Metropolis

There have been few films that have reached the now legendary status of “Metropolis”; a film which has been available in many versions throughout the years is now almost fully complete. As if by some miracle, twenty-five minutes of footage thought lost was found in 2008 and restored for the first time for all the world to see. The find is considered to be one of the most significant in cinema history; and it was unveiled for the first time last year, and is now available on DVD.

I first saw one version of “Metropolis” when I was very young, probably about 15 or 16 maybe even younger. It was in rather shabby condition, I don’t remember the running time, but many scenes that were available were missing on my version, it also omitted the spectacular original musical score by Gottfried Huppertz, as well as the influential state of the art opening credit montage.

I actually didn’t know what I was missing until only two years ago when I saw “Metropolis” for the first time on DVD on a large screen in a friend’s film class. The film struck me as operatic and epic in scope. Everything about it was big and wonderous. Fritz Lang’s vision of the future hasn’t really changed much in film’s today, he mapped out the destination for all science fiction films to follow.

Seeing “Metropolis” now in its most completed form (Only two scenes are still missing from the original product) it is now more spectacular than ever. It is more complete, it flows more smoothly. There were some cases where a couple of shots were missing in a sequence, while there are others where the sequences themselves have been fully restored, but they now give you the full “Metropolis” experience, at least the fullest one we can hope for for now. Much of the newly found footage has been damaged beyond repair, the scenes still look grainy, but at least it’s still there.

The theme of “Metropolis” is very blunt, it has to do with the battle of the class system. The Metropolis of the title is a huge futuristic city, but it is run from the underground by working class people. The workers trudge away in long hours working the mighty machines, while the higher class people live above in luxery. The son of the founder of the city is Freder, who goes sees what life really is like for the workers underneath. The workers are becoming fed up and threaten to revolt against their boss unless they are treated better; their spiritual leader is Maria (Brigitte Helm) a saintly woman who preaches that some day a mediator will come and bring both classes together.

Freder’s father hears of this revolution and hatches a plan with a mad scientist to kidnap Maria. The scientist does so and uses her image to copy onto a new robot that he has just invented. The robot takes over the place of Maria and tells the workers to revolt.

“Metropolis” is anything but subtle, especially in its allegories of the tower of Babel and the seven deadly sins, each of which come alive in some form or another, but “Metropolis” is more a film about cinematic ideas, and about new ways of storytelling. It is one of the greatest of all silent films, and perhaps the one that most people are familiar with not counting the comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

The film came near the end of silent film and the period known as German expressionism, it’s director was Fritz Lang, thought by many to be a tyrant; however no one can deny that he wasn’t a visionary. Lang’s films always have a dark underbelly, in this case it was a fear of mob rule as the workers unite under the orders of the phony Maria, thus they almost destroy themselves in the process. Lang’s cinema has always been unique, he would go on to create some of the great film noirs in history when he moved to Hollywood, but “Metropolis” is an entity unto itself, it’s his most ambitious and epic film, it stands the test of time, it shows filmmakers today what great imagination and vision can accomplish. “Metropolis” is a great film, and it’s great to finally see it to its full glory.