Visions of Metropolis: the great city as a theme in Fritz Lang's Metropolis

Visions of Metropolis:
the great city as a theme in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis

Ralph Harrington
BA (Lond.), MSt (Oxon.), DPhil (Oxon.)

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INTRODUCTION

AS ITS TITLE SUGGESTS, ‘Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1926), one of the most celebrated and influential films of the twentieth century, is dominated by images of the great city. Inspired partly by his experiences of New York and partly by perceptions of the city in German expressionist art, and drawing on a more general European context of doubt and concern over the social, political and cultural consequences of the development of vast modern cities, Lang created a symbolic megatopolis which embodied the concerns of the age. Lang’s Metropolis gave expression to contemporary perceptions that cities were too big, too complex, and too dependent on technology, were polluted and unhealthy, were characterized by dangerous class divisions and social tension, were focuses of degeneration and decadence, and at many levels embodied the ills of a society in crisis.

CONTEXTS

German Expressionism

The process of rapid and large-scale industrialization and urbanization undergone by late-nineteenth-century Germany led to the German Empire becoming a world industrial power, but also produced enduring and deep-rooted economic, social and political stresses and strains. The association of the great city with industrialization and the explosive growth of towns and cities in Germany – pre-eminently Berlin – gave focus to cultural trends which expressed the confusion, neurosis, and alienation associated with modern urban industrial society.

Against this background, the city became in the early twentieth century an important theme in German expressionist art. The art of the ‘Brücke’ group (founded in Dresden in 1905), the first avowedly expressionist artistic group in Germany, was significantly inspired by the soullessness, alienation, ugliness, and superficial excitement of the big city – themes found in, for example, the work of the painters Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Erich Heckel. German expressionism sought to embody a highly subjective vision and thrived on distortion and violence; twisted forms and clashing colours were used to express symbolic meanings and reflect sensation and mood.

Expressionism retained its potency after the First World War, with the experience of military defeat and economic crisis fostering a cultural milieu which reflected confusion, alienation, despair, and the desire for fleeting refuge in sensation. Previously, expressionism had been opposed to realism, but in the Weimar years the two increasingly came together. Many artists (for example, Otto Dix and Georg Grosz) sought to reflect and criticize the society and politics of post-war Germany through a ‘new objectivity’ (‘Neue Sachlichkeit’) which rejected the abstraction of much pre-war expressionism in favour of a heightened realism, while remaining strongly influenced by expressionist uses of composition and colour, and inheriting a fascination with the same themes which had gripped the expressionists – notably the alienation and ugliness of urban society and the urban environment.

German post-war cinema

Expressionism and the ‘new objectivity’ were both very significant influences on German cinema after the First World War. The same combination of the realistic (in depicting social conditions, human suffering, the outward signs of bodily disorder) and the expressionistic (in the use of symbolism in shape and colour, the blurring of boundaries between reality and dreams, the distortion of the material world to give expression to inner mood and sensation) can be seen in German films of the 1920s. All these tendencies are present in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. This was a period of supreme technical mastery and great artistic creativity in German cinema, symbolized by the huge, modern and well-equipped Universum-Film-Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa) studios near Berlin. The Ufa studios vere generously supported by public subsidy and attracted the most gifted film-makers and actors from Germany and beyond. Among the internationally acclaimed Ufa films of this period were the studies of lower-class urban life known as ‘street films’, such as F. W. Murnau’s The Lost Laugh (1924) and G. W. Pabst’s The Joyless Street (1925), which powerfully depicted the deprivations and dangers of the great city and the bleakness of the modern urban environment.

The strong influence of artistic and theatrical expressionism on German cinema in the post-First World War period can be seen in the preoccupation of film-makers with themes such as the desolation of urban life, social alienation and psychological disorder. Filmmakers such as Fritz Lang, Murnau, Pabst, Max Reinhardt, Ernst Lubitsch and Robert Wiene drew significantly on expressionist influences from the visual arts and the stage in the sets, lighting and photography of the films they made during the decade after 1918. Probably the most celebrated example of German expressionist film is Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), originally scripted by Fritz Lang, which used highly stylized costumes and settings and employed the disorientating framing device (devised by Lang) of revealing at the very end of the film that the story has been told from a madman’s point of view. The concern with heightened emotional and psychological states leads naturally in much expressionist film-making to a fascination with magic and the supernatural, evident in such films as The Golem (1920), by Paul Wegener, and Murnau’s celebrated Nosferatu (1922), and in Metropolis, in which the figure of Rotwang occupies an ambivalent, shifting position on the borders of science and magic.

THE DIRECTOR AND THE FILM

Fritz Lang

Lang, born in Vienna in 1890, came to Berlin in 1919 after war service in which he was wounded at least three times, losing the sight in his right eye. He turned to directing after some of his early screenplays were, as he saw it, badly treated by other directors, and his first large success came almost immediately with the sensational two-part thriller The Spiders (1919 and 1922). Lang rapidly became both critically acclaimed and artistically successful. His silent films, Dr Mabuse the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924), Metropolis (1926), and Spies (1928) were all highly successful and are today widely seen as among the masterpieces of their era. Lang also made a remarkable transition to sound, with the psychological thriller M (1931), the story of a murderer, which is considered by many to be his best film. His early career in Germany was abruptly terminated, however, when he ran foul of the new Nazi regime with The Lost Will of Dr. Mabuse/The Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933), which depicted its villains as mouthing crude Nazi propaganda. The film was banned and Lang was ‘invited’ to make films for the Third Reich, an invitation Lang lost no time in rejecting. He immediately fled Germany for the United States, leaving behind his wife and collaborator Thea von Harbou who had joined the Nazis and had become an official party screenwriter. Lang made films for twenty years in Hollywood (notably Rancho Notorious (1952), The Big Heat (1953) and When the City Sleeps (1956)) before returning to Germany for the final twenty years of his life, where he made a number of films, among them a final chapter in the ‘Dr Mabuse’ saga. He died in California in 1976.

The making of Metropolis

Metropolis was based on a story written by Thea von Harbou, but is more memorable for its fantastic imagery than its story, which is confused, sentimental, and at times somewhat silly. The film was a hugely expensive and lavish production which came close to bankrupting the Ufa studios: it took nearly two years to make, consuming vast quantities of money, materials and performers (over 37,000 of them). Several times, the mounting expenses almost forced the abandonment of production; eventually coming in at a cost of 5.3 million marks, the film was by far the most expensive ever produced in Germany up to that time. When it was eventually released, in 1926, the film’s reception was mixed, but its merits have ensured it a place in history as a masterpiece of expressionist fitm-making from a great director at the height of his powers.

A summary of Metropolis

The city of Metropolis in 2026 is in fact two cities, one a city of glittering skyscrapers, luxury apartments and fragrant gardens inhabited by a privileged elite, the other a dark subterranean world of grinding labour and impoverishment in whichthemasses toil among vast machines to sustain the comfortable existence of the city’s elite. The two cities come together when Freder Fredersen, son of Joh Fredersen the ‘Master of Metropolis’, encounters and is drawn to Maria, a girl from the working classes. Freder pursues Maria into the Underground City of the workers, where he is horrified by the scenes of slavery and suffering he witnesses. He determines to confront his father, but Joh is unmoved, declaring that the labouring classes must continue to labour if Metropolis is to survive.

In an old house elsewhere in the city, Rotwang, an inventor and scientist, has created a feminized robot intended to represent Hel, wife of Joh and mother of Freder, whom Rotwang himself once loved. In the Underground City, revolt is brewing, led by Maria. Freder, disguised as one of the workers, learns of the plans for revolution, and attends a semireligious meeting at which Maria tells the workers the story of the Tower of Babel, and draws a parallel between the slaves who built Babel and the workers of Metropolis. Just as the masters of Babel did not care about the staves, so the masters of Metropolis do not care about the workers. The condition of the workers must be improved if conflict is to be avoided; the city needs a mediator between the rulers and the ruled.

Joh and Rotwang also witness Maria’s sermon. Joh tells Rotwang to make his robot look like Maria, believing that with a duplicate of Maria he can control the workers.

After the sermon, Freder and Maria kiss for the first time, and arrange to meet in the cathedral on the following day. Maria, however, is captured by Rotwang and taken to his laboratory, where he uses her to transform his robot into a new, evil Maria.

The robot Maria harangues the workers, persuading them to turn to violence and destroy the machines which support the life of Metropolis – although wrecking the machines will lead to the flooding of the city and the deaths of the workers and their families. Fortunately, the real Maria escapes Rotwang’s clutches and sees the flooding of the city. She rescues the workers’ children and leads them to safety, and then (with Freder) manages to stop the flooding. The workers, however, think that the real Maria led them to bring about the catastrophe and seek her out. They find the robot Maria exulting in the chaos she has caused, seize her, and burn her. Freder sees the burning and thinks the real Maria is being murdered, but when the synthetic flesh is burned away revealing the robot beneath he realizes the truth and goes in search of the real Maria. He finds her trying to escape Rotwang; Freder and Rotwang fight on the roof of the cathedral, and Rotwang falls to his death. Below, the masses march into the church and acclaim Freder as the mediator they are seeking between the rulers and the ruled. A future of peace and harmony beckons.

METROPOLIS AND THE GREAT CITY

It is the vision of the great city which makes Metropolis such an unforgettable spectacle, and which has ensured its enduring influence. As suggested above, the city was well-established as a subject for expressionist art, and was a significant presence in post-war German film, which exploited both its visual potential as a setting and its associations with alienation, confusion, crime, loneliness and sensation.

The story of Metropolis deals with what were in the 1920s seen as significant trends in technological development and class conflict, interwoven with a love story and a strong element of magic and the occult. The city, however, is more than just a convenient expression of these social and political forces. Its multi-layered symbolism is at the heart of the film. Lang became obsessed with the image of the vast modern city following a trip he made to New York in 1924-5, and the set designs for Metropolis, by Erich Kettethut, were directly influenced by his experience of the skyscrapers of Manhattan; but they can also be read (in the expressionist tradition) as symbolic of the power relationships – power versus oppression, freedom versus subjugation – to be found in the story. The significance of the city in contemporary politics, particularly the politics of revolution, class struggle and social instability, also helped form the context which gave rise to Lang’s vision of the great city in Metropolis. Metropolis is a city of extreme social division and simmering revolution. The social divisions are expressed in the physical aspect of the city: the lofty towers, grandiose architecture, elevated roadways and railways and vast boulevards of the upper city, and the dark, gloomy, vaulted spaces, glaring fires and vast roaring machines of the depths inhabited by the workers.

When H. G. Wells saw Metropolis he saw in the film a fulfilment of the prophecy of vast towered cities which had haunted his own work since When The Sleeper Wakes in 1899. There is also in Metropolis a suggestion of the degenerative potential of modern urban industrial civilization which Wells represents in The Time Machine, a subterranean world of workers and a decadent leisured elite becoming more divergent in their conditions of existence. Like the cities of Wells’s work, Lang’s Metropolis dramatizes the perceived social, political and environmental dangers of the great modern city in a dystopian vision which stuns with its grandeur and shocks with its inhumanity.

© Ralph Harrington 2000. This work is protected by copyright and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works 3.0 Licence. This means that you can copy, distribute and transmit this work freely as long as it is attributed to the original author; you may not alter, transform or build upon this work; and you may not use this work for commercial purposes.

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