was made last year, and the effects were on par with other movies of today, it would have gone in the 40s or 30s. I try and take into consideration when this film was made, and how ground breaking it was, and I think I do, but I just can't bring myself to rate it higher than, say 'Star Wars'. So I try and go for the middle ground, and I hope that's OK with it.
Hell, and if you're not, what are you going to do?
A fantastic movie. One that I think any film student should watch, and any self-respecting sci-fi fan to have at least heard of. It's a timeless tale told beautifully.
The version I watched had a series of lost scenes added, from a copy of the film that was near-complete (that was found in Argentina, I think). There is still a missing part where Freder's dad and the mad scientist have a fight that I'd love to see, but the movie is now nearly complete. With all the new scenes, the film has become much more complex, as it now explores the several mistaken identities as well as the base sci-fi story that features a Frankenstein's monster and class struggles.
The sets are brilliantly imagined, and huge in their construction. The heart machine and the vast under-city street set are particularly impressive. One of my favourite scenes was where we watch, from a fixed camera position (the point of view of a watching Freder), as a team of workers work the levers on the heat machine. It is layed out a little like a pyramid, with several floors (each of which have stalls for each worker, and rows of levers). As the people toil, there is a problem with the machine, and pressure begins to build. After a huge explosion, the whole structure morphs into the shape of some kind of satanic sphinx, and Freder watches in horror as the workers march slowly into it's open maw, and the gates of hell. His view then wobbles back into reality, and we see the burn marks, and the masses of dead and dying men being carried away on stretchers. Possibly most disturbing of all, as soon as the bodies have been cleared the machine starts up again, and a new set of workers hurry to fill the empty spaces. The effects used here are superb, as well as the use of steam and fire in the machine, and all the moving parts must have been a nightmare to build and have working simultaneously. The other huge set-piece, the under-city street (complete with sculpture, working doors and lights in flats, and an industrial sized working elevator that we see taking whole teams of workers up and down) is equally, if not more, impressive. Towards the end of the movie the lower levels of Metropolis flood, and we actually see it happening - that's right, the whole set begins to fill with water, and we see the actors wade through waist height gushing water in a set the size of a football pitch. All of this was really built, and it amazes me that so much trouble was gone to, so early in cinemas life.
The sets are all ridiculously original for the time, depicting scenes the like of which had only been described in literature. The models and pictures used for the towering sky scrapers (and raised streets, railroads, and the odd bi-plane flying about between buildings) of the upper levels of Metropolis are amazing, almost on par (and I'm not just saying this) with Blade Runner, which came out over 50 years later.
It's a very visual movie. There are few hidden meanings, as most themes are fully explored. Very few inter-titles are used, with the actors often talking without their use when it is clear what the sort of thing they are saying is. Being a silent film, the story telling is mainly visual, with the accompanying music changing gradually depending on the tone of the scene, or occasionally the sound of a bell playing when a bell is struck in the film, etc.
Darkness and light are used effectively to aid portrayal of character and place personality. This all seems obvious to us now, but back then a lot of this sort of thing was pretty ground breaking. The spy that Freder's father sends after him is always standing in shadow, tall and leaning forward slightly like a skeleton on a rack. Maria is bathed in light as she gives speeches and, most notably, when Freder first sees her (in this scene she stands amid children with a halo of light behind her, like the Virgin Mary or something). The use of light is later turned on it's head when Maria is being hunted down and is being chased by a spotlight, in a scene much like the original 'The War of the Worlds' movie. The acting is good too, as far as I can tell. All the characters are very expressive, and they interact nicely (even the action sequences aren't as stilted as they usually are in films this old).
The moral is simple, and I don't think there are any hidden points to the movie, but it is saved from being cliche by being so visually perfect, and creating tropes that have become cemented in filmography over the last century. What, possibly, I love most is that the upper class are not totally evil. They run everything, but they genuinely believe that they're doing good. They're just greedy (because they're people) and they don't allow themselves to be aware of the horrors that they inflict upon the people below them. It's neither clever nor original to think of the people in power as any different from ourselves. Conspiracy theories are a little like religion, as they allow people to blame everything that happens to them or someone else (weather it be the Cigarette Smoking Man or God) when really the people in charge are just as useless and unhappy as the rest of us. On the other side, the workers aren't portrayed as undertaking a perfect revolution. They get all riled up by the fake-Maria, and then make mistakes. After destroying the heart machine, they are so overjoyed at their new-found power at having destroyed what they have been toiling under for their entire lives, that they start dancing around the wreckage, forgetting that the machine is what keeps the under-city from flooding, and that all their children are still down there. When they discover their error, they blame not-Maria as she is the closest thing they have left to an authority figure. No matter that this is the future; rich and poor, they're all just people.
If this was 1927, I'd have given this movie a 100. I feel kind of bad about that, because it's getting a lower rating now, and I try and judge movies not by date, but by quality. It has started so much, and it was so original, but so many films have done what it has done, and done it better. If it was made last year, and the effects were on par with other movies of today, it would have gone in the 40s or 30s. I try and take into consideration when this film was made, and how ground breaking it was, and I think I do, but I just can't bring myself to rate it higher than, say 'Star Wars'. So I try and go for the middle ground, and I hope that's OK with it.
Hell, and if you're not, what are you going to do?
A fantastic movie. One that I think any film student should watch, and any self-respecting sci-fi fan to have at least heard of. It's a timeless tale told beautifully.
Metropolis: 91.2