Sep 9

Sep 9 Yesterday Looks At Tomorrow: METROPOLIS (1927)

“We are all interested in the future because that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.”
-- motto of GM’s Futurama exhibit for the 1939-40 World’s Fair as later co-opted by Criswell for Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Predicting the future is hard -- and if you’re going to do it in front of a camera, expensive.

Film makers like dystopian post-apocalyptic stories because they can film them in empty wastelands and run down urban areas, filling them with lots of action and stunts.

Why these worlds are the way they are is almost never explored.

Other times they offer the merest glimpse of the future before yanking the curtain shut, typically in stories where characters travel back in time to address future problems in our present / their past (Cyborg 2087 is a good example of this).

When film makers go all in for a futuristic production, they tend to focus their stories rather tightly on their protagonist/s, which is great for making the story more relatable, but tend to ignore the broader implications of their themes (looking at you, Blade Runner).

Rarely -- very rarely -- do film makers attempt epic stories with epic values, both visual and philosophical.

The golden age for this sort of thing lay between the two world wars, when exhausted populations longed for some sort of stable utopia to meet the needs of the many while avoiding the conflicts that previously laid waste to the planet.

This found expression in various forms:
Communism, socialism, fascism, technocracy, even the Esperanto movement.

It also found form in three science fiction films, each aiming to express Big Ideas in a Big Way, each succeeding -- or failing -- in similar yet different ways.

(For those who may be wondering, no, we will not be looking at Just Imagine or the serial Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. In both cases those futures are just backdrop for jokes or exotic flavor, not a serious look at what the actual future might hold…or demand.)

. . .

First out of the gate, Metropolis.

I’ve already written quite extensively on this film (and for the record, I will reference here the most complete recently restored versions; the two public domain versions found on bargain basement DVDs are both virtually incomprehensible).

In many ways, Metropolis is the least forward looking of the three movies we’re examining. It’s a story of labor vs capital told through a Romeo & Juliet flavored love story with a few fantastical elements added.

It’s basically a story set in the early part of the 20th century and as such firmly rooted in the vocabulary of Marx.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL THE MAGAS READING THIS:
No, that does not make Metropolis a Marxist film, much less one espousing communism or socialism; it merely describes the cultural background it arose from. If this is too complicated for you to grasp, go watch Revenge Of The Sith again.

Metropolis the city operates pretty much the way all major cities and nations operate even today: There’s a rich oligarchy on top, there are masses of laborers doing the grunt work that makes everything possible, there’s a thin barrier of middle class management that keep the two separate (but lives in constant dread of being cast down once again into the depths – quite literally in this film).

The main plotline involves Maria, a prophetess / pastor / social worker of the lower city, raising the consciousness of both the labor class and the ruling class to what we would call today social justice. Freder, son of the wealthy city manager of Metropolis, hears her messages, comes down to the catacombs to see for himself, is horrified by what he learns, and -- after obligatorily falling in love with Maria -- tries to convince his father to improve the workers’ conditions.

Dear old dad, however, doesn’t want the established order monkeyed with so he consults with Rotwang, as mad a scientist as one could hope to find, to build a robot double of Maria to destroy her reputation among the workers.

What dear old dad doesn’t realize is that Rotwang carries an enormous hate-on against him for marrying the woman the scientist once loved (Freder’s now deceased mom) and so in revenge programs the evil robot Maria to stir the workers to rebellion that will bring Metropolis crashing down (if you’ve only seen the public domain versions with their absolutely incomprehensible motives, you’re going, “Holy cow -- now that makes sense! Evil and crazy sense, but at least some sort of sense.”).

Before they wrap all this up, we are treated to some of the most eye-popping and still impressive visuals from the silent era. The rebellious workers learn too late that their orgy of anarchy and violence has destroyed their homes and almost their children, the oligarchs learn the workers have them by the throat and cojones, and both sides agree to simmer down and find a more equitable future for all.

No denying the ending is somewhat sappy and saccharine, but again, remember the era. Weimar Germany was like an aerialist doing a headstand atop a flagpole in a hurricane, and film maker Friz Lang & co. were doing their best to warn people of things to come if they didn’t take the current situation seriously and take steps to address a multitude of issues.

The Nazis watched Metropolis very studiously, and took away a lot of lessons about moving masses of people, staging enormous spectacles, and spurring otherwise sane and rational people into paroxysm of violence while otherwise ignoring the heart and soul of the film.

How well did it predict the future?
As noted, despite all the high tech (for the era) geegaws, Metropolis remains rooted in the world of 1927. It is beautiful, inspiring, and moving, but its foresight is sadly lacking.

This does not make it a bad film. Quite the contrary, that adds a bittersweet tinge to Metropolis, and in a way more evocative of Camelot.

It did accurately show the rising gulf between the wealthy and poor would acerbate conditions for everyone and eventually lead to a situation where nihilistic rebellion is not merely possible but appears desirable to many.

Is it a Big Film with Big Ideas?
Yes. As noted earlier, despite focusing on Freder and Maria’s immediate problems, it covers a broad range of interrelated ideas. And it’s not about one or two people making an important decision, it’s about literally entire classes coming to terms with a new reality.