36000 extras, 200000 costumes, over 500 70-storey miniature skyscrapers - Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Filming took place in 1925 at a cost of approximately 5 million Reichsmarks, making it the most expensive film ever made up to that point. However it opened in 1927 to mixed reactions and barely made 75000 Reichsmarks. Because of its long running-time of over 150 minutes and the inclusion of footage which censors found questionable, Metropolis was butchered substantially after its German premiere, and large portions of the film went missing over the subsequent decades. In 2008 a damaged print of Lang's original cut of the film was found in a museum in Argentina. After a long restoration process, the film was 95% restored.
Even though I considered myself a modest cinephile, I seldom venture out of my comfort zone of contemporary films. I blame this on one night at the uni when I was "treated" to a silent film - Sergei Eisenstein's Strike (1925). The movie was fine but there was no soundtrack to speak of and it was a torture to watch without even music. Since then I stayed away from films of the Silent Era; that is until Metropolis. Without even watching the film, some of the images have become iconic and have seared into my consciousness.
So feeling adventurous I put in the blu-ray and OMG time came to a standstill. This is most definitely a sci-fi masterpiece on so many levels, misunderstood in its time, but revered in modern times. You can immediately see how Metropolis' dystopian cityscape as curtains has influenced countless films like Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) and Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997). I can even see MTV videos belonging to Madonna and Lady Gaga borrowing cinematic elements from Metropolis unabashedly. Even "carved in stone" looks and mannerisms of mad scientist-villain complete with crazy laboratory has its birthplace here. The magnificent set-designs are unheard of in its time. Each miniature vehicle is moved a millimeter at a time and a single shot taken. Purportedly, 8 days of work for 10 seconds of film! I love ogling at the Avantgarde architecture. Each building structure tells a different story. Tell me you don't see Blade Runner in this.
I will dispense with a detailed synopsis which you can easily glean from elsewhere. The story in a nutshell is set in a futuristic dystopian city where there exist two classes of people - the pampered citizens who live on the surface in luxury and the worker slaves of the underground who live to work and work to live. Along will come a lady named Maria and a love-smitten young man named Freder who will be the eventual bridge of reconciliation between these two disparate races.
There are some weird and absurd transitions between scenes and by today's standards one would cry mawkish and maudlin in an instance. But I couldn't be bothered because the visuals are breathtakingly amazing. I could easily harken back to 1927 and I knew I was seeing all these stupendous visual effects and cinematic flair for the first time. It's kind of like sitting in the cinema in 1977 watching Star Wars: A New Hope. One can hardly get to feel that awe-inspiring feeling nowadays when the super-computers are capable of doing anything on the big screen. With Metropolis I was seeing the birthplace of the visionary future city, the humongous crowd pandemonium scenes, the robot (which inspired the look of C3-PO), the destruction of cities, the magnificent flooding, the visual telephonic machines (now you know where they came from), and so on. Several times I had to stop and ponder how the heck did Fritz Lang shoot the scenes (the only time I did that in the whole of 2015 was Mad Max: Fury Road) of puny human beings encompassed within gigantic monolithic structures, like did Lang actually build high walls just to create that running scene. Later I discovered that this unique visual effect was the work of Eugene Schufftan. He created what is known as the Schufftan process whereby human actors can be in the same frame with a miniature, a technique that was most recently used by Peter Jackson in his Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. These days most filmmakers use green screen composite shots for that, but what Schufftan has achieved is nothing short of stunning. There are also a few noteworthy cinematographic sequences that caught me in a state of jaw-dropping wow. For example, the chase scene involving the mad scientist chasing Maria through the catacombs, and shafts of light worked like knives stabbing at the poor damsel.
I love Metropolis's huge ambition. Lang wasn't content with just a Good versus Evil story, he was creating a visual world so striking that you will be lost in the themes of love, Messianic revelation, dubious democracy and the corruption of Science and industry if one is not careful. The strong religious overtones and political allegory pulsate with authority as actors go through Kabuki theatrical poses. This is a masterpiece that has been so influential for generations of film narratives and in creating a bleak futuristic city. I highly recommend the blu-ray (the 50-minute documentary within it is also a must-watch). Be awashed by the original 1927 score by Gottfried Huppertz, performed by the Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra, Berlin and presented in DTS-HD MA 5.1. Simply ravishing and marvelous. Watching Metropolis feels like a time-bending experience in which Lang's 1927 and my 2016 became one time and one place.
Even though I considered myself a modest cinephile, I seldom venture out of my comfort zone of contemporary films. I blame this on one night at the uni when I was "treated" to a silent film - Sergei Eisenstein's Strike (1925). The movie was fine but there was no soundtrack to speak of and it was a torture to watch without even music. Since then I stayed away from films of the Silent Era; that is until Metropolis. Without even watching the film, some of the images have become iconic and have seared into my consciousness.
So feeling adventurous I put in the blu-ray and OMG time came to a standstill. This is most definitely a sci-fi masterpiece on so many levels, misunderstood in its time, but revered in modern times. You can immediately see how Metropolis' dystopian cityscape as curtains has influenced countless films like Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) and Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997). I can even see MTV videos belonging to Madonna and Lady Gaga borrowing cinematic elements from Metropolis unabashedly. Even "carved in stone" looks and mannerisms of mad scientist-villain complete with crazy laboratory has its birthplace here. The magnificent set-designs are unheard of in its time. Each miniature vehicle is moved a millimeter at a time and a single shot taken. Purportedly, 8 days of work for 10 seconds of film! I love ogling at the Avantgarde architecture. Each building structure tells a different story. Tell me you don't see Blade Runner in this.
I will dispense with a detailed synopsis which you can easily glean from elsewhere. The story in a nutshell is set in a futuristic dystopian city where there exist two classes of people - the pampered citizens who live on the surface in luxury and the worker slaves of the underground who live to work and work to live. Along will come a lady named Maria and a love-smitten young man named Freder who will be the eventual bridge of reconciliation between these two disparate races.
There are some weird and absurd transitions between scenes and by today's standards one would cry mawkish and maudlin in an instance. But I couldn't be bothered because the visuals are breathtakingly amazing. I could easily harken back to 1927 and I knew I was seeing all these stupendous visual effects and cinematic flair for the first time. It's kind of like sitting in the cinema in 1977 watching Star Wars: A New Hope. One can hardly get to feel that awe-inspiring feeling nowadays when the super-computers are capable of doing anything on the big screen. With Metropolis I was seeing the birthplace of the visionary future city, the humongous crowd pandemonium scenes, the robot (which inspired the look of C3-PO), the destruction of cities, the magnificent flooding, the visual telephonic machines (now you know where they came from), and so on. Several times I had to stop and ponder how the heck did Fritz Lang shoot the scenes (the only time I did that in the whole of 2015 was Mad Max: Fury Road) of puny human beings encompassed within gigantic monolithic structures, like did Lang actually build high walls just to create that running scene. Later I discovered that this unique visual effect was the work of Eugene Schufftan. He created what is known as the Schufftan process whereby human actors can be in the same frame with a miniature, a technique that was most recently used by Peter Jackson in his Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. These days most filmmakers use green screen composite shots for that, but what Schufftan has achieved is nothing short of stunning. There are also a few noteworthy cinematographic sequences that caught me in a state of jaw-dropping wow. For example, the chase scene involving the mad scientist chasing Maria through the catacombs, and shafts of light worked like knives stabbing at the poor damsel.
I love Metropolis's huge ambition. Lang wasn't content with just a Good versus Evil story, he was creating a visual world so striking that you will be lost in the themes of love, Messianic revelation, dubious democracy and the corruption of Science and industry if one is not careful. The strong religious overtones and political allegory pulsate with authority as actors go through Kabuki theatrical poses. This is a masterpiece that has been so influential for generations of film narratives and in creating a bleak futuristic city. I highly recommend the blu-ray (the 50-minute documentary within it is also a must-watch). Be awashed by the original 1927 score by Gottfried Huppertz, performed by the Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra, Berlin and presented in DTS-HD MA 5.1. Simply ravishing and marvelous. Watching Metropolis feels like a time-bending experience in which Lang's 1927 and my 2016 became one time and one place.