Metropolis (1927 film)

• Four roles (The Creative Man, The Machine Man, Death, The Seven Deadly Sins) are included in the opening credits but do not list any actors' names.
• Among the uncredited actors are Margarete Lanner, Helen von Münchofen, Olaf Storm, Georg John, Helene Weigel and Fritz Alberti.[16]
• One scene in which Freder listens to a monk preaching in the city cathedral has been lost. However, the 2010 restoration includes a call-back to the scene, with Freder hallucinating that the Thin Man is the monk.

Metropolis's screenplay was written by Thea von Harbou, a popular writer in Weimar Germany, jointly with Lang, her then-husband.[6][7] The film's plot originated from a novel of the same title written by Harbou for the sole purpose of being made into a film. The novel in turn drew inspiration from H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's works and other German dramas.[24] The novel featured strongly in the film's marketing campaign, and was serialized in the journal Illustriertes Blatt in the run-up to its release. Harbou and Lang collaborated on the screenplay derived from the novel, and several plot points and thematic elements—including most of the references to magic and occultism present in the novel—were dropped.[25]

Lang and Harbou in their Berlin apartment in 1923 or 1924, about the time they were working on the scenario for Metropolis

The screenplay itself went through many rewrites, and at one point featured an ending where Freder flew to the stars; this plot element later became the basis for Lang's Woman in the Moon.[25] The time setting of Metropolis is open to interpretation. The 2010 re-release and reconstruction, which incorporated the original title cards written by Thea von Harbou, do not specify a year. Before the reconstruction, Lotte Eisner and Paul M. Jensen placed the events happening around the year 2000.[26][27] Giorgio Moroder's re-scored version included a title card placing the film in 2026, while Paramount's original US release said the film takes place in 3000.[28] A note in one edition of Harbou's novel says that the story does not take place at any particular place or time, in the past or the future. Meanwhile, the 1963 Ace Books edition which reprints the 1927 English edition specifies the setting as "The World of 2026 A.D."

Metropolis began principal photography on 22 May 1925 with an initial budget of 1.5 million ℛ︁ℳ︁.[25] Lang cast two unknowns with little film experience in the lead roles. Gustav Fröhlich (Freder) had worked in vaudeville and was originally employed as an extra on Metropolis before Thea von Harbou recommended him to Lang.[29] Brigitte Helm (Maria) had been given a screen test by Lang after he met her on the set of Die Nibelungen, but would make her feature film debut with Metropolis.[25] In the role of Joh Fredersen, Lang cast Alfred Abel, a noted stage and screen actor whom he had worked with on Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. Lang also cast his frequent collaborator Rudolph Klein-Rogge in the role of Rotwang. This was Klein-Rogge's fourth film with Lang, after Destiny, Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, and Die Nibelungen.

Shooting of the film was a draining experience for the actors involved due to the demands that Lang placed on them. For the scene where the workers' city was flooded, Helm and 500 children from the poorest districts of Berlin had to work for 14 days in a pool of water that Lang intentionally kept at a low temperature.[30] Lang would frequently demand numerous re-takes, and took two days to shoot a simple scene where Freder collapses at Maria's feet; by the time Lang was satisfied with the footage he had shot, actor Gustav Fröhlich found he could barely stand.[30] Other anecdotes involve Lang's insistence on using real fire for the climactic scene where the false Maria is burnt at the stake (which resulted in Helm's dress catching fire), and his ordering extras to throw themselves towards powerful jets of water when filming the flooding of the workers' city.[30][31]

Helm recalled her experiences of shooting the film in a contemporary interview, saying that "the night shots lasted three weeks, and even if they did lead to the greatest dramatic moments—even if we did follow Fritz Lang's directions as though in a trance, enthusiastic and enraptured at the same time—I can't forget the incredible strain that they put us under. The work wasn't easy, and the authenticity in the portrayal ended up testing our nerves now and then. For instance, it wasn't fun at all when Grot drags me by the hair, to have me burned at the stake. Once I even fainted: during the transformation scene, Maria, as the android, is clamped in a kind of wooden armament, and because the shot took so long, I didn't get enough air."[32]

Despite the hardships, Thea von Harbou recounted how the film set was paradise for the hundreds of poor, malnourished children used as extras. In 1927 in Metropolis Magazine, von Harbou describes their warm and clean rooms, time for play, and ample toys and hot meals four times a day. "No film ever had more enthusiastic and willing collaborators than these little children," she recalled, "always willing to dash into the chilly water [...] like perfect actors".[33]

UFA invited several trade journal representatives and several film critics to see the film's shooting as parts of its promotion campaign.[34]

Shooting lasted 17 months, with 310 shooting days and 60 shooting nights, and was finally completed on 30 October 1926.[31] By the time shooting finished, the film's budget leapt to 5.3 million Reichsmarks, or over three and a half times the original budget.[35][2] Producer Erich Pommer had been fired during production.[2]

The effects expert Eugen Schüfftan created pioneering visual effects for Metropolis. Among the effects used are miniatures of the city, a camera on a swing, and most notably, the Schüfftan process,[36] in which mirrors are used to create the illusion that actors are occupying miniature sets. This new technique was seen again just two years later in Alfred Hitchcock's film Blackmail (1929).[37]

A film scene with Maschinenmensch.

The Maschinenmensch – the robot built by Rotwang to resurrect his lost love Hel – was created by sculptor Walter Schulze-Mittendorff. A whole-body plaster cast was taken of actress Brigitte Helm, and the costume was then constructed around it. A chance discovery of a sample of "plastic wood" (a pliable substance designed as wood-filler) allowed Schulze-Mittendorff to build a costume that would both appear metallic and allow a small amount of free movement.[38] Helm sustained cuts and bruises while in character as the robot, as the costume was rigid and uncomfortable.[39]

Gottfried Huppertz composed the film's score for a large orchestra. He drew inspiration from Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, and combined a classical orchestral style with mild modernist touches to portray the film's massive industrial city of workers.[40] Nestled within the original score were quotations of Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle's "La Marseillaise" and the traditional "Dies Irae", the latter of which was matched to the film's apocalyptic imagery. Huppertz's music played a prominent role during the film's production; the composer often played piano on Lang's set to inform the actors' performances. Huppertz's score only accompanied the film once, at its original premiere. Sections of the score were recorded and released by the record label Vox.

The full score was not recorded until 2001, for the film's first comprehensive restoration, with Berndt Heller conducting the Rundfunksinfonieorchester Saarbrücken. It was released internationally on various DVD editions beginning in 2003.[41]

In 2007, Huppertz's score was also played live by the VCS Radio Symphony, which accompanied the restored version of the film at Brenden Theatres in Vacaville, California.[42] The score was also produced in a salon orchestration, which was performed for the first time in the United States in August 2007 by The Bijou Orchestra under the direction of Leo Najar as part of a German Expressionist film festival in Bay City, Michigan.[43] The same forces also performed the work at the Traverse City Film Festival in Traverse City, Michigan in August 2009.

For the film's 2010 "complete" restoration premiere, Huppertz's score was performed live and subsequently re-recorded by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frank Strobel.[2] This version was released internationally on various DVD and Blu-ray editions beginning in 2010.[41][44]

Various artists have created other scores for Metropolis:

• In 1975, the BBC provided an electronic score composed by William Fitzwater and Hugh Davies.[45]
• In 1978, Australian composer Chris Neal created an experimental score for the film. It was performed live around Sydney throughout 1979.
• In 1984, Giorgio Moroder restored and produced the 80-minute 1984 re-release, which had a pop soundtrack written by Moroder and performed by Moroder, Pat Benatar, Bonnie Tyler, Jon Anderson, Adam Ant, Cycle V, Loverboy, Billy Squier, and Freddie Mercury.
• In 1991, the Club Foot Orchestra created an original score that was performed live with the film. It was also recorded for CD.
• In 1994, Montenegrin experimental rock musician Rambo Amadeus wrote his version of the musical score for Metropolis. At the screening of the film in Belgrade, the score was played by the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra.
• In 1998, the material was recorded and released on the album Metropolis B (tour-de-force).[46]
• In 1996, the Degenerate Art Ensemble (then The Young Composers Collective) scored the film for chamber orchestra, performing it in various venues including a free outdoor concert and screening in 1997 in Seattle's Gasworks Park.[47] The soundtrack was subsequently released on Un-Labeled Records.
• In 2000, Jeff Mills created a techno score for Metropolis which was released as an album. He also performed the score live at public screenings of the film.
• In 2004, Abel Korzeniowski created a score for Metropolis played live by a 90-piece orchestra and a choir of 60 voices and two soloists. The first performance took place at the Era Nowe Horyzonty Film Festival in Poland.
• In 2004, Ronnie Cramer produced a score and effects soundtrack for Metropolis that won two Aurora awards.[48]
• The New Pollutants (Mister Speed and DJ Tr!p) has performed Metropolis Rescore live for festivals since 2005 and rescored to the 2010 version of the film for premiere at the 2011 Adelaide Film Festival.[49]
• By 2010, the Alloy Orchestra had scored four different versions of the film, including Moroder's, and most recently for the American premiere of the 2010 restoration. A recording of Alloy's full score was commissioned by Kino Lorber, with the intention of it being issued on their remastered Blu-ray and DVD as an alternative soundtrack, but this was vetoed by Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, which owns the copyright to the restoration and mandates that only their own score can accompany it. Alloy's score is available on its website and can be synchronised to the film independently.[50][51]
• In 2012, Dieter Moebius was invited to perform music to the film. For that purpose, he produced pre-arranged tracks and samples, combined with live improvisation. He died in 2015, but the project was completed and released in 2016, as Musik für Metropolis.
• In 2014, the pianist/composer Dmytro Morykit created a new live piano score, which received a standing ovation from a sell-out audience at Wilton's Music Hall in London.[52]
• Also in 2014, Spanish band Caspervek Trio premiered a new score at "La Galería Jazz" Vigo, with further performances in Budapest, Riga and Groningen. Metavari rescored Metropolis as a commission from Fort Wayne, Indiana's Cinema Center for Art House Theater Day 2016.[53] The score was released worldwide on One Way Static Records for Record Store Day 2017 and distributed in the United States by Light in the Attic Records.[54][55]
• In 2017, Factory Floor performed their own soundtrack at the London Science Museum as part of their Robot Exhibition.[56] An album was released of their composition for the film in October 2018 called Soundtrack to a Film.[57]
• In February 2018, organist Brett Miller transcribed Gottfried Huppertz' original score as a benefit for JDRF live at the Trenton War Memorial. His performance was featured in March of that year in PBS's State of the Arts.[58]
• In 2018, flautist Yael Acher "Kat" Modiano composed and performed a new score for a showing of the 2010 restoration at the United Palace in Upper Manhattan.[59]
• In 2019, organist Nils Henrik Asheim composed and performed live an experimental "extended organ" score for a showing of the 2010 restoration at Stavanger Konserthus. Heavy modification of the organ was used to create a futuristic soundscape for the film.[60]
• Also in 2019, the Bach Elgar Choir, under director Alexander Cann, presented a live soundtrack to the film, which included prepared improvised music as well as compositions by Ravel, Ives, Honegger, Canadian composer Harry Freedman, and excerpts from Huppertz's original soundtrack. The choir was joined by four instrumentalists (Chris Palmer, electric guitar, Evelyn Charlotte Joe, double bass, Connor Bennett, tenor saxophone, Krista Rhodes, keyboard).[61]

Despite the film's later reputation, some contemporary critics panned it. Critic Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times called it a "technical marvel with feet of clay".[28] A review by H. G. Wells dated 17 April 1927 accused it of "foolishness, cliché, platitude, and muddlement about mechanical progress and progress in general". He faulted Metropolis for its premise that automation created drudgery rather than relieving it, wondered who was buying the machines' output if not the workers, and found parts of the story derivative of Shelley's Frankenstein, Karel Čapek's R.U.R., and his own The Sleeper Awakes.[65] Wells called Metropolis "quite the silliest film", but the New York Herald Tribune called it "a weird and fascinating picture".[2]

In The New Yorker Oliver Claxton called Metropolis "unconvincing and overlong", faulting much of the plot as "laid on with a terrible Teutonic heaviness, and an unnecessary amount of philosophizing in the beginning" that made the film "as soulless as the city of its tale". He also called the acting "uninspired with the exception of Brigitte Helm". Nevertheless, Claxton wrote that "the setting, the use of people and their movement, and various bits of action stand out as extraordinary and make it nearly an obligatory picture."[66] Other critics considered the film a remarkable achievement that surpassed even its high expectations, praising its visual splendour and ambitious production values.[67]

Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels was impressed with the film's message of social justice. In a 1928 speech he said, "the political bourgeoisie is about to leave the stage of history. In its place advance the oppressed producers of the head and hand, the forces of Labor, to begin their historical mission".[68] Shortly after the Nazis came to power, Goebbels told Lang that, on the basis of their seeing Metropolis together years before, Hitler had said that he wanted Lang to make Nazi films.[69]

German cultural critic Siegfried Kracauer later wrote of Metropolis, "The Americans relished its technical excellence; the English remained aloof; the French were stirred by a film which seemed to them a blend of [composer] Wagner and [armaments manufacturer] Krupp, and on the whole an alarming sign of Germany's vitality."[70]

Lang later expressed dissatisfaction with the film. In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich in Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors, published in 1998, he expressed his reservations:

The main thesis was Mrs. Von Harbou's, but I am at least 50 percent responsible because I did it. I was not so politically minded in those days as I am now. You cannot make a social-conscious picture in which you say that the intermediary between the hand and the brain is the heart. I mean, that's a fairy tale—definitely. But I was very interested in machines. Anyway, I didn't like the picture—thought it was silly and stupid—then, when I saw the astronauts: what else are they but part of a machine? It's very hard to talk about pictures—should I say now that I like Metropolis because something I have seen in my imagination comes true, when I detested it after it was finished?[71]

In his profile of Lang, which introduced the interview, Bogdanovich suggested that Lang's distaste for his film also stemmed from the Nazi Party's fascination with it. Von Harbou became a member of the Party in 1933. She and Lang divorced the following year.[72] Lang later moved to the United States to escape the Nazis, while Harbou stayed in Germany and continued to write state-approved films.

According to Roger Ebert, "Metropolis is one of the great achievements of the silent era, a work so audacious in its vision and so angry in its message that it is, if anything, more powerful today than when it was made."[73] Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide's entry on the film reads, "Heavy going at times but startling set design and special effects command attention throughout."[74]

Colin Greenland reviewed Metropolis for Imagine magazine, and stated that "It's a measure of the sheer power of Lang's vision that it survives this heavy-handed cosmetic modernizing quite intact. Inspired by his first sight of Manhattan, Metropolis is a dark dream of the city of 2026, where the idle rich live in penthouses and play in rooftop pleasure gardens while the faceless workers toil in the machine caverns far, far below."[75]

The film has an approval rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 9.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A visually awe-inspiring science fiction classic from the silent era."[76] In Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 98 out of 100 based on 14 critics, Indicating "universal acclaim".[77] It also ranked 12th in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.[78] The 2002 version was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Awards "Special Award" for the restoration. In 2012, in correspondence with the Sight & Sound Poll, the British Film Institute called Metropolis the 35th-greatest film of all time.[13] In the 2022 version of the poll, Metropolis fell slightly to 67th place.[79]

Lane Roth in Film Quarterly called it a "seminal film" because of its concerns with "profound impact technological progress has on man's social and spiritual progress" and concluded that "ascendancy of artifact over nature is depicted not as liberating man, but as subjugating and corrupting him".[80] Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker."[81]

Exploring the dramatic production background and historical importance of the film's complex political context in The American Conservative, film historian Cristobal Catalan suggests "Metropolis is a passionate call, and equally a passionate caution, for social change".[82] Peter Bradshaw noted that The Maschinenmensch based on Maria is "a brilliant eroticisation and fetishisation of modern technology".[83]

Between 1968 and 1972, the Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR, with the help of film archives from around the world, put together a version of Metropolis which restored some scenes and footage, but the effort was hobbled by a lack of a guide, such as an original script, to determine what, exactly, was in the original version.[2]

In 1984, a new restoration and edit of the film, running 83 minutes, was made by Italian music producer Giorgio Moroder, who paid $200,000 for the rights, outbidding his Cat People collaborator David Bowie.[2][85] Although Moroder initially intended only to create a new soundtrack, he was surprised by the lack of a definitive print, and expanded his project to a major reconstruction. Moroder's version, which was made in consultation with the Munich Film Archive and their archivist, Enno Patalas,[2] was tinted to emphasise the different moods and locations in the film. It also featured additional special effects, replaced intertitles of character dialogue with subtitles and incorporated a soundtrack featuring songs Moroder composed, produced and recorded with popular artists such as Freddie Mercury, Bonnie Tyler, Pat Benatar, Adam Ant and Jon Anderson. It was the first serious attempt made at restoring Metropolis to Lang's original vision, and until the restorations in 2001 and 2010, it was the most complete version of the film commercially available. The shorter run time was due to the extensive use of subtitles for spoken lines instead of title cards, a faster frame rate than the original, and the fact that large amounts of footage were still missing at the time.

Moroder's version of Metropolis generally received poor reviews. Moroder responded to the critics who lambasted his production for not being faithful to the original in The New York Times: "I didn't touch the original because there is no original."[2] The film was nominated for two Raspberry Awards, Worst Original Song for "Love Kills" and Worst Musical Score for Moroder.[86] However, Bonnie Tyler was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance at the 27th Grammy Awards for "Here She Comes".[87]

In August 2011, after years of the Moroder version being unavailable on video in any format due to music licensing problems, it was announced that Kino International had managed to resolve the situation, and the film was to be released on Blu-ray and DVD in November. In addition, the film enjoyed a limited theatrical re-release.[88]

In 2012, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films gave "Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis" a Saturn Award for Best DVD/Blu-Ray Special Edition Release.[89]

The moderate commercial success of the Moroder version inspired Enno Patalas, the archivist of the Munich Film Archive, to make an exhaustive attempt to restore the movie in 1986. Starting from the version in the Museum of Modern Art collection,[97] this version took advantage of new acquisitions and newly discovered German censorship records of the original inter-titles, as well as the musical score and other materials from the estate of composer Gottfried Huppertz. The Munich restoration also utilized newly rediscovered still photographs to represent scenes that were still missing from the film. The Munich version was 9,840 feet, or 109 minutes long.[2]

In 1998, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung commissioned film preservationist Martin Koerber to create a "definitive" restoration of Metropolis by expanding on the Munich version. Previously unknown sections of the film were discovered in film museums and archives around the world, including a nitrate original camera negative from the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, as well as nitrate prints from the George Eastman House, the British Film Institute and the Cineteca Italiana. These original film elements, digitally cleaned and repaired to remove defects, were used to assemble the film. Newly written intertitles were used to explain missing scenes.[2]

The 2001 restoration premiered on 15 February 2001 at the Berlin Film Festival, with a new score by Bernd Schultheis, performed live by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.[2] For theatrical and DVD release, it featured a new recording of Huppertz's original score performed by a 65-piece orchestra. The running time is 124 minutes at 24 fps, and it was released internationally on various DVD editions beginning in 2003.[41]

On 1 July 2008, film experts in Berlin announced that a 16 mm reduction negative of the original cut had been discovered in the archives of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina.[98][99] The negative was a safety reduction made in the 1960s or 1970s from a 35 mm positive of Lang's original version, which an Argentinian film distributor had obtained in advance of arranging theatrical engagements in South America. The safety reduction was intended to safeguard the contents in case the original's flammable nitrate film stock was destroyed.[2] The negative was passed to a private collector, an art foundation and finally the Museo del Cine.

The print was investigated by the Argentinian film collector/historian and TV presenter Fernando Martín Peña, along with Paula Felix-Didier, the head of the museum, after Peña heard an anecdote from a cinema club manager expressing surprise at the length of a print of Metropolis he had viewed.[2][100] The print was indeed Lang's full original, with about 25 minutes of footage, around one-fifth of the film, that had not been seen since 1927.[2]

Under the auspices of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, Berlin's Deutsche Kinemathek and Museo del Cine, a group of experts, including Anke Wilkening, Martin Koerber, and Frank Strobel began combining the newly discovered footage with the existing footage from the 2001 restoration. A major problem was that the Argentinian footage was in poor condition and had many scratches, streaks, and changes in brightness. The group was able to repair some of this damage using digital technology that had not yet been developed in 2001. The reconstruction of the film with the new footage was once again accompanied by the original music score, including Huppertz's handwritten notes, which acted as the key resource in determining the places in which the restored footage would go. Since the Argentinian print was a complete version of the original, some scenes from the 2001 restoration were put in different places than previously, and the tempo of the original editing was restored.[2]

In 2005, Australian historian and politician Michael Organ had examined a print of the film in the National Film Archive of New Zealand. Organ discovered that the print contained scenes missing from other copies of the film. After hearing of the discovery of the Argentine print of the film and the restoration project, Organ contacted the German restorers; the New Zealand print contained 11 missing scenes and featured some brief pieces of footage that were used to restore damaged sections of the Argentine print. It is believed that the New Zealand and Argentine prints were all sourced from the same master. The newly discovered footage was used in the restoration project.[101] The Argentine print was in poor condition and required considerable restoration before it was re-premiered in February 2010. Two short sequences, depicting a monk preaching and a fight between Rotwang and Fredersen, were damaged beyond repair. Title cards describing the action were inserted by the restorers to compensate. The Argentine print revealed new scenes that enriched the film's narrative complexity. The characters of Josaphat, the Thin Man, and 11811 appear throughout the film and the character Hel is reintroduced.[102]

The 2010 restoration was premiered on 12 February 2010 at the Berlin Friedrichstadtpalast. Huppertz's score was performed by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frank Strobel, who also re-recorded it for theatrical and home video release. The performance was a gala screening as part of the 60th Berlinale and had several simultaneous screenings. It was also shown on an outdoor screen at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, as well as at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt am Main. The Brandenburg Gate screening was also telecast live by the Arte network. The North American premiere took place at the 2010 TCM Classic Film Festival in Mann's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on 25 April 2010.[103][2]

The restoration has a running time of 148 minutes (or nearly 2.5 hours) and was released internationally on various DVD and Blu-ray editions beginning in 2010.[41][44]