METROPOLIS (1927)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*

For two major reasons, I'm glad that before I reviewed the celebrated METROPOLIS, I read and reviewed the 1925 Thea Von Harbou novel on which the Lang film was based. The first is that many reviews of the movie tend to treat it as if it were sui generis, spawned from the mind of Fritz Lang alone, or at best, barely acknowledging the novel that preceded Von Harbou's screenplay for her then-husband's attempt to create a new milestone in German cinema. It's true that some great films are made from dubious sources, like the unproduced play that spawned CASABLANCA. But the movie METROPOLIS is as dependent on the profound qualities of the original novel-- flawed and melodramatic though it is-- as any film adaptation of HAMLET is dependent upon the original play.

One odd thing I gleaned from viewing both book and movie is that though the film is deemed a landmark in science fiction cinema, neither work is really solidly in that tradition. METROPOLIS is not a work that sought to extrapolate trends of the future, however improbably rendered, as one sees in the futuristic cosmos of Wells' 1899 WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES. Von Harbou's megalopolis isn't based on specific advancements in science, but on a quasi-religious vision of a great city wherein zombie-like workers attend incomprehensible machines whose purposes are barely explained to readers. Early in both book and movie, the protagonist Freder compares the city to the great pagan idol Mammon, devouring the spirits of workers as Mammon devoured the lives of child sacrifices. In many ways, Von Harbou's novel is closer to being "religious fiction" like that of the later C.S. Lewis than it is to mainstream science fiction. Von Harbou's argument-- that Metropolis has become a place of corruption like Babylon and Gomorrah of the Bible-- also posits the solution of a secular redeemer who will in time remold the profane city into a sacred one.

 I commented in my review of the book that I wasn't sure how fervently Von Harbou believed in her reworking of Christian myth, as opposed to just using familiar story-tropes to sell her fevered melodrama. Maybe neither she nor Lang believed in the religious content of the story-- which, by the way, Von Harbou lays on with the proverbial trowel, But their belief or lack of it does not change the extent to which the METROPOLIS narrative is modeled on religious concepts.

That said, the Lang film, by the nature of the medium, inevitably cut down the sheer volume of said concepts from what appeared in the novel. Yet I'd still say it's predominantly religious in tone. Lang gives us, largely unaltered, Von Harbou's rewriting of the Christian narrative. Instead of an omnipotent father-god who obliges his only begotten mortal son to sacrifice himself to bring about humankind's redemption, we have Jon Fredersen, the Founder of Metropolis, tyrannizing the city he created, but eventually ceding his control to the merciful reign of his son Freder, who will (presumably) accomplish the salvation of the corrupt city with the help of his saintly soulmate, the "virgin-mother" Maria. Maria gets one of the first profound Christian images in the movie, as she intrudes upon the pleasure-dome of the elite with a band of lower-class children, declaring to the kids that the favored sons of the rich are their "brothers."

Whatever plans Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel) may have for his son's role in mastering the city, it soon becomes apparent to the Great Man that humble Maria (Brigitte Helm) has become the new deity in the heart of Freder (Gustav Frohlich). At the same time there are rumblings of discontent in the underground city of the workers-- probably influenced by the Morlocks of Wells' TIME MACHINE-- and so Fredersen resolves to eliminate both problems in one fell swoop. He colludes with his "court sorcerer," the demonic Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), in order to create a vile parody of Maria, a robot nicknamed Futura (also Helm). But Fredersen's plan to use Futura to be a "scarlet woman" who leads the workers into perdition almost destroys the entire city-- and so, in essence, makes it necessary for the Father to cede power to the Son. It's even suggested in the book that it's the Father, not the Son, who symbolically perishes upon a figurative Golgotha-- though Lang omits this incantatory scene from his film. 

The METROPOLIS film also necessarily downplays what I've called the "reverse-Oedipal" theme of Von Harbou's book-- a theme derived not specifically from the Christ story, but from multiple Oedipal motifs in the Old Testament. The themes are still present in the film, but they are less fevered and compulsory. No one who's read the book is likely to miss Freder's tedious characterizations of Maria as a "virgin-mother" with none of the scarlet woman's sexiness (and an apparent substitute for the mother he never knew). Thus the opposition between the two archetypes may not be as clear in the film as in the book. Still, since Von Harbou alone is credited with the movie's screenplay, implicitly she knew that a lot of the stuff in the book had to be sacrificed.

So what did Fritz Lang bring to the film? The book has a handful of arresting visual scenes, but overall Von Harbou does not bring Metropolis alive as a distinct place. Though METROPOLIS failed at the box office despite attempts to cut down its daunting length (over three hours in the initial cut), it continues to fascinate its adherents with the dynamism of the visual elements of the ultimate future-city. In terms of sensory elan, Lang's city still dwarfs all others, even that of Ridley Scott's Los Angeles in BLADE RUNNER.

 Similarly, the creation of Futura is Lang's, not Von Harbou's. The prose author does not describe any particular process by which Futura becomes the double of Maria, but Lang conceives a form of alchemical sorcery by which the robotic body of Futura takes on the exact appearance of Maria. One might even theorize that Futura assumes all the sexual aspects that have been repressed out of existence in the mentality of virtuous Maria, though I admit that the movie does not advance this theory overtly.

Even with the excisions from the book, there are still slow sections of METROPOLIS the movie, mostly in the form of unnecessary subplots. As for the performers, I was not taken with Frohlich in his one role or Helm in either of hers. Abel is decent as Fredersen, but Rudolph Klein-Rogge dominates the movie with his obsessed Promethean mad scientist, ranting about how Fredersen cuckolded him with the woman who died birthing Freder, and seeking to destroy his old rival's schemes just as Fredersen destroyed the mad scientist's life. Before there was a definitive movie version of Frankenstein-the-unholy-overreacher, Klein-Rogge inhabited that space first.

Ironically, though METROPOLIS did not succeed at the world box office, it had a salutary effect on Lang's career-- for ostensibly the Hitler regime asked Lang to become the new master of German cinema. In response, Lang had his own "Freder moment," refusing the path of tyranny and fleeing Germany for the sanctuary of the United States. Unlike Freder he left his former love behind, though I believe they'd already parted ways when Lang decamped. One might argue that Lang never made another film this ambitious, though much of that can be assigned to the nature of the Hollywood system, as compared to the liberality of the UFA studio. But despite flaws METROPOLIS remains a masterpiece, as long as one remembers the sizeable contributions of Lang's collaborator.