One of the very first fea-ture-length sci-fi films ever made, Fritz Lang’s Metrop-o-lis took a dar-ing visu-al approach for its time, incor-po-rat-ing Bauhaus and Futur-ist influ-ences in thrilling-ly designed sets and cos-tumes. Lang’s visu-al lan-guage res-onat-ed strong-ly in lat-er decades. The film’s rather stun-ning alchem-i-cal-elec-tric trans-fer-ence of a woman’s phys-i-cal traits onto the body of a destruc-tive android—the so-called Maschi-nen-men-sch— began a very long trend of female robots in film and tele-vi-sion, most of them as dan-ger-ous and inscrutable as Lang’s. And yet, for all its many imi-ta-tors, Metrop-o-lis con-tin-ues to deliv-er sur-pris-es. Here, we bring you a new find: a 32-page pro-gram dis-trib-uted at the film’s 1927 pre-miere in Lon-don and recent-ly re-dis-cov-ered.
In addi-tion to under-writ-ing almost one hun-dred years of sci-ence fic-tion film and tele-vi-sion tropes, Metrop-o-lis has had a very long life in oth-er ways: Inspir-ing an all-star sound-track pro-duced by Gior-gio Moroder in 1984, with Fred-die Mer-cury, Lover-boy, and Adam Ant, and a Kraftwerk album.
In 2001, a recon-struct-ed ver-sion of Metrop-o-lis received a screen-ing at the Berlin Film Fes-ti-val, and UNESCO’s Mem-o-ry of the World Reg-is-ter added it to their ros-ter. 2002 saw the release of an excep-tion-al Metrop-o-lis-inspired ani-me with the same title. And in 2010 an almost ful-ly restored print of the long-incom-plete film—recut from footage found in Argenti-na in 2008—appeared, adding a lit-tle more sophis-ti-ca-tion and coher-ence to the sim-plis-tic sto-ry-line.
Even at the film’s ini-tial recep-tion, with-out any miss-ing footage, crit-ics did not warm to its sto-ry. For all its intense visu-al futur-ism, it has always seemed like a very quaint, na?ve tale, struck through with earnest reli-gios-i-ty and inex-plic-a-ble archaisms. Con-tem-po-rary review-ers found its nar-ra-tive of gen-er-a-tional and class con-flict uncon-vinc-ing. H.G. Wells—“something of an author-i-ty on sci-ence fiction”—pronounced it “the sil-li-est film” full of “every pos-si-ble fool-ish-ness, cliché, plat-i-tude, and mud-dle-ment about mechan-i-cal progress and progress in gen-er-al served up with a sauce of sen-ti-men-tal-i-ty that is all its own.” Few were kinder when it came to the sto-ry, and despite its overt reli-gious themes, many saw it as Com-mu-nist pro-pa-gan-da.
Viewed after sub-se-quent events in 20th cen-tu-ry Ger-many, many of the film’s scenes appear “dis-turbing-ly pre-scient,” writes the Unaf-fil-i-at-ed Crit-ic, such as the vision of a huge indus-tri-al machine as Moloch, in which “bald, under-fed humans are led in chains to a fur-nace.” Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou—who wrote the nov-el, then screenplay—were of course com-ment-ing on indus-tri-al-iza-tion, labor con-di-tions, and pover-ty in Weimar Ger-many. Metrop-o-lis’s “clear mes-sage of clas-sism,” as io9 writes, comes through most clear-ly in its arrest-ing imagery, like that hor-ri-fy-ing, mon-strous fur-nace and the “loom-ing sym-bol of wealth in the Tow-er of Babel.”
The visu-al effects and spec-tac-u-lar set pieces have worked their mag-ic on almost every-one (Wells exclud-ed) who has seen Metrop-o-lis. And they remain, for all its silli-ness, the pri-ma-ry rea-son for the movie’s cul-tur-al preva-lence. Wired calls it “prob-a-bly the most influ-en-tial sci-fi movie in his-to-ry,” remark-ing that “a sin-gle movie poster from the orig-i-nal release sold for $690,000 sev-en years ago, and is expect-ed to fetch even more at an auc-tion lat-er this year.”
We now have anoth-er arti-fact from the movie’s pre-miere, this 32-page pro-gram, appro-pri-ate-ly called “Metrop-o-lis” Mag-a-zine, that offers a rich feast for audi-ences, and text at times more inter-est-ing than the film’s script. (You can view the pro-gram in full here.) One imag-ines had they pos-sessed back-lit smart phones, those ear-ly movie-go-ers might have found them-selves strug-gling not to browse their pro-grams while the film screened. But, of course, Metrop-o-lis’s visu-al excess-es would hold their atten-tion as they still do ours. Its scenes of a futur-is-tic city have always enthralled view-ers, film-mak-ers, and (most) crit-ics, such that Roger Ebert could write of “vast futur-is-tic cities” as a sta-ple of some of the best sci-ence fic-tion in his review of the 21st-cen-tu-ry ani-mat-ed Metrop-o-lis—“visions… goofy and yet at the same time exhil-a-rat-ing.”
The pro-gram real-ly is an aston-ish-ing doc-u-ment, a trea-sure for fans of the film and for schol-ars. It’s full of pro-duc-tion stills, behind-the-scenes arti-cles and pho-tos, tech-ni-cal minu-ti-ae, short columns by the actors, a bio of Thea von Har-bou, the “authoress,” excerpts from her nov-el and screen-play placed side-by-side, and a short arti-cle by her. There’s a page called “Fig-ures that Speak” that tal-lies the pro-duc-tion costs and cast and crew num-bers (includ-ing very crude draw-ings and num-bers of “Negroes” and “Chi-nese”). Lang him-self weighs in, lacon-i-cal-ly, with a breezy intro-duc-tion fol-lowed by a clas-sic silent-era line: “if I can-not suc-ceed in find-ing expres-sion on the pic-ture, I cer-tain-ly can-not find it in speech.” Film his-to-ry agrees, Lang found his expres-sion “on the pic-ture.”
“Only three sur-viv-ing copies of this pro-gram are known to exist,” writes Wired, and one of them, from which these pages come, has gone on sale at the Peter Har-ring-ton rare book shop for 2,750 pounds ($4,244)—which seems rather low, giv-en what an orig-i-nal Metrop-o-lis poster went for. But mar-kets are fick-le, and what-ev-er its cur-rent or future price, ”Metrop-o-lis” Mag-a-zine is invalu-able to cineast-es. See all 32 pages of the pro-gram at Peter Harrington’s web-site.
Note: An ear-li-er ver-sion of this post appeared on our site in 2016.
Relat-ed Con-tent:
If Fritz Lang’s Icon-ic Film Metrop-o-lis Had a Kraftwerk Sound-track
Josh Jones is a writer and musi-cian based in Durham, NC. Fol-low him at @jdmagness
