Metropolis

Plot synopsis:
In the futuristic year of 2026, in the city of Metropolis, wealthy industrialists reign from high-rise tower complexes, while underground-dwelling workers toil to operate the underground machines that power the city. Joh Fredersen is the city's master. His son Freder idles away his time in a pleasure garden, but is interrupted by the arrival of a young woman named Maria, who has brought a group of workers' children to witness the lifestyle of the rich. Maria and the children are ushered away, but Freder, fascinated, goes to the machine rooms to find her. Witnessing the explosion of a huge machine that kills and injures several workers, he hurries to tell Fredersen about the accident. Grot, foreman of the Heart Machine, brings to Fredersen secret maps found on the dead workers. Freder secretly rebels against Fredersen by deciding to help the workers, after seeing his father's cold indifference towards the harsh conditions they face.
Fredersen takes the maps to the inventor Rotwang to learn their meaning. Rotwang had been in love with a woman named Hel, who left him to marry Fredersen and later died giving birth to Freder. Rotwang shows Fredersen a robot he has built to "resurrect" Hel. The maps show a network of catacombs beneath Metropolis, and the two men go to investigate. They eavesdrop on a gathering of workers, including Freder. Maria addresses them, prophesying the arrival of a mediator who can bring the working and ruling classes together. Freder believes that he could fill the role and declares his love for Maria. Fredersen orders Rotwang to give Maria's likeness to the robot so that it can ruin her reputation among the workers, unaware that Rotwang plans to use the robot to kill Freder and bring down Metropolis. Rotwang kidnaps Maria, transfers her likeness to the robot and sends her to Fredersen. Freder finds the two embracing and, believing it is the real Maria, falls into a prolonged delirium. Intercut with his hallucinations, the false Maria unleashes chaos throughout Metropolis, driving men to murder and stirring dissent amongst the workers.
Freder recovers and returns to the catacombs. Finding the false Maria urging the workers to rise up and destroy the machines, Freder accuses her of not being the real Maria. The workers follow the false Maria from their city to the machine rooms, leaving their children behind. They destroy the Heart Machine, which causes the workers' city below to flood. The real Maria, having escaped from Rotwang's house, rescues the children with the help of Freder. Grot berates the celebrating workers for abandoning their children in the flooded city. Believing their children to be dead, the hysterical workers capture the false Maria and burn her at the stake. A horrified Freder watches, not understanding the deception until the fire reveals her to be a robot. Rotwang chases the real Maria to the roof of the cathedral, pursued by Freder, and the two men fight as Fredersen and the workers watch from the street. Rotwang falls to his death. Freder fulfills his role as mediator by linking the hands of Fredersen and Grot to bring them together.

Tags: good versus evil, cult, psychedelic, murder, sci-fi

Review:
Of course, the real strength of Metropolis isn't the story, which is pretty silly and probably wouldn't have worked in anything but a silent film, but its amazing visuals, which in their scale and ambitiousness look forward to 2001 and Blade Runner.
In addition to being a pioneering example of the cinematic possibilities of science fiction, Metropolis also has to be one of the earliest disaster films, as the workers riot and sabotage the machines, endangering the entire city.
Sure, some science fiction movies are huge today, such as George Lucas' latest goofy Star Wars movie, but in 1926, Fritz Lang came out with a brilliant film about what the future would be like if people went on living the way they were living back then.
If some of these scenes, men can be seen being carried away on stretchers after having been injured, and the rest of the workers keep right on working, hardly even noticing.The way that the workers are portrayed as lifeless machines is one of the more potent elements of this film, as well as the most revealing about the directors intentions.
The special effects in this film are decades ahead of its time  it even resembles The Fifth Element in many ways (except that the two films can hardly be compared)  and the acting and especially the elaborately created sets are stunning to say the least.
The story was great, the filming was pure genius and the effects directly from another dimension.I don't think any movie after this one have gotten so much out of the available effects of the time as this one.
No wonder Hitler liked this movie...I don't know how the original music of the film was, but the new music for the restored 139 minute version I saw was really good and moodseting.All in all.
'Metropolis' is my all-time favourite movie, so I've saved this for the last review that I plan to write for this wonderful website IMDb. I've enjoyed sharing my experiences of the movies I've seen, but now I'm moving on to other passions.Although written by Fritz Lang's wife Thea von Harbou, 'Metropolis' was originally Lang's idea: he was inspired by the sight of New York's skyscrapers when he sailed to America in 1925.
But Wells' own futuristic film, "Things to Come", conceived in direct riposte to Lang's 'unscientific' approach, is tedious and talky as a result, didactic in its heavy-footed philosophy and explanations, and lacking in artistic vision: "Metropolis" may be 'soft' SF, but its approach undoubtedly makes for better cinema.I am not, however, impressed by it as a film.
By the late 1920s, cinema had progressed far beyond this laboured pantomime: in Lang's case the heavy stylisation may have been a deliberate choice, but compared to the fluidity of contemporaries such as Sjostrom's "The Wind" or "The Scarlet Letter", Asquith's "Underground" or "Shooting Stars", and Murnau's "Sunrise", the film comes across as ten years behind the times.
The problem is not necessarily with the actors -- Brigitte Helm, as has been observed, does an excellent job in differentiating her two characters -- but with the direction and pacing.We saw the restored version with the original Gottfried Huppertz score; the latter didn't always seem to fit too well, with pops, jumps and awkward silences, but this was I assume due either to the difficulty of fitting it to allow for the missing material, or to problems in the projection booth when running a newly-arrived print for the first time.
To take a single example: where the edited version conveys Freder's sudden recollection that he is supposed to be the workers' long-awaited 'mediator' via the simple juxtaposition of three shots -- the shift-change whistle announcing the meeting, the catacombs and Freder suddenly struck by an idea and rushing off -- the restoration betrays the fact that a couple of scenes of mimed dialogue were originally provided to spell out the message at painstaking length...It is interesting to see how it was done, but most of the cuts are either an improvement or a very clever abridgement, and by and large I didn't feel that what was omitted had been any great loss.
All of these films contain elements that were inspired by Lang's work.'Metropolis' has gone down in history as one of the most influential films ever made, certainly one of the most studied silent films and yet the movie sort of languishes.
One person that isn't ignorant of the class division is Joh Fredersen a ruthless businessman who rules Metropolis from his office.His son Freder happily enjoys the Pleasure Gardens one day when he notices a woman rising from the underground caves with a group of the worker's children.
But when you get down to it the best way to view 'Metropolis' is not as a film to pick apart but simply as a film of it's time, Lang created the story of a world gone mad while the world around him was going mad..
This epic science fiction film is one of Germany's famous silent movies created by Fritz Lang and liberated in 1927, the period between the two World Wars.This movie represents the expressionist cinema and shows us the repression of human needs by the machine age.
The Austrian director of the movie, Fritz Lang, presents the story of a master, John Federsen, who sees people as machines working constantly to maintain the luxury and technology of his metropolis.
New Restored Version Worth Checking Out. For its time, this movie has stunning visuals, kind of Kubrick-esqe in appearance, especially the opening scenes of workers going and coming from work.
The music was also very dramatic, at least in this restored 5.1 surround sound restoration DVD, put out by Klino.Obviously, the eye makeup on men and the exaggerated motions by actors in silent films look a little hokey but I was mesmerized by Brigitte Helm, who plays "Maria" and her evil clone.
I wouldn't attempt to watch this on anything less than this DVD, which looks pretty darn good.This is a "worker" story about a man wanting to trade his comfortable life to join the oppressed workers, who do their thing beneath the earth in "Metropolis." Workers are seen as nothing but replaceable robots.
"The mediator between Head and Hands must be the Heart!")The story leaves room for the visual style to come through- Freder is the son of a kind of Imperial man over the workers who die for the machines of Metropolis, Joh Frederson.
I won't reveal too much of the story, except to mention that as a foreshadowing for Freder for the last act, as he wakes up in one scene the Book of Revelations sits in his lap.Amidst in all of this, Metropolis is a masterpiece of visual effects, camera-tricks, and of course editing (if I wouldn't quite rank Metropolis in my all-time top ten favorites, I would rank it in terms of the editing and pacing Lang uses, which is apparent even in a permanently truncated version).
It's little things like that which make as big an impact as the montages, the super-impositions of faces and eyes in the dream-like shots.And, of course, Lang's greatest innovation with the film is that in telling a futuristic story, he goes beyond his time period in stylizing.
As I mentioned with the pacing being unique, it was surprising (though maybe not as much from seeing his classic M) that many of the suspense sequences, mob scenes/riots, chases, I knew that this is the same kind of styling that's used today for many of the most modern of science-fiction/action films.
With the new painstaking 2010 restoration effort also came a grandiose symphony orchestra studio recording of the original Gottfried Huppertz score - and the results make movie buffs prone to be blown away, and this time for real.The technical brilliance and visual lavishness of Fritz Lang's oeuvre was always undisputed already at its time and only matched by fellow German Murnau's ingenious approaches on film-making.
Most recently a copy of this film was located in Argentina and allowed restoration work to be done that brought back a lot of missing footage.If you're a fan of classic movies and you haven't seen this one, I think it's a must-see movie.
People haven't evolved since 100 or 1000 or 10000 years ago, they just evolved new special effects.Metropolis shows a world separated in two great social classes: the thinkers and the workers.
I love silent German film, but each time I have seen Metropolis, I come away feeling it is an over-rated film..
Early science fiction about a wonderful city of the future.The first 30 minutes of this movie is outstanding, the New York look of the city, the workers down below and then the switch to rich father and son up top, and that highly memorable scene where the son goes down below to switch lives with that of a big clock (or whatever it is?) worker.
I guess we may not ever knowAfter saying all this, what is my verdict?Anyone truly interested in the history of sci-fi special effects, or silent movies, or Weimar political fantasies, they definitely should see this once.However, like climbing Everest, only fools would do it twice.For everyone else, I would suggest watching the Japanese anime version the robot's cuter and the music was more appropriate for a 1927 film, which it isn't..
Now this better form isn't 100% perfect, as there were a few tiny places where they had to insert stills to complete the scenes (a practice becoming more and more common with restored silent films and even some sound ones like LOST HORIZON).The story, now that I see it in its original form, isn't really just a sci-fi movie per se--and that is what elevates it to greatness.
I saw the movie for the first time in 1968,and I remember a scene in which Maria, Rotwang's prisoner,is released by Joh Fredersen.In the versions displayed in the nineties,this scene seems to have vanished in the air.The running time is never the same,some more recent versions include hints at Rotwang's love for Freder Fredersen's mother Hel.But this character,Hel ,never appears in the restored versions:only photographs show this subplot,actually very important:before we thought that Rotwang urges his robot to destruct the machines because ...because..he was crazy:that did not satisfy us.In Thea Von Harbou's original screenplay,he did it out of jealousy,because he used to love his master's wife.For Fredersen ,the robot is first a way to replace working men,tireless slaves ;then,when it takes Maria's face,and the men go crazy and violent,it allows the boss to use violence and repression against them.In Metropolis ,two worlds coexist:the subterranean one,where human beings are in bondage (see Maria's hints at the Bible),the Yoshiwara,the Rich's paradise.Is it really a paradise anyway?It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth ,this paradise for the elite(remember Maria showing it to a group of children)Joh Fredersen,a member of the privileged understands his happiness is a fake one,when he sees first the young girl,then the terrifying underworld,this subcity where the poor sweat ,suffer and die for the sake of an idle aristocracy.The screen play has been often criticized because of its naive political ideology:Heart must be the mediator of work and capital.It has not worn well admittedly,but outside this moral,everything is great,as impressive today as it was in 1927!Do you think that,say,"close encounters of the third kinds" will stand the test of time as good as Lang's magnum opus,and remain a classic in 2050?Dubious isn't it?The architectural genius of the German Master explodes everywhere,his masterful using of the crowds leaves us in rapture,his dreamlike sequence is at least 20 or 30 years ahead of its time.The characters (Fredersen father and son,Rotwang and Maria) are convincing and the plot is more complex that it seems to be .(the flaws are caused by missing parts of the movie,as I said before)Fritz Lang said:"I do not like Metropolis,its conclusion is wrong.I did not accept it even when I was making the movie"A black legend surrounds "Metropolis":Hitler enjoyed it and asked Lang to become the "official" director of the Third Reich;he refused,left Germany and it was Leni Riefenstahl who filmed such nazi manifestos as "Triumph des Willems".Besides,Hitler might have thought of concentration camps because of "Metropolis".Even more bewildering:building in Mauthausen a huge stair,the prisoners said:"it looks like "Metropolis""Metropolis is a must,see it at any cost!.
The first great sci-fi film is still amazing for the sets and special effects--primitive as they may seem to day's fans--especially if viewed in the sort of pristine print seen on TCM these days.German expressionism is in full swing from the opening scene of workers reporting for a shift change in the city of the 21st century before switching to the opulent world above where men enjoy a playboy existence devoid of work and concentrating on play.
As a result, chunks of Fritz Lang's original vision have been lost forever, and the film exists in numerous dodgy, splotchy prints, hacked up and misedited, cut down and supplied with musical soundtracks that range from the completely inappropriate to wonderful modern techno-rock things which, nice though they are, are not what Lang had in mind.Kino came out with a DVD just a few years ago that is a fantastic attempt to restore Lang's original.
I love silent films and remember seeing a clip of Metropolis in my film appreciation class, I was so excited to pick a five dollar copy of this film from Best Buy and I was just amazed at how disturbing this movie was for not only it's time, but today.
In seeing this, he joins the beautiful Maria, leader of the workers, in an apocalyptic revolt against the thinkers.What makes "Metropolis" such a classic is because of it's influence on other films, such as "Dark City", "Blade Runner", "The Matrix", and even the background story of "The Terminator".
If your looking for an awesome black and white science fiction film with great acting and an excellent story...well keep searching because you will not find it here in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis".
It's easy to just slip into Lang's world, and though the pacing and running-time hardly render it accessible, what's really incredible about the film is how well its visuals still hold up.The towering, angular cityscapes, oppressive walls of machinery, and the now iconic "machine man" are stylistic triumphs that look great today and have had obvious influence on more recent science fiction/fantasy classics, from the dark metropolis of Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" to character design for "Star Wars." The fact that it was even possible in 1927 is as incredible as Kubrick's half-centennial "Space Odyssey" was for 1968.
The forward-thinking design and fantastic visuals make it easy to forget that it saw release twenty years before Isaac Asimov published his compilation, "I, Robot.""The Complete Metropolis," though not completely complete, is absolutely the best way to see the film.
It's a vision of the future that became typical with movies like "1984" or "Brazil" and a look that inspired 12 Monkeys and a hundred other cool modern day sci-fi films.It's standard sci-fi...the machines are taking over and making life crappy for everyone.
A few of the set pieces rank as some of the best ever created, for example, Moloch devouring the workers, Freder working the arms of the clock, the Tower of Babel story, the transformation of Rotwang's robot, Mecha-Maria's erotic dance, and a few others.
Once you are drawn into the world of the film, the combination of impressive visuals and strange story makes for a uniquely satisfying movie.The combination of expressionism and science fiction works well, creating the very interesting setting of "Metropolis" and an assortment of characters ranging from sympathetic to bizarre.
Again, Rotwang adds bonus points because the actor playing him, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, had amazing facial expressions.Set/special effects: Mind blowing for 1927 - Metropolis didn't use any computers, just smoke, mirrors and miniatures!Verdict: Watch this movie if you are a bit of a Nerd, like classic sci-fi or just appreciate good acting and excellent films..
metropolis is my favourite film of all time,simply because i have never seen a movie quite like this before.
"Metropolis" is Fritz Lang's masterpiece of science-fiction that delves into a highly metaphorical futuristic story of two divided classes and a man caught in between them.
The images and story feel more striking than ever before and the unapologetic approach Fritz Lang took in creating this masterpiece is what makes this movie stand far out above other science-fiction films.
It is much like Fritz Lang's film he made four years after Metropolis called M.
Like all films, Metropolis must be seen with an eye toward the times in which it was created.
And now that I've seen the complete film, I feel I'm able to do an accurate review.* The complete Metropolis is one of the greatest movies ever made, silent or sound.
It's a message that still calls out to the audience nearly a century later.I appreciate the work of the people around the world who collaborated to restore Metropolis to Lang's original vision.
Fritz Lang's epic 1927 science fiction film is a classic not just of the silent era, or the German Expressionism movement of the time.
A visually stunning film with a haunting vision of the future, Fritz Lang's silent masterpiece is still a fascinating and thought-provoking motion picture more than 80 years after its release.
Metropolis is the oldest movie I have seen; therefore I do not feel it is fair to compare with recent science fiction films.
Brigitte Helm also does a good job in several contrasting roles.So long as you can ignore the occasionally daft ideas of screenwriter Thea von Harbou, Metropolis in its current restored version is Fritz Lang's best film.
Metropolis is a silent science fiction film created by the famed Austrian director Fritz Lang.