Metropolis
About Metropolis
Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel) rules Metropolis from the towers. His son Freder (Gustav Fröhlich) follows Maria (Brigitte Helm) down to the machine rooms, where workers collapse at the dials. The inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) gives a robot Maria's face. The false Maria stirs the workers to smash the machines, which floods the workers' city and traps their children. The real Maria and Freder get the children out. The workers burn the robot. Fredersen, Freder, and the foreman meet, and the last title says the mediator between head and hands must be the heart.
Cast & crew
More about Metropolis
Erich Pommer produced Fritz Lang's film at UFA's Babelsberg studio. Thea von Harbou wrote the screenplay with Lang from her 1925 novel. Karl Freund and Günther Rittau photographed it. Gottfried Huppertz wrote the score. Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, and Karl Vollbrecht designed the sets. Shooting ran about 17 months in 1925–26. Parufamet distributed the German release. The Berlin premiere was 10 January 1927. The original German cut ran 153 minutes.
Themes
Background
UFA premiered the film in Berlin on 10 January 1927, late in the Weimar stabilization, after a production that had run through 1925 and 1926.
Making
UFA spent 5.3 million Reichsmarks and more than a year of shooting. The city is a miniature. The robot sequence uses a suit on Helm and a layered transformation shot.
Reviews
H. G. Wells published a review calling the film silly. Other notices praised the sets by Hunte, Kettelhut, and Vollbrecht and called the story naïve. The 2010 restoration was reviewed by The New York Times as the first time Lang's cut seemed complete.
Look
Karl Freund and Günther Rittau shot the miniature city, the machine halls, and the transformation in which the robot takes Maria's face.
Technique
The cityscapes are miniatures combined with the live action. The robot Maria is a costume and a multiple-exposure change from the metal figure to Helm's face.
Music
Gottfried Huppertz wrote the original score. The 2010 restoration premiere used a new recording of that score by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frank Strobel.
Preservation
The 153-minute German premiere version was cut soon after release. A 2010 restoration, using a damaged Argentine print and a New Zealand archive copy, runs 148 minutes and restores all but about five minutes. Kino Lorber issued that cut. The National Film Registry selected the film in 2001.
Notes
- A German gross of 75,000 Reichsmarks is also reported, separate from the U.S. and Canada rentals.
- A 2001 reconstruction played at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2008 a damaged print of Lang's cut was found in a museum in Argentina.
- Footage from that print and another archived in New Zealand was put back for a version shown in Berlin and Frankfurt on 12 February 2010, within about five minutes of the 153-minute original. Kino Lorber released that restoration at 148 minutes.
- The Internet Archive identifier Metropolis1925-ShorterVersion is a short print, not the 2010 cut.
- H. G. Wells, reviewing the film, called it silly.
- Brigitte Helm plays both Maria and the robot that wears her face.
Awards
- National Film Registry (2001)
Scenes
- Workers drop at the machine dials while Freder watches from the tower level.
- Rotwang's robot is given Maria's face.
- The false Maria leads the workers to wreck the Heart Machine, and the workers' city floods.
- The crowd burns the robot and the metal body shows through the false face.
Influenced by
- Metropolis, novel by Thea von Harbou (1925)
Also available
- Kino Lorber (2010 restoration, 148 minutes)
- Internet Archive (Metropolis1925-ShorterVersion)
Quotes
The mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart.
