The
classic silent film Metropolis was created in 1925-26 by the Austrian
director Fritz Lang in collaboration with his wife, Thea von Harbou
(1888-1954). The man born Friedrich Christian Anton Lang in Vienna in 1890,
claimed to have studied art and architecture in Vienna, Munich, and Paris. But
according to biographer Patrick McGilligan (Fritz Lang: The
Nature of the Beast), this was part of the Fritz Lang legend that the
director carefully cultivated over the years. Lang actually dropped out of
Vienna's Technische Hochschule (technical college) after only two
years. At the age of 21 Lang ran away from home and family for his traditional
Wanderjahre ("wander years" - a type of coming of age), or so the
legend went. In fact, he seems to have returned home several times and not to
have traveled as extensively as he claimed. He did spend time in Paris, but a
contemporary has said that the budding artist was more interested in women
than painting. About six months after the outbreak of war, in 1915, Lang
enlisted and served in World War I as an artillery officer and was wounded at
least three times. It was during the last year of the war that he met Erich Pommer --
who would later produce films directed by Lang and others. In less than a year
after the war, Lang was working in Berlin as a film director.
Erich
Kettelhut's Metropolis set designs and drawings helped director Fritz
Lang create the unique imagery of this science-fiction classic. Some critics
consider the film's architecture symbolic of the power relationships -- power
versus oppression, freedom versus subjugation -- in the story. Six months
after a visit to New York City, Lang imbued his film with a vision of
skyscrapers of the future.
The first real science-fiction film was based on a story
written by von Harbou (some claim it stems from Georg Kaiser's 1920 "Gas
Trilogy"), but Metropolis is really more memorable for its fantastic
imagery than its story, which is a bit vague and confusing, at times plain
silly. Lang's cinematic vision of the city of the future has influenced the
look of later sci-fi films such as Blade Runner. Even today, there is
something fascinating about the futuristic scenes shot by the camera team of
Karl Freund and G¨¹nther Rittau -- a fascination that even led Madonna and
Queen to include Metropolis clips in their music videos. Ironically, in
light of the respect accorded the film today, Metropolis nearly
bankrupted the Ufa
studios (the legendary German film production company). In production for
almost two years, Metropolis required vast resources -- 37,633
performers, including 1,000 men (FX-multiplied by six) with their heads shaved
for the Tower of Babel sequence alone. At 5.3 million marks, the film ended up
being the most expensive ever produced in Germany up to that time. The
mounting expenses almost closed production early, and the film failed to make
money. But even the modern viewer can see where the all the money went. Some
of the scenes and special effects in Metropolis are as impressive today
as they must have been in 1927.
"To begin with, I should say
that I am a visual person. I experience with my eyes and never, or only
rarely, with my ears -- to my constant regret."
The film's reception at the time of its
release in various countries was mixed. The London Times and The
Spectator gave generally positive reviews, but in the U.S.,Time
magazine's review of Metropolis ended with this unkind comment: "Ufa
might better have shut the eyes of its great cameras than permit them to
reflect nonsense in such grandeur." In his later years Lang himself seemed to
be one of the film's biggest detractors. In 1958 he said, "I don't like
'Metropolis.' The ending is false. I didn't like it even when I made the
film." (This from the director who was such a perfectionist, he required three
days to shoot a brief love scene in the film between Brigitte Helm and
Gustav Fröhlich.) One can only speculate on how much of Lang's negativity
stems from his past association with ex-wife Thea von Harbou, the film's
co-writer and a big Nazi sympathizer.
The Metropolis that moviegoers and reviewers of the 1920s saw varied
from country to country and place to place. Lang's cut was no doubt far too
long to begin with, but the American version was severely cut to ten reels
from the original 17, seriously disturbing the film's rhythm and making it
impossible for U.S. viewers to make any sense out of the already convoluted
plot. One unfortunate result of all this snipping: some segments of the film
seem to have been lost forever, with some scenes today existing in
restorations only as still shots. Nevertheless, enough of the Expressionist
film masterpiece remains to allow us to appreciate Lang's cinematic
craftsmanship -- despite his own words.
The Lang-von Harbou team went on to make another science-fiction movie for
Ufa in 1929. Less successful than Metropolis (partly because it was
silent just as sound was coming in), Frau im Mond ("The Woman on the
Moon") was also based on a story written by von Harbou. The film is probably
most notable for inventing the rocket launch countdown. With the advent of
sound, Lang made the classic M, probably his best film. M
featured the Austrian actor Peter Lorre in the role
of a big-city child molester and murderer. Both the film's camerawork and
sound technique were remarkable, especially considering it was Lang's first
"talkie" and that one of Lang's most notable quotes is, "To begin with, I
should say that I am a visual person. I experience with my eyes and never, or
only rarely, with my ears -- to my constant regret."
WHAT OTHERS SAY:
In a survey of the 20 "most influential science
fiction films of all time," CINESCAPE
magazine (Jan.-Feb. 1997) listed Fritz Lang's Metropolis in fourth
place. Some might argue that Metropolis -- as "the first fully realized
cinematic vision of a believable city of the future" -- should rank a bit
higher, but the magazine chose Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968) for the top spot. George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) and Ridley
Scott's Blade Runner (1982) took second and third place, respectively.
Commenting on Metropolis, CINESCAPE's reviewers, in a display of
reverse logic, called the 1926 film "the Blade Runner of its day."
Actually, Blade Runner is the Metropolis of its day -- but
CINESCAPE did get one thing right by referring to the film's star attraction
as "the best robot ever to grace the big screen." The Metropolis
comments also included a reference to Lang's Woman in the Moon (see
above poster) as "the film that introduced the Launch Countdown."
After the Nazi rise
to power in Germany and the banning of some of his films, Lang left for
Hollywood via France in 1933 -- despite an offer from Joseph Goebbels to work
in Nazi film production. Lang's wife, von Harbou, got along famously with the
Hitler regime, and she remained in Germany (after divorcing Lang), working for
the now Nazi-controlled Ufa.
Although he made several respectable films in Hollywood, Lang felt stifled
and frustrated by the studio system there. Being blacklisted in the McCarthy
era (for his work with Bertolt Brecht and some other communists) didn't help.
His U.S. film work, including Fury (1936), Western Union (1941),
Ministry of Fear (1944), Rancho Notorious (1952), and The Big
Heat (a classic 1953 "film noir" work), ended
in 1956 when he left for India to do a picture that was never produced. After
a brief return to Germany in the early 1960s, where he made a few more films,
Lang spent his retirement in Beverly Hills until his death there in 1976. His
Metropolis cameraman, Karl Freund
(1890-1969), a fellow Austrian who had left Germany years before Lang, was
very successful in working behind the camera on countless Hollywood
productions, including Dracula (1931) and Key Largo
(1948).
Copyright © 1997, 1998 Hyde Flippo
From
www.german-way.com