Metropolis 1927

Metropolis  1927
Dir. Fritz Lang

I wrote so much about this film for my dissertation last year that I felt the best way to describe why I find this film particularly influential would be to upload an edited version of what I wrote on this film. It truly is a visual masterpiece of cinematic history.

If one movie can be described as the definitive ‘Futurist film’, it is undoubtedly Fritz Lang’s Metropolis [1927]. Metropolis has come to represent a defining expression of modernist theory in cinema and is still widely studied and highly regarded today. Theoretically and technically, Metropolis is a classic example of stylistic storytelling in cinema whose most memorable element is that of its Futurist inspired architectural representation of the city. As Neumann [1996:94] points out:

‘Above all, Metropolis is a film of powerfully expressive architectural metaphors, a gallery of contemporary visions, and an important turning point in the development of film architecture’

Prior to film-making, Lang had trained as an architect in Germany and was able to combine a theoretical knowledge of architecture with inspirations from reality to create cinematic architectural visions. Although the script had been written before his visit, Lang had been deeply inspired by a trip to New York in 1924 where he decided to create Metropolis visual style. After spending a day in Manhattan,  Lang wrote [cited in Jacobsen and Sudendorf:2000:9]:

‘The buildings seemed like a vertical curtain, shimmering and very light, a lavish backdrop hanging against a murky sky, dazzling, distracting and hypnotising... I knew that I had to make a film about all these impressions.’

To convey these impressions, Lang looked towards the architectural representations of Sant’Elia and worked closely with set designers Hunte, Volbrecht and Kettelhut whom he had previously employed on Die Niebelungen and Testament des Dr Mabuse. The combination was powerful and never before, and arguably since, has the Futurist vision of a city been so dramatically realised. Futurist influences were visible in Metropolis as early in production as the provisional concept sketches [see figure 1]. Echoing the work of Saint’Elia [see figure 2] with their ‘directional interplay of sharp angles and straight lines’ [Ricciotti: 1984:56], the sketches depict a multi-levelled city composed of tall stepped profile structures, a dominant presence of glass and technology, and high level roads densely populated with pedestrians and traffic.

The complexity, scale and confusion of the final Metropolis sets, such as the cityscape [time, figures 3, 4] were deliberately engineered and created by building small scale models up to six metres deep allowing camera access and movement. As explained by Jacobsen and Sudenhof [2000:23]:

‘Unfathomable is the only way to describe the geography of this city. Cars ride by, but no-body knows where they are going. Planes circulate between, but not above the building...all attempts at orientation are useless’. 

The seemingly endless network of modern buildings, transportation systems and social flux were representative of the Futurist metropolitan ambition to create a:

‘vertiginous city of towers, congested, chaotic, and teeming with technological gadgetry’ [Willis:1980:50]. 

Lang’s vision, though Futurist in design, was anti-Futurist in sensibility and he used Futurist expressions as a statement against the movement itself. Lang was reacting against social divide, mechanisation and destruction of the past which had come to be associated with World War I and pre World War I movements. Thus, not all elements of Metropolis design were Futurist;  significantly a German Gothic Cathedral features heavily in Metropolis’s latter scenes [ time, figure 5].  Contesting the Futurists’ statement  ‘architecture cannot be subjected to any law of historical continuity’ [Apollonio 1973:160], this seemingly anomalous inclusion is representative of a later German Expressionist trait to find spirituality in tradition and re-humanise the modern movement [Collins:1968:313-314]. Despite this inclusion, Lang removed the cathedral from the main city cityscape replacing it instead with a Futurist skyscraper dubbed ‘The New Tower of Babel’ [time, figure 6], thus visually linking the Futurist movement to a negative prediction of man’s ambition for the modernist city. 

This adverse approach to urban modernity was a popular post war trait and was explored and commented on internationally by European directors. Following Metropolis came Murnau’s anti-urban morality tale Sunrise [1927] which according to Neumann [1996:104] through its lavish use of modern set design [see figure 7] ‘ brought modern architecture to America’. Although influential, both Metropolis and Sunrise remained stylistic in setting and negative in their approach to Futurism and modernity. Nevertheless Murnau and Lang’s cityscapes were some of the first backdrops to trigger theoretical debates in the architectural world. Luis Bunuel, surrealist and director, was one of the earliest critics to notice the significance of Metropolis when in 1927 he wrote:

‘Now and forever the architect will replace the set designer. Film will be the faithful translator of the architect’s boldest dream’. [cited in Neumann 1996:98] 

Whether this has been realised fully is debatable although what is indisputable is the successful and extensive representation of Futurism in film as opposed to the physical world. However, not all early films which represented a Futurist sensibility towards modern cities were fantastical in setting. Metropolitan centres such as New York or Berlin which were rapidly modernising and displaying the physical influences of Futurism were  regularly used as real modernist backdrops.  Far from showing the more negative aspects of modernity, these films approached Futurist ideals with a more positive and often inventive stance, exploiting the cities development in a form of pro-urban propaganda.