When Silence Speaks in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis by Stefan B-R

When silence speaks in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis1 A paradox of modernity: technological development and social, individual stagnation

Ștefan Bernhardt-Radu

Abstract: The essay will argue that Metropolis is not only a film about a futuristic city in which class struggle occurs, but an allegory to the problems that modernity had brought in interwar Weimar Germany, with leitmotifs relevant to this day. Modernity is suggested to be interpreted by Lang and his wife Harbou as a lack of communication, or dialogue between humans and their own values, which will be explored and explained in the introduction and the context. The thesis of the lack of dialogue is then arbitrarily separated in three, namely the impending issues brought by the dehumanisation generated by the machine which disconnects humans from their very humanity, by the desacralisation of the robot which dissolves all human morals and spirituality, as well as the dictatorship, which profits from both dehumanisation and desacralisation by gaining profit and solidifying power, reinforcing at the same the issues voluntarily. Specific scenes will be analysed to back those three elements, while expressionist strategies will be examined in tandem with these scenes as they are useful both artistically and diegetically. The piece is more evidently recommended for those who are interested in the film Metropolis, as well as for those researching into the context of interwar Germany, which is examined and exemplified by the film at hand.

Introduction On the 24th of Novembre 2017, an article entitled ‘The Guardian view on productivity: the robots are coming’ was published, which not only argued that robots were to emerge on a large scale and effect widespread societal changes, but that the economic drive supported by the British political authority was and would be having companies reinforce social inequality in general by betting all their financial strength on profitable robots. This raised a standard but important question: if robots were to be spread via their profitability, it would also mean that humans would be gradually replaced by machines and economic profitability. The article ended with: ‘in chasing higher economic output we should not lose sight of the value of our humanity’. The theme of human condition in a modern, socially unequal and mechanic society is explored powerfully in Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis. Fundamentally, Fritz Lang wanted to depict the effects of economic tycoons, dictatorship and machinery in a richly developed city, arguing that technological development would not solve social, political and ideological problems, which he, along with his wife Thea von Harbou found to be an existent part of their own society as well. Also, what he may have wanted to do also was to dismantle a discourse of progression, and demonstrate the lack of dialogue2 his own society could be accused 1 Note:

The essay is analysing the 2010 best restored revision of the film after the finding of the Argentinian version in 2008. Due to limits of space, and lack of importance here, the nature of the film will not be discussed furthermore. To learn more, see: French, P. (2015) Metropolis review – Philip French on Fritz Lang’s visionary epic [online]. The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/15/metropolisfritz-lang-philip-french-classic-dvd [Accessed on: 06/11/2017] 2

Note: I make a distinction between just dialogue and its branch positive dialogue. Dialogue here refers to a dialogue that does not necessarily require rational logos, i.e. rational argumentation. It is also the dialogue of the self against rational ideas, whereas positive dialogue is that which is inextricably linked to a scientific and logical logos. This distinction is inherent throughout the essay.

for, dreaming about a world in which science and technology would solve everything. Metropolis was thus in many ways a film ahead of its time, becoming a classic and a cinematographic essential as it disseminated its ideas on highways of long temporal lengths and widths of space: its themes can be seen recurring in one way or another in films such as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), the Wachowski Brothers’ The Matrix (1999) and its sequels, Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium (2002), Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men (2006), Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium (2013), or Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) and many others. Nevertheless, at its release in 1927, as it is often the case, while some praised its innovative strategies and use of technology, others hesitated little to harshly criticize it. One of the most influential critical voices was that of H.G. Wells, who called it an ‘ignorant, old-fashioned balderdash’ (Wells, 1927). 3 Equating art with what then was modern mechanical invention, Wells brutally condemned the film’s lack of progressive technological, infrastructural and social verisimilitude, arguing Metropolis looked alike the then present-day, scorning at ideas such as ‘soul, love and suchlike’. Wells’ arguments might seem absurd to many today, yet criticism is symptomatic of the times when Metropolis was released – with a general penchant for scientific and technological development which would generate a new human in an evolved society. Therefore, when he ‘supposed everyone had come to see what the city of a hundred years hence would be like’, he was certainly making sense to eyes and ears of his day. However, Metropolis, though a film aiming to impress through its scaffolding of cinematographic innovations and imaginative structures that would depict a credible future, was, as mentioned above, more than a luminous polis-box. H.G. Wells fails to see the point that technological innovation is not the main goal, but his insistence on it somehow testifies the point of Metropolis. Its Austrian director Fritz Lang, throughout the entire epic movie, always wants to emphasize the power of dialogue, and the effects when its absence is most present. This is a relevant example when a silent movie speaks powerfully without the use of sound. On the contrary, therefore, a liaison between a futuristic society like that of Metropolis and Lang’s Weimar Republic creates a closer connection between the two societies. In any case, and in a similar way, he was not specifically interested in politics, even if political positions are certainly visible and perhaps inevitable. In an interview taken by William Friedkin in 1974, Fritz Lang claims that ‘I was not thinking very much politically conscious before I finished Metropolis’, saying that ‘I try to put my finger on certain social evils’ and adding that ‘I am not a politician to tell you how to change these evils, but I can point out to you that these evils exist’ (Friedkin, 1975). He does this too in the 1931 movie which he reportedly considered his finest, M le Maudit, when the protagonist Hans Beckert, wanted for his crimes, is captured by the criminal underworld and is judged by them in a masquerade of a trial – evil judging evil, reminding one of Stalinist experiences. In Metropolis, Fritz Lang wants to probe the problems of the society in which he lived, i.e. the problems of the modern machine, which was glorified by Futurists, politicians, writers and people in general.

Context In order to put the movie into perspective, it would be useful to answer the question, even if only generally: why did Wells glorify the machine and the modern invention in general in the detriment of human feelings? In brief lines, a crisis of reason and trust in modern society especially revealed by the Great War, encouraged a powerful return to already existing pure ideas and utopian conceptions 3

The resource is online and can be found at: https://www.uow.edu.au/~morgan/Metroh.htm [Accessed on 04/11/2017]

of society, from which not even Metropolis fully escaped (Russ, 1995). The film in question emerged in cinemas in a 1927 Europe whose mood had still been rendered bleak due to a lengthy, costly and devastating war which rendered many beliefs, such as that of God, even more unbelievable, when individualism sparked ever more strongly and in which uncertainty, provoked undoubtedly by psychoanalysis and/or ideas pertaining to relativity, appeared to be ever more prevalent. Against this, a powerful utopian tendency acted at times violently and drastically which especially took refuge in naturalising ideas of purity, authoritarian states, power-politics, collective but hierarchical societies whereby individualism would be stifled in favor of unity, and hoped that technology would change the world for the better. As modern technology became strikingly efficient, protean and proliferating, it was thus seen at times as an absolute solution to society’s problems, as a necessary benefactor due to its capacities to change society and to alter people’s lives for the better, a dream that to today’s minds might provoke a subtle grin due to its perceived naivety. Machines, however, always tied in some way or another to humans, to technology and the power of efficiency, as well as the craving for new and better societies under powerful states, tended to replace humans with grand universal Ideas, the new human who, in many ways, would be supplanted by the power of the machine which encouraged danger and violence as necessary methods for its structural reinforcement, guided at all times by a firm state. This can be seen in the artistic movements at the time as well, such as those of Futurism,4 or in the utopian writers such as Ezra Pound who, in his Paradiso Terrestre, tried to generate an aphrodisiac Paradise in which humans, with their ‘animal warmth’ and their imperfect existence, were to be subtly excluded. As one author put it, ‘transcending humanity means to enter in hell’. 5 In the same rhythm, Fritz Lang explores this dehumanisation of what was considered at the time an ideal society, an ideal where the naïve happiness of a few is built upon the mechanisation and dehumanisation of a majority – a majority that becomes Machine-menschen. Furthermore, a brief look at its specific German context would also aid greatly in the comprehension of the film. First, one must have a look at the historical context. When Metropolis was released in 1927, the post-war mood was still largely present in Germany. While countries such as Britain or France were slowing down in terms of cinematographic development during the war, Germany’s filming production grew exponentially, as can best be exemplified by the appearance of UFA in 1917, in which the majority of the German film talent and power was absorbed and thus German cinematography centralized. Its main aim was to produce nationalist films in order to distract the audiences from the devastated economy and the bleak atmosphere induced undoubtedly by the Allied embargo. This is what S. Kracauer calls the ‘frozen ground’, that is to say he argued that in Germany there was an atmosphere of general indifference and ignorance towards social realities, many films transforming the normal into imaginary landscapes where people’s yearnings were going to be fulfilled (Kracauer, 1946). The analogy of Metropolis with Babylon is not accidental, as Berlin drank its post-war memories and fears of uncertainty in its ‘golden twenties’.6 In Freudian terms, this would be equivalent to a – conscious – ‘wish-fulfilment’ dream (Freud, 1913). Kracauer criticised Metropolis as well for its pompous, unnecessary ornamental elements, with a grande richesse, but which ultimately conveyed no meaning. There is a truth behind those arguments. However, Kracauer’s

See Tommaso Marinetti’s Manifesto of Futurism (1909)

Vancu, R. (2016) Elegie Pentru Uman: O critică a modernității poetice de la Pound la Cărtărescu. Bucharest: Humanitas. ‘A trece dincolo de uman înseamnă a intra în infern’ (p. 12) 6 A good representation of this is the contemporary German TV series Babylon Berlin. See: The Guardian (2017) Sex, seafood and 25,000 coffees a day: the wild 1920s superclub that inspired Babylon Berlin [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/24/babylon-berlin-real-1920s-superclub-behind-weimar-era-thriller [Accessed on 24/11/2017]

observations are limited, for this ‘pompous’ style also characterized Germany in the 1920s with a powerful expressive meaning. Ergo, Metropolis cannot be understood without a closer look at the artistic German Expressionism of the late 1800s and early 1900s.7 This latter movement was inspired by the German expressionists who fundamentally wanted to distort reality in order to express deep-seated emotions which they regarded more authentic. Die Brucke, or the Bridge, like many avant-garde movements in the 20th century, were ready to explore the psychology of the self, the spiritual life of the individual, a return to human nature as a reaction against the conventions of the time and especially as what was seen as an increasingly artificial reality. The very word ‘Bridge’ is inspired by Nietzsche’s philosophical assertion in Thus Spoke Zarathustra8 that man is a bridge to the understanding of the world through individual self-assertion, through his will to power, depriving humans of moral values, naturalising them beyond good and evil. Combined with Freudian terms, German films liberated from mainstream entertainment aimed to naturalise humans, to paint the effects of a grand society upon the unconsciousness of diverse characters. With this in mind, Robert Wiene, in his famous The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), translated expressionism in cinema as high-contrast lighting, the prevalence of shadows, ambiguity, horror and the exaggerated mise-en-scene in order to reflect an individual’s inner psychology (Darsa, 2013). Though Metropolis is not as overtly expressionistic as Caligari, apart from the elements above, expressionist elements can be seen in the film’s general preference for exaggeration in movement, gestures and physiognomies of its personages, the stylized costumes and the fascination with different characters’ vision – notably Maria’s, whose eyes both express the character’s inner mind, and which has a destabilizing effect upon Fred’s psyche, and in general in the utopian setting of the movie (Hake, 2005; Stoicea, 2006). But the most striking feature of expressionist themes in Metropolis is its tendency to transform settings through dreams, delusions, hallucinations, ever within an obscure environment in which shadows play in order to reveal Manichean elements, rather than merely to record scenes in a documentary style (Hake, 2005). The most obvious expressionist elements, as well as Marxist, in Metropolis is its partitioning between upper and lower city, with the middle as a place of interaction between the two, and where also the pacification between the hand and the head occurs (Darsa, 2013). Throughout his movies, as mentioned previously, Lang deals with a certain ‘social evil’. In Metropolis, he explores the absence of dialogue in a futuristic society whose glamour hides as much as it shows. The issue of dialogue is symptomatic of the Weimar Republic due to its ‘frozen ground’, especially in what regards its psychological adjustment to a Post-War world, and as the new-found democracy contributed, along with the inevitable suppressed authoritarian traditions still existent, put Germany in a state of paralysis, coupled as it was with the economic crises the country lived through and the social upheaval and revolutionary impulses that perhaps made many hope and dream of better times – the ultimate outcome was that social realities were mostly ignored. Walter Ruttman’s Die Simfonie der Großstadt accounts for the absence of the individual and of the awareness of social issues, as well as the outright escapism provided by the bright lights of the middle class. The absence of dialogue is also linked to German Expressionism, with its typical fin-de-siècle mood – which fundamentally attempts to redeem the human individual by diffusing its inner experiences in the exterior, exploring thus a dehumanizing and desacralizing modern crisis. It is to be noted, however, 7 Despite

Germany’s defeat in the First World War, its success after the war in what concerns cinematography owes itself largely to its centralisation of film talent, equipment and facilities war in the form of UFA in order to produce nationalist films whose mission was to distract the population from the devastated economy. This also meant an embargo on foreign films, which contributed to the specific form of German Expressionism in cinema. 8 Apart from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1891), see also Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and A Genealogy of Morals (1887) in which Nietzschean philosophy is more evident in regards to the film.

that by so arguing, the film also naively falls prey to the purity of individualism which hides a certain dose of naivety. In Metropolis the problem of the dialogue can be seen in its three dominant themes: the machine, the robot and the dictator.

Analysis: the leitmotif of the Machine One of the prominent themes of the film is that of the machine, a major factor that disrupts the dialogue between humans and their own selves. The machine makes human beings disposable goods, as ‘mere cogs in the wheels of industry’ (Wosk, 2010), and replaces their imperfection, their emotions with the rigidity and regularity of the metal. The idea of the depravation of one’s feelings will be inherited, e.g., in The Matrix (1999), a film with a strong footprint from Metropolis, where ‘to deny our own impulses, is to deny the very thing that makes us human’. For Lang, indeed, one could say that the famous axiom deus ex machina transforms into inferus ex machina. In the film, machina cannot be understood without humanus which then as now are also seen as the contrasting symbols between perfection and imperfection respectively. The issue that lies at the heart of machina, as Lang and Harbou perhaps want to indicate by their use of the name Metropolis, is that it is a paradox: machina are the engine for modernity, for the perfected society, for the ideals of humanity, as without it, the efficiency and the power of the modern era would be impossible - yet at the same time, machina mechanises humans and transforms them into slaves for the sake of that very ideal. Julie Wosk argues that Metropolis is a film in which science and technology are used to lead to transformations, but which are a two-edged sword, as described above (Wosk, 2010). A scene at the beginning of the movie would illustrate this independent will of the machine and the consequent mechanisation of humanity. When Joh Fredersen’s son enters the underworld where the workers toil in order to make the city above properly function, he discovers a whole different layer of the society, as seen in his reactions. He is the explorer who escaped from the naïve, perfect and blind Eternal Gardens of the upper world into the world down dominated by the needs of the machine. The audience is made to explore this world from the perspective of Fred, as Lang wants the viewer to see with the eyes of someone who has never really seen something like this: and who is horrified by the experience. What Fredersen views is a rigid structuration, adumbrated and dominated by the workings of a complex technology, whose speed and needs require human intervention, but which so dehumanizes humans that it removes them from their very selves. One could say that the workers are ‘architecturised’ (Bertetto, 2015), that is they have become part of the architecture and life of the machine. By way of analogy, this idea would be taken further later in The Matrix (1999), where a ‘computer-generated dream world [is] built to keep us under control in order to change the human being into this [a battery for machines].’ Not only is the architecture of the machine striking, looking more like a temple of symmetrical elements consecrated to speed and efficiency, raging and expressing its wishes by releasing steams like restless geysers in an inferno, but the humans themselves move and act in a type of mechanical choreography which has consumed them of their free will. And this speaks for the destruction of the most basic dialogue there could have been: the machine renders unimportant the needs of the workers themselves. Fredersen is horrified indirectly because between the upper world and the underworld there has been no communication – and directly due to the dehumanisation and brutality of this world which greatly affects him as he had not even believed a place such as that existed. Lang here wants to create an allegory of his own times – for many amongst the audiences had never themselves seen the experiences of the working class, whose lives are inextricably clouded by the thick steam of the machine. 5

Following an accident which blows some of the workers away, Fredersen’s observation of the machine transforms into the man-eater pagan deity Moloch, through the character’s subjective lens. The scene contains, no doubt, a testimony of the expressionist import in the movie, as it is a powerful visual representation of the malicious repercussions of the machine. Moloch is a visual representation of Fredersen’s inner psychology, the emotional impact the machine has dealt to him, an unmistakable expressionist technique, which includes as well the techniques of exaggeration and shadow play – the underworld is, after all, an obscure place, yet the machine and Moloch are lighted brilliantly so as to make a contrast between what Fredersen is focusing on, and hence what the audience should too, and what he is not. The transformation of the machine in Moloch leads to an ancient architecture, typically expressionist, of a beast who swallows and regurgitates humans – while they oppose no resistance. The message is clear: the machine’s desacralizing effects devours humans and renders their individuality absent, as they walk in a congruent fashion, in lines and rows of six, with no interruption, towards the mouth of the metal beast, watched by its pagan guards. The scene is interrupted by Fredersen’s flight out of the factory. What the audience is given to see are then three panoramas of Metropolis, of its New York-inspired skyscrapers, animated by planes, cars and people. This scene serves to calm the precipitation that the episode of the machine has induced and anticipates a next scene somewhat with a different perspective or narrative line, but this sequence of shots also and essentially transmits a message difficult to ignore – the magnificence and the well-being of metropolis is built and maintained upon the lives and toils of people alike in the scene which preceded it. The power of the scene is that it allows the viewer to reflect, to breathe after the storm, for while their dreams have come true, the nightmares they ignored to incorporate into their dreams had never disappeared. This is then emblematic: one cannot look now at the glimmering and fantastic city without the shadow of the underworld ever looming back into one’s eyes. Lang thus seeks to restore the connection between the two parts of Metropolis, and will tighten it later when Fredersen enters again into the workers’ city and attempts to live as a worker. The machine therefore, for all its successes, is an inhuman element which sets ablaze the dialogue between humans and their individuality, between themselves and society in general, as it oppresses the workers and blinds the upper classes towards their ignorance of the plight of others, and between themselves and the people in charge of the city, who despite knowing about the consequences of their own system, continue still for their own profit. H.G. Wells intuited this message of the film, yet he regarded it as unimportant, as he trusted that the machine, the very thing Lang and Harbou are against, would inevitably enrich society for the good of all. That went well indeed.

Analysis: the motif of the Robot The leitmotif of the machine is inextricably linked to the motif of the robot due to its affinity to the depersonalizing and corrupting mechanistic nature. Yet, the robot is perhaps a more striking symbol than the machine in general as it mimics the life of a human and it leads more overtly always to the satisfaction of desire of all social classes, whether it stirs rebellion or is burnt at the stake, conjuring powerful imagery that seek to deconstruct the society with a probing eye. That being said, the dissolution of dialogue effectuated by the robot is caused primarily by the fact that the robot does not stimulate communication, honesty or the freedom of choice, but it fuels a destructive imposition of will, which was what Christianity mainly fought against. Perhaps the most important feature of the robot is that it is dynamic – it represents a transformative process from a human who preaches patience, love and fraternity in the form of the real Maria, to the false Maria who advocates for 6

irrationality, revolution and the satisfaction of desires as it materializes dreams, being thus a powerful expressionistic tool as well as a critique against modernity. Gabriela Stoicea argued that ‘[in Metropolis] whether demonized or idolized, female sexuality emerges as a perpetual subject to ideological manipulation’ (2006: 38). That is to say, the false-robotic Maria represents not so much the evils of the machine, though that as well, but the decadence of a society which puts its hopes into entertainment, material surplus and technological development in the detriment of its own morality and humanity. Thus, Stoicea’s argument is useful in that it is not surprising the robot gains the image of a woman as commanded by Joh Fredersen, for women were mainly seen as the embodiment of irrationality, and hence the false Maria herself will be ordered to instigate evil actions that lead to profanity, (more) decadence and control. The robot invokes an ethical implication, and from a theological perspective the transformation of the robot in Maria has apocalyptic implications (Bervgall, 2012). Rotwang is himself a symptomatic expressionistic symbol which summons the imagery of the scientist-creator, dressed in an antiquated robe that brings the idea of power and mystery at the same. He stands in a peculiar and sophisticated laboratory adorned with tesla coils, all types of chemical liquids, measuring machines and numerous levers that are there to metamorphose the robot’s appearance into Maria. The scene recalls the modelling of humanity by God after his own visage and this is exactly what reveals the profanity inherent in the robot. The act of creation is not only done by Rotwang as the scientistinventor whose knowledge is power, following Francis Bacon’s (in)famous assertion that scientia potestas est, which Lang, as an expressionist directly attacks, but also by machinery itself as that is the means through which the power of rational knowledge is effectuated. The robot is then not only a lifeless machine, but also a replica of how a human should be – obedient to the will of rational power. Nevertheless, the robot now perverts human ethical values and inverses the ethical logic of Christianity, turning the sacred into the profane. Its main influence thus is that it evaporates the divine dialogic relationship between humans and God, as creation itself can be done through the means of scientific power. This is often unacceptable by expressionists for whom metaphysics are important. In a broader sense, the robot represents the lack of self-reflection which would normally imply a soliloquy over morality, and would then lead to a life beyond that purely physical and scientific. Metropolis, the city, succumbs to profanity, vice and immorality as the robot represents merely the satisfaction of will and desire and the interdiction of dialogue. Profanity is a grand motif in Metropolis. It emerges from the very name of the enormous skyscraper which surveys the entire city: Babylon. The tower of Babylon, in biblical legends, has come to signify excess, vice and the lack of moral codes, against which Judaism, amongst others, reacted through a stronger covenant with God. The magnanimous building is also where power resides, from where all directives are sent to those who need but to obey. According to this legend, the tower of Babylon was constructed by an army of slaves, which is no less the representation of the workers in Metropolis. As punishment for its immoral extravagance and its heinous excesses, God had it that people could no longer speak the same language so as to understand one another, and therefore created many languages. Through this interpretative key the robot can be said to divorce humans from their moral selves and to induce them towards vice, a language that Christian morality does not countenance. The same can be said through the representation of Yoshiwara, the place of pleasure for those more fortunate where light blinds the pleasure-seeker and where the surplus of material goods, including women seen as goods meant for pleasure, is ever present. This can best be seen when Georgy is seduced by this world and finds it difficult to leave, forgetting his main tasks towards Fred. The name of the place itself comes from a Japanese district designated by the Tokugawa Shogunate to serve as 7

a place where prostitution could be practiced. Furthermore, the robot takes the form of a profane deity which allures the pleasure-seeking rich masses in the middle city, and it is at one point supported by the seven Christian vices, led by Death. When Fred goes into the Church, he sees a monk that urges that ‘Verily, I say unto you, the days spoken of in the Apocalypse are nigh!’ and then he points to the bible which tells about the ‘whore of Babylon, mother of abominations on Earth’. The frame then changes to Rotwang’s robot – thus the logic of the frames is once more important as it reveals to the audience what the robot is going to do before it takes the form of Maria. The lack of morality, no doubt generated by corrupting machines, is thus a powerful feature in Metropolis. The robot’s main demonstration of vice and profanity in Metropolis, granting desires free passage, is most clear when the false Maria attempts to stir the workers beneath the city into fullblown rebellion against the machinery which subdued them. This scene is the ‘evil’ version of a previous one in which the true Maria vouched for passivity amongst the workers. This, as specified before, can best be understood with an eye directed towards biblical accounts of Jesus walking amongst the unfortunate and the downtrodden advocating for fraternity and love against what was seen as the greed and lust of the Roman Empire. Maria too, backed by crosses in a cave reminding the audience of the first days of Christianity, is advocating for unity and patience through her calm gestures and mild facial expressions by arguing that a Mediator will come and unite the city. Except, of course, that Maria is not the equivalent of Jesus, but a symbol of feminine sweetness and beauty, untouched by the hardship of the underground world, and caressing the troubles of the workers. Against this, the false Maria performs ‘perverse mechanisms of seduction and the psychic captivation of the other’ (Bertetto, 2015), gesturing with her hands, eyes and legs in order to allure the mass of workers towards her own purposes – that of making them rebel against the city. In truth, she is freeing the workers of their reservations against rebelling, letting their will and unconscious rage flow, which is strictly against the Christian value of constraint and humility. A more interesting subject to introduce here is the gaze, which is a powerful expressionist and diegetic tool that Lang uses throughout the film. Inciting rebellion, the false Maria’s eyes figure prominently on the screen – her eyes too being framed with a thick colour of black which connotes a demonic gaze, as well as the lack of symmetry between the two eyes, one being more closed than the other, alluding to evil, hidden intentions. Lang tries to reveal the power of her gaze through a shot in which there are superimposed eyes and faces of a mass of workers, the false Maria’s visage itself dominating the screen. It is not the only time Lang uses this, but it is definitely an emblematic scene of the skill of German expressionism whereby the psychological experiences of the workers are explored as the false Maria’s satanic powers fools them into evil, forgetting to think and merely acting upon their emotions. The gaze of the false Maria, reminding somehow of the ancient Greek Medusa with her petrifying eyes and a beauty that inflames one to look at her, is present also in a previous scene where, dressed like the ‘whore of Babylon’, she instils lust in the richer citizens of Metropolis who follow nothing but their own unconscious desires when close to her. The people of Metropolis’ dialogue with their own moral selves is interrupted. By reanimating the seven vices and summoning Death itself upon the city of Metropolis, Harbou and Lang choose to have the workers forget about their children as well, in their rage against the robot, leaving them prey to what is perhaps an allusion to the cleansing biblical flood. The children are a symbol of goodness, passion and compassion that also depict fecundity. In a corrupted city, children are forgotten, while misery and violence reign. This interpretation can be seen also in Children of Men (2006) where a world where all women but one can have no children, is unwelcoming, despairing, apocalyptic and violent. Given this situation, it is with little amazement that the workers choose to burn the robot at stake

before the church, as only purifying flames, on the sanctimonious grounds of the church, can restore the morality of Metropolis. As one can see, there is a strong abundance of Christian imagery that here, it needs be said, is not explored in full, but which reveal another aspect of expressionism: its tendency to turn to metaphysics and Christianity through a Freudian lens, in an attempt, not to revive Christian values, but to return to inner values, where the battle between unconscious desires always face the resistance of humanity’s conscious control. An element which Wells undoubtedly grinned at, but which indicates that the distortion of humans’ morals through the prism of the machine, believing themselves all too powerful and fuelling their egoistic desires, can turn the Enlightenment project on its head: reason could bring society an auto-destructive attitude which could ultimately devour itself. Minding the infrastructure of Metropolis, Wells misses this point, which would only be explored with Adorno and Hockheimer’s Dialectic of the Enlightenment later on.

Analysis: the motif of the dictator In Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium (2002), a society emerges in which feeling and definitely all types of emotional expression are forbidden. As Metropolis, however, the title reveals a paradox: in order to enforce order within a society by banning chaotic, lethal sentiments, the society is left bereft of the very thing that makes it worth living in a society – the potential and the ability to feel happy, to make the best out of one’s life within collective limits. The most interesting thing, however, is that the interdiction on feeling via the use of a serum is done by each individual without being forced directly to do so, even if ever watched by an all controlling government. The same can be seen in Metropolis. Analysing the underworld carefully, one can see that the workers are never watched by any guards whatsoever. In other words, it is the workers themselves who also force themselves into working, believing it is necessary to do so. Their lives controlled, a Marxian false consciousness manoeuvres the workers into an unequal society, many passively accepting that this is their fate, even while the head, Joh Fredersen, believes that this cannot be a life he himself could live, as evident in his lavish lifestyle in the Babylon as well as that of the bourgeois. The same happens in Equilibrium as it is revealed, with a necessary pre-emptive warning of a spoiler, that the leader of that society does not apply the serum on himself, admitting that feeling is better than cold order – it is what makes one human. The economic inequality in Metropolis relevant for the society of today (Dixon, 2015) translates into human inequality and the hence communicative lacuna that fundamentally exists in the society. In other words, transcending the human for economic gain becomes torture for many, and the social dialogue between the ‘head’ and the ‘hands’ is inexistent in Metropolis. The beginning of the film is the most relevant to show the focus on the lack of social dialogue. When Fred, as many other upper class members, is living what seems a rich, utopian lifestyle in the Eternal Gardens, surrounded by courtesans supposed to entertain him, the spectator is already introduced into the matters of the underworld. While the audience is given to experience a mesmerising life within gardens which, given the contrast of the workers’ city, seem but to evoke illusionary dreams, a door opens and Maria, along with a battalion of children, destroys the structural equilibrium of Metropolis. The two parts of Metropolis, the head, and the hands, are joined thus together. This is revealed especially when Maria tells the children ‘Look, these are your brothers!’. The word ‘brothers’ is particularly striking because it connects the world below with the world above. This is truthfully the point within the film in which the narration erupts, but what is more important, is that it foretells the end of the movie. What is more important, the power of Maria’s gaze, a typical expressionist technique already discussed seems to pierce the emotional wall of the spectator 9

connecting both Fred and the former to Maria. A Langian strategy, it is not simply a look meant to understand what is around, but one which expresses an emotion that others are absorbed into trying to understand. Her sympathetic, but also serious and intense gaze is what connects Fred to another world which he does not fail to explore and be horrified about, thus building tension and foreshadowing dramatic development (Bertetto, 2014). The same strategy can be seen in Ridley Scott’s 1982 Bladerunner. The influence of the gaze is evident especially when Rick Deckard travels in what resembles a flying car above a 2019 Los Angeles. After showing a panorama of the futuristic city, which resembles powerfully with Metropolis in the social structuration of the city, the shot then moves at Deckard and particularly at his eye on which the city itself seems to be painted and moving – inspiring to the viewer the opposition between the immensity of the city and the life of one man. The search for identity figures strongly in the movie, and thus this single scene tells of the tension between the huge indifferent city and the individual’s search for self-identity within. As Deckard is looking to find out who he is, so is Fred whose encounter with Maria and the children leaves him stunned and amazed. It commences a transformative process as he starts doubting, process from which Fred does not seem able to escape until the very end. Thus Maria and Fred are both the embodiment of the need for dialogue. How is dialogue lacking from this perspective? As in Bladerunner, the underworld is a chaotic, miserable place where the mass crowds make it almost impossible to distinguish oneself as an individual, whereas the upper world seems to be ordered and beautiful, with a place for reflection and creative space. The workers’ names in Metropolis are overshadowed by their numbers, as exemplified by archetype worker 11811, who Fred encounters when he starts exploring the workers’ city. As on their hats, the only thing written is their second name which is symptomatic of a depersonalising process where machines and managing upper classes bereave workers of their proper identities. Fred uses the name ‘Georgy’ for the worker, whilst the Thin Man, Joh Fredersen’s representation of his secret police meant for intelligence and control, reverses it by calling him only ‘No. 11811’. Therefore any type of communication between the needs of the workers and that of the rich is basically inexistent – as the workers are called numbers because their only function is to work for the world above and therefore, in a mass, they need mostly but an identification number which is easier for administrative purposes to utilise. The plight of the workers is demonstrated when Fred takes Georgy’s role and is physically exhausted beyond his limits by it, shouting in desperation at the lack of sympathy of his father towards the workers: ‘Father-! Father-! Will ten hours never end--??!!’ as he is deserted of energy on a machine which transforms into a psychologically looming and breaking ten-hour clock, symbolical of the encapsulation of workers’ lives and their mechanical bane. This swap of identities, Fred being Georgy and the latter being clad like the former, allows the audience to probe into the lives of the workers and that of the rich more closely, as Fred, a worker, learns, along with the audience, about the hardships of this life, and Georgy becomes a rich, upper class man who indulges and is blinded by the pleasures of society. Given the hardship that the workers experience, it is not surprising they plan to secretly rebel against Fredersen, but the latter chooses to incite rebellion via the use of the robot so as to have a reason to brutally quell the rebellion. This very choice opposes powerfully that of Fred, who makes the workers as his brothers and falls in love with Maria, being thus connected with this world, whereas Fredersen seeks but to control the situation and silence the workers along with their spiritual head Maria for his own purposes. This carefully shows the dynamics of the city of Metropolis – where the seeming richness and beauty of the city always foreshadow the troubles ever existent there. It is notable to see that this exchange of identities is done twice by Lang, in regards to the robot and to Georgy and Fred, so as to enrich in a diegetic manner the film by showing what the effect of changing faces has in society such as Metropolis, which is barely 10

different to that of Lang’s present. This strategy can later be seen in films such as the already said Bladerunner, The Matrix or Equilibrium where identities are blurred out and require, after the logic of the movies, a solution to the problem of the human condition, and an argument against what humans are not. After Rotwang is defeated at the Cathedral and falls to his death, the robot being burned at the stake, the audience is given to believe that the solution is to have a link between the workers and the people above, forging a channel of communication between the two. Yet, as Lang himself confessed, this solution seems at least naïve. The Mediator, in the persona of Fred, cannot mediate the two sides without changing social and political conditions. The ‘head’ and the ‘hands’ have met and are finally connected by Fred, but that connection, though important, does not necessarily mean dialogue, which is an exchange of ideas that primarily mean each side can be wrong or right – with the need to accommodate both in a mutual society. As the state of equilibrium is reinstated, machines being out of sight, the church banishing vice and being the place of the mediation, and the two social classes being connected, this question remains: Does mediation bring dialogue and change? For if mediation means merely amelioration, the solution is superficial at best. This is where Metropolis falls into a purity of ideas – believing a society can be brought together in a unity through a mere shake of hands. Though symbolical, this only serves to leave a blank mark upon the problem of so-called ‘social evils’, for the problem does not reside only with the lack of unity, itself being only a solution to relativism and uncertainty. It lies primarily with decreeing that individualism needs to be replaced and all values stifled by an ‘undeniable’ vision of progress – making the State a new dogmatic entity that decides what these new values, and hence what the new human, should be.

Conclusion The city of Metropolis remains, in these concluding words, a paradox: its grandeur clashes with its own indifference of those who build and maintain that grandeur. As a result, the film is a synthesis of the human condition faced by the power of the machine, that of moral exploration versus apocalyptic decadence brought by lavish mediocrity and ignorance, and that of class struggle, social structuration and social decay. Through all of this, dialogue between humans and various societal elements is missing and it is thus represented through cinematographic expressionist art via superimposed images, alternating rhythms of frame rates, and exaggerated gestures as well as props and scenes, that explore different social problems connected with the inner psychology of various characters, particularly that of Fred. It is not that technology is not spectacular and important, nor that a movie should not be filmed about it, and that focus should only be place on emotions or, specifically, ‘love’ – but that the dream of technology as a value beyond all others ought to be questioned merely for it becoming almost unquestionable and absolute. Lang only stretched the dream very far, and left others to see its effects. That being said, Wells’ assessment of Metropolis is partially correct given the context of his time, through the cultural lenses he saw it, but one cannot but hold him to account for his lack of a critical eye concerning mechanical development and the absence of a proper consideration of the social and historical situation in Germany as well. When the article quoted above warned that ‘the rise of machines will make us richer. But to keep our humanity we need fundamental changes to our economic system’, it was both an awareness of the problematic of technology and economics as well as an indirect attack against Well’s thesis. The film’s influence over the movies that came afterwards cannot be overstated – from social divisions, social struggle, identity shift and cinematographic strategies in general to the exploration of 11

inner psychology and emotions of different characters. One exemplary influence that rests in many films is the exploration of the theme of dialogue between the individual and the society, the world in which one lives, or even oneself. This can be seen notably in Bladerunner when the Replicant, Roy Batty, battles with his robotic condition for some nuanced individuality and identity, who in a world that has blurry lines between what is human and inhuman, ultimately identifies himself with his own empirical memories that grants him a sort of spiritual and special identity, uttering in his final words: ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe’. The recurrence of these themes is only a contributing effect of Metropolis – the context, somewhat changed, being another.

Bibliography Bergvall, A. (2012) Literature/Film Quarterly. 40, (4). ‘Apocalyptic Imagery in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis’, p. 246 Bertetto, P. ’21: Metropolis and the Figuration of the Eidos’. In McElhaney, J. (2015) A Companion to Fritz Lang. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Darsa, A. (2013) Art House: An Introduction to German Expressionist Films [online]. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/market/art-house-an-introduction-to-german-expressionist-films-32845 [Accessed on: 03/11/2017] Dixon, W. W. (2015) Black and White Cinema: A Short History. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2015. Freud, S. (1913) The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: The Macmillan Company. Ch. 4 Friedkin, W. (1975) Conversation with Fritz Lang [video, online]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or0j1mY_rug [Accessed on: 03/11/2017]

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Hake, S. ‘11: Expressionism and Cinema: Reflections on a Phantasmagoria of Film History’. In Donahue, N. (2005) Companion to the Literature of German Expressionism. Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer Inc. pp. 321-342. Kracauer, S. (1947) From Caligari to Hitler: A psychological history of the German film. New York City: Princeton University Press Russ, J. (2002) Aventura Gîndirii Europene: O Istorie a ideilor occidentale (Mardare Gabriel & Mardare Maria, Trans.). Iași: Institutul European. Translated from (1995) L’aventure de la pensée européene. Paris: Armand Colin Éditeur Stoicea, G. (2006) ‘Re-producing the Class and Gender Divide: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis’. Women in German Yearbook 22, pp. 21-42 Vancu, R. (2016) Elegie Pentru Uman: O critică a modernității poetice de la Pound la Cărtărescu. Bucharest: Humanitas. Wells, H.G. (1927) Metropolis [Book Review]. New York: New York Times Wosk, J. (2010) ‘Metropolis’. Technology and Culture, 1 April, 51 (2), pp. 403-408

Films Quoted Bladerunner (1982) [Film]. USA: Warner Bros Equilibrium (2002) [Film]. USA: Miramax Films The Matrix (1999) [Film]. USA: Warner Bros Children of Men (2006) [Film]. Venice: Universal Pictures

Video Nerdwriter1 (2014) Blade Runner: The Other Side of Modernity [online]. YouTube, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXRlGULqHxg&index=29&list=PLwg4AG1KkgLwP5FuUIiVEyILMD23AN1v [Accessed on 24/11/2017]