I recently re-watched this visually ambitious silent work, visually stunning at times (hard to believe it was made in 1927). The story is kind of naive and doesn't go beyond straight forward sci-fi with a touch of socialism. The restored version is pretty decent on the Kino DVD. This is Dan's brief take on it.
Metropolis is one of those films everyone has heard of and many film buffs claim to have watched, but when one speaks of it, most details, save for the scene of the fembot's clothing in flesh, tend to disappear.
But the truth is that the film, although technically sci fi, is really a polemic. Fritz Lang would make one of the more interesting films on class struggle ever made, yet, like Rod Serling would do decades later, in the television series The Twilight Zone, he would get away with his attacks on materialism and social disorder and dehumanization because many people, in that day, dismissed all sci fi.
The best version of the film that I've seen is the one released by Kino. It is restored to its full length (give or take a few seconds) and is remastered digitally.
But, the truth is that, even in the public domain, the film is worth seeing. I saw a scratched up version of the film decades ago, on tv, and it still impressed.
One thing to bear in mind, though, is that the film is a silent film, which means it is, in a sense, a different art form than modern sound and color film. It has its own rhythms, and once one gets used to them, the film unfolds very naturally. But, if you are expecting the spoonfed crap of modern Hollywood, you'll loathe this film.
Fritz Lang is likely best noted for two films, his silent Metropolis (1927), a film which wielded an enormous impact in the genres of science fiction and apocalyptic films. It also was a forerunner (moreso than The Golem) of the perils or robotics theme that has entwined many a film since then. In fact, forget robotics, it really is the precursor of the whole Artificial Intelligence idea in film.
It is a landmark film, and had it been the only great contribution to film, from Lang, it would have been enough. But, he also pioneered the serial genre of film with The Spiders (1919-1920), contributed films to the Mabuse mythos of German cinema, became influential in 1950s film noir, but, most of all, asides from Metropolis, created M, with Peter Lorre as a pedophilic serial killer.
Yes, the serial killer film genre was not created in the 1980s, but a half century earlier, in 1931. The film, which depicted the depravity loose in Weimar era Germany was, ironically, used by the Nazi Party as an agitprop film for their rise to power to 'clean up' German society of its filth and gangsterism.
In fact, once Hitler came to power, Joseph Goebbels offered Lang the post of top German war film propagandist. To his credit, Lang swiftly and discreetly left the country.
The trailer for M:
Yes, Peter Lorre's capture and trial by the German Underworld, who want to get him out of the way because his crimes are bringing down too much heat on their crimes, is a bit too much and unrealistic, but given what preceded this film, psychologically, it is one of the early sound era's masterpieces of character exposition.
And Lorre really does a good job at restraining himself. Again, to modern eyes, it's melodramatic, but seen as a progression toward the realism that swept films in the 1950s through 1970s, it shows Lang was ahead of his time. That dramas in the USA have regressed to 1930s level melodrama, even lacking the witty screenplays of a Frank Capra, is really damning.
Here is the whole film:
Oh, and note the technique established her, and used in all subsequent great horror films- Lorre is never really glimpsed fully until nearer the end. Lang lets the viewer imagine the child killer. Then, we get the recoil when it's the seemingly harmless and pathetic looking Lorre.
