One definitely can't fault the breadth and ambition of Fritz Lang's vision, even if, as always with depictions of the future, there are a few forgivable blind spots. (The cars that swarm up and down the multiple levels of Metropolis are unmistakably the standard models of the 1920s, as are the flying-machines that buzz about them; while the business dress of tomorrow's rulers, unlike their exotic leisure wear, doesn't appear to have advanced one iota!)
H.G.Wells criticised the film for its adherence to arty image over scientific rigour, and as a piece of coherent science fiction it's certainly as lacking as he claimed. The machines exist to appear awesome and to torment their workers rather than to perform any apparent task, and there is no explanation of how this society functions, how it evolved or how it is sustained, let alone of the incongruities that must surely lie behind such anomalous locations as the catacombs and the cathedral. But Wells' own futuristic film, "Things to Come", conceived in direct riposte to Lang's 'unscientific' approach, is tedious and talky as a result, didactic in its heavy-footed philosophy and explanations, and lacking in artistic vision: "Metropolis" may be 'soft' SF, but its approach undoubtedly makes for better cinema.
I am not, however, impressed by it as a film. Masterpiece of Modernism it may be -- but great design and special effects can't save today's big-budget clunkers from deficiencies of character and plot, and they don't save this one. Ironically, I suspect that its reputation has benefited greatly from its being the only silent film many of its viewers have ever encountered: reading through the IMDb pages, I see well-meaning comments like "Great -- when you consider how primitive cinema was in 1927" and "once you get used to the fact that it takes about ten gestures to convey one sentence..." It wasn't -- and it doesn't!
As silent films go, this is in many places agonizingly slow and repetitious, marred by clumsy acting, tendentious titles and overwrought gestures. By the late 1920s, cinema had progressed far beyond this laboured pantomime: in Lang's case the heavy stylisation may have been a deliberate choice, but compared to the fluidity of contemporaries such as Sjostrom's "The Wind" or "The Scarlet Letter", Asquith's "Underground" or "Shooting Stars", and Murnau's "Sunrise", the film comes across as ten years behind the times. The problem is not necessarily with the actors -- Brigitte Helm, as has been observed, does an excellent job in differentiating her two characters -- but with the direction and pacing.
We saw the restored version with the original Gottfried Huppertz score; the latter didn't always seem to fit too well, with pops, jumps and awkward silences, but this was I assume due either to the difficulty of fitting it to allow for the missing material, or to problems in the projection booth when running a newly-arrived print for the first time. However, the painstaking summary of the various 'missing scenes' only ended up increasing my appreciation of what a good job had been done in the editing-down in the first place! To take a single example: where the edited version conveys Freder's sudden recollection that he is supposed to be the workers' long-awaited 'mediator' via the simple juxtaposition of three shots -- the shift-change whistle announcing the meeting, the catacombs and Freder suddenly struck by an idea and rushing off -- the restoration betrays the fact that a couple of scenes of mimed dialogue were originally provided to spell out the message at painstaking length...
It is interesting to see how it was done, but most of the cuts are either an improvement or a very clever abridgement, and by and large I didn't feel that what was omitted had been any great loss. In fact, frankly I felt that the film was in need of further editing at certain points, such as Rotwang's pursuit of Maria through the catacombs. She screams, and runs, and screams, and runs, and is pursued by a searchlight effect; it's clever, self-consciously clever, the first couple of times, but the repetition becomes tedious to the point of caricature. Plot infelicities abound in increasing numbers, culminating in the infamous 'Hunchback of Notre Dame'-style ending where the mad scientist carries off the girl across the roof of the cathedral hotly pursued by Our Hero, which raised giggles, in a hitherto serious and respectful audience, with which I couldn't help but sympathise.
This is a film to see once in a lifetime so that you can say that you have seen it -- not least because most of the impact lies in the visuals. But it's all surface and no substance: the characters act arbitrarily, the plot is subservient to the Message, the pacing is like treacle, the story-telling technique is primitive, and really all it has going for it is the visual flair and the special effects. I quite honestly believe that this work would be better appreciated as a set of stills in a glossy brochure; an exhibit in a design exhibition. This is not cinema as I love it -- it's innovative, it may be Art, but as an actual film it's only a poor shadow.
H.G.Wells criticised the film for its adherence to arty image over scientific rigour, and as a piece of coherent science fiction it's certainly as lacking as he claimed. The machines exist to appear awesome and to torment their workers rather than to perform any apparent task, and there is no explanation of how this society functions, how it evolved or how it is sustained, let alone of the incongruities that must surely lie behind such anomalous locations as the catacombs and the cathedral. But Wells' own futuristic film, "Things to Come", conceived in direct riposte to Lang's 'unscientific' approach, is tedious and talky as a result, didactic in its heavy-footed philosophy and explanations, and lacking in artistic vision: "Metropolis" may be 'soft' SF, but its approach undoubtedly makes for better cinema.
I am not, however, impressed by it as a film. Masterpiece of Modernism it may be -- but great design and special effects can't save today's big-budget clunkers from deficiencies of character and plot, and they don't save this one. Ironically, I suspect that its reputation has benefited greatly from its being the only silent film many of its viewers have ever encountered: reading through the IMDb pages, I see well-meaning comments like "Great -- when you consider how primitive cinema was in 1927" and "once you get used to the fact that it takes about ten gestures to convey one sentence..." It wasn't -- and it doesn't!
As silent films go, this is in many places agonizingly slow and repetitious, marred by clumsy acting, tendentious titles and overwrought gestures. By the late 1920s, cinema had progressed far beyond this laboured pantomime: in Lang's case the heavy stylisation may have been a deliberate choice, but compared to the fluidity of contemporaries such as Sjostrom's "The Wind" or "The Scarlet Letter", Asquith's "Underground" or "Shooting Stars", and Murnau's "Sunrise", the film comes across as ten years behind the times. The problem is not necessarily with the actors -- Brigitte Helm, as has been observed, does an excellent job in differentiating her two characters -- but with the direction and pacing.
We saw the restored version with the original Gottfried Huppertz score; the latter didn't always seem to fit too well, with pops, jumps and awkward silences, but this was I assume due either to the difficulty of fitting it to allow for the missing material, or to problems in the projection booth when running a newly-arrived print for the first time. However, the painstaking summary of the various 'missing scenes' only ended up increasing my appreciation of what a good job had been done in the editing-down in the first place! To take a single example: where the edited version conveys Freder's sudden recollection that he is supposed to be the workers' long-awaited 'mediator' via the simple juxtaposition of three shots -- the shift-change whistle announcing the meeting, the catacombs and Freder suddenly struck by an idea and rushing off -- the restoration betrays the fact that a couple of scenes of mimed dialogue were originally provided to spell out the message at painstaking length...
It is interesting to see how it was done, but most of the cuts are either an improvement or a very clever abridgement, and by and large I didn't feel that what was omitted had been any great loss. In fact, frankly I felt that the film was in need of further editing at certain points, such as Rotwang's pursuit of Maria through the catacombs. She screams, and runs, and screams, and runs, and is pursued by a searchlight effect; it's clever, self-consciously clever, the first couple of times, but the repetition becomes tedious to the point of caricature. Plot infelicities abound in increasing numbers, culminating in the infamous 'Hunchback of Notre Dame'-style ending where the mad scientist carries off the girl across the roof of the cathedral hotly pursued by Our Hero, which raised giggles, in a hitherto serious and respectful audience, with which I couldn't help but sympathise.
This is a film to see once in a lifetime so that you can say that you have seen it -- not least because most of the impact lies in the visuals. But it's all surface and no substance: the characters act arbitrarily, the plot is subservient to the Message, the pacing is like treacle, the story-telling technique is primitive, and really all it has going for it is the visual flair and the special effects. I quite honestly believe that this work would be better appreciated as a set of stills in a glossy brochure; an exhibit in a design exhibition. This is not cinema as I love it -- it's innovative, it may be Art, but as an actual film it's only a poor shadow.