The visionary monumental film Metropolis

Erica von Moeller, director and Wuppertal professor of design and audiovisual media, on the shooting of the famous silent film 100 years ago

'Metropolis' was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List and is considered one of the most famous and at the same time most controversial silent films in Germany. Why?

Erica von Moeller: Metropolis is a German silent film from 1927, which was directed by Fritz Lang with previously unimaginable effort. Interestingly, it is one of the first feature-length science fiction films.

Over the course of time, however, it has experienced an astonishing range of very diverse interpretations. It has been both condemned as a failed monumental film that only aspired to greatness, but also celebrated as a milestone in the science fiction genre. However, its controversial reception among audiences can also be attributed to the fact that it was exceptional in terms of both style and content at the time of its release. Some critics found the depiction of social conflicts too simplistic or the vision exaggerated. The population of Metropolis lives in a strictly segregated class society: the workers are forced to live and produce under the city proper, in underground mass housing. The rich and powerful reside high above the city and have access to every conceivable luxury. Their children also live in a kind of neighbourhood of their own with universities, a gigantic stadium and the paradisiacal "Eternal Gardens", where young women are "bred" like precious flowers. At the end of the film, there is a very simplified solution and reconciliation between the two classes. "The heart must be the mediator between the brain and the hands," Fritz Lang sums up the message of his film. His famous colleague Luis Buñuel is said to have written about Metropolis: "An overwhelming picture book and scenes of refined, bad taste... What we are told here is trivial, pompous, ponderous and of outdated romanticism. "

Although the film contains a critical message about social injustice, the National Socialists interpreted the film in their own way. They saw the reconciliation of the upper and lower classes as a parallel to their idea of a national community. For the film theorist Siegfried Kracauer, however, these de-individualised mass scenes are not least manifestations of totalitarian demagogy, as he classifies it in his interpretation as propaganda theory.

Thanks to its outstanding aesthetics, the film has also become one of the most influential works in film history. Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" unmistakably makes many aesthetic references, and Rotwang's laboratory can be found in the FRANKENSTEIN films, while Godard's ALPHAVILLE and Kubrick's DR. STRANGELOVE contain references to Metropolis. In addition, the film became an object of pop culture in the 1980s and 1990s, with the mega-city of the future as the main protagonist, the Maria robot as an icon, and its suggestive visual power as a backdrop for pop videos by Queen, Madonna and Pink Floyd.

But it is precisely this controversial classification with simultaneous aesthetic opulence that has also contributed to the film's increasing cult status over the decades.

What is the utopian film about?

Erica von Moeller: The film Metropolis tells a multi-layered story about social inequality and the dangers of unconditional belief in progress. In a futuristic city characterised by a sharp division between social milieus, the mayor's son Freder falls in love with Maria, a woman from the working class. She is the spiritual leader of a burgeoning resistance movement and dreams of a world with fewer inequalities. Meeting her gives Freda an insight into the world of the working class and he tries to act as a mediator between the two worlds. What Freda doesn't realise, however, is that his father is trying to replace the workers with machines. The inventor and engineer Rottweil is commissioned to construct the first robot for this purpose. This "machine man", created in the image of Maria, incites the workers to revolt. In their fervour, the workers destroy the machines, flooding their own underground city. This plot line is to be understood as a warning of the destructive consequences of the class struggle. Only through the energetic help of Maria and Freda are the workers and especially their children saved. In this respect, the film ends with the conciliatory message that the gap between rich and poor can only be bridged by humanity and its mediation.

The film was shot in Berlin's largest film studio at the time. Which one was that?

Erica von Moeller: Metropolis tells the story of a gigantic city of the future consisting of futuristic high-rise landscapes, complex elevated roads and bridges, as well as oversized machines. Enormous film and stage constructions were necessary to set the scene. The city was designed by film architects Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut and Karl Vollbrecht. At least 500 models of high-rise buildings were built for the film, some even with up to 70 storeys.

The film was shot at UFA's Babelsberg film studios and at the Großfilmwerke Staaken AG in Berlin from 22 May 1925 to 30 October 1926 - in exactly

310 days and 60 nights. This long filming period and the elaborate buildings made Metropolis one of the most expensive German films during the Weimar Republic.

The film architecture is based on the art movement of Expressionism and is characterised by monumental skyscrapers that are strongly reminiscent of New York at the time. The city skyline is staged as an overwhelming urban mountain range, criss-crossed by deep street canyons, elevated roads, bridges and even air traffic. The architects used unusual materials such as monumental steel and glass elements.

The filmic space is also divided into a vertical arrangement of "above" and "below", which can also be understood symbolically. Upstairs, the rich live in luxurious, furnished buildings, while the workers have only simple, underground settlements at their disposal. The architecture thus becomes the central carrier of meaning: it reflects the social divide between the elite and the working class and emphasises the power and belief in progress of modernity.

The director Fritz Lang is said to have emphasised that he was particularly interested in the depiction and design of architecture in order to create the film's socio-critical message.

Interior constructions of up to 28 metres with a massive circular horizon 60 metres wide were feasible there and made completely new atmospheres possible that could not be presented on film until then. What, for example?

Erica von Moeller: The atmosphere of a film is largely created by the cinematic space and the light designed within it. The film space localises the story and thus becomes its mirror image.
In the case of Metropolis, the city looks like a perfect technological organism. The technical achievements in modern studio construction had an enormous influence on the production of Metropolis. The huge interior structures, up to 28 metres high and 60 metres wide, made it possible to create monumental and realistic backdrops. These dimensions allowed entire crowds of people to credibly flee through the sets. Thanks to this size, thousands of extras could be coordinated. In many shots, three cameras were used simultaneously to capture different perspectives of the crowd scenes. In addition, these buildings with powerful spotlights allowed special light and shadow effects to be used for the first time.
This realism created an unprecedented immediacy, allowing the audience to experience the utopian, threatening and fascinating world of Metropolis directly.

The cast list included 25,000 extras, 11,000 female extras, 1,100 bald people, 750 children, 100 dark-skinned people and 25 Chinese people. Such mass scenes were new to film, weren't they?

Erica von Moeller: Yes, the mass scenes were completely new for the film in this size and scope. But this perfectionism with thousands of extras also had its price. The people were recruited from all over Germany from job seekers. From today's perspective, the working conditions were inhumane for the many extras and also for the team. The ten-minute sequence at the end of the film, in which the lower city is flooded with water, was particularly gruelling. This sequence was filmed over the course of six weeks. The extras had to walk through the sets in freezing water for days on end. As a result, many of the extras fell ill but still had to take part in the filming. They were allegedly bribed with alcohol to continue taking part in the filming.
The 750 children were significantly involved in this sequence, for whom the filming conditions in the cold water were all the more difficult to bear. They were also expected to work a full day on set. It is now a great achievement that school-age children are only allowed to work on set for a maximum of three hours a day with their parents' consent. Only young people from the age of 15 (JArbSchG) are allowed an eight-hour day on set.

The character of engineer Rotwang is characterised all the more ironically with the quote: "I have created a machine in the image of man that neither tires nor makes mistakes".

The film featured a unique new camera trick technique, the Schüfftan process. The mirror trick, named after its inventor, Eugen Schüfftan (1893-1977), is one of the most important and best-known film tricks in cinematography. Can you explain that?

Erica von Moeller: The Schüfftan process was an innovative film technique that involved filming through a semi-transparent mirror. A mirror was placed at a 45° angle to the side of a miniature city. By making certain areas of the mirror permeable, this surface functioned as a window into the room behind it. An actor was then placed behind this window. In the composed image, the reflected model appears as a huge backdrop, while the actor is seamlessly integrated through the transparent areas. The illusion of a shared, cinematic space could thus be realised without the construction of film sets on a one-to-one scale. The process required static camera settings, as even minimal movement could disrupt the mirror reflections. Nevertheless, it revolutionised the film animation technique of the 1920s and became a key element in the visual style of the film.

Today, of course, the effect is recreated digitally. However, the basic technique of collaging different picture elements in different sizes has characterised film aesthetics since that time. It is therefore also a good example of how a technical innovation played a key role in shaping film aesthetics.

Multiple exposures or negatives copied on top of each other had been part of his repertoire since Lang's film 'Nibelungen'. He introduced the very time-consuming stop-motion technique. For example, around 300 model cars were moved by millimetres after each individual shot to insert the city's main traffic artery. This shot alone took 8 days and could only be seen for 10 seconds in the film. The film was a string of superlatives, wasn't it?

Erica von Moeller: Yes, Fritz Lang revolutionised film technology with his innovative special effects, which he combined with the sets and a new camera technique. This enabled an unprecedented fusion of real film and models. He also combined several tricks with each other. The multiple exposures with the stop-motion technique and the copying of the negative on top of each other achieved a completely new aesthetic, which he used for the dream worlds. But the effort they describe is no longer conceivable for today's film productions. And yet these technical innovations had a lasting impact on cinema.

At just under 5 million Reichsmark, 'Metropolis' was the most expensive film in German film history and was also the biggest flop. Why didn't it go down well with audiences?

Erica von Moeller: Yes, the production costs of the originally planned 800,000 Reichsmark exploded to 5 million Reichsmark (equivalent to €21 million) when the film was made. This makes the production an enormously expensive film, even by today's standards. The production company UFA got into financial difficulties as a result of the production and was sold during the production period.

Fritz Lang's perfectionism led him to realise the film in many repetitions and long shooting days. The film material that was exposed is estimated to be 500-600 kilometres long. Although Lang was able to continue making films, he was contractually obliged to stick to his budget in subsequent productions.

Despite this effort and the great expectations, the film was hardly accepted by the audience after its premiere. Only around 15,000 viewers saw the film in Berlin. This meant that the film only grossed around 70,000 Reichsmarks and was soon removed from the programme.

The technical effects and overall visual realisation were praised in contemporary reviews. However, the plot seemed far too overloaded and not very credible. As already mentioned at the beginning, however, the film has been received in very different ways over the course of time, which has led to very different, ever-changing interpretations of the film. In the 1920s, for example, critics focused on social issues and technology: did the film have something to say about industrialisation as a factor in preventing social unrest or did it merely reinforce the class struggle? Would modern technology enslave humanity or bring progress and prosperity for all? Siegfried Krakauer, for example, also saw an ideologically questionable message in the conciliatory class solution at the end of the film, which he interpreted as being compatible with National Socialist ideas.

Much later, in 2000, Thomas Elsaesser dedicated a monograph to the film and described the adventurous creation of this early science fiction film.

Thanks to a film reel find in Buenos Aires, 85% of the lost original film version was reconstructed. The film was then re-released in cinemas in 2011. What significance does it have for you as a filmmaker?

Erica von Moeller: The montage of Metropolis was massively shortened after the premiere in 1927. The original version was around two and a half hours long and was edited down to less than two hours following the poor reviews and the film's limited success with audiences. The plot was simplified and entire strands of characters were removed. Many copies of the original version were destroyed as a result. The film was shortened even further for the international market, especially for the USA, because the producers at Paramount feared that the complex plot could confuse viewers. For decades, the original version was considered lost. It was only when an original negative was found in Buenos Aires in 2008 that many of the missing scenes could be reconstructed.

I myself was able to see an elaborately reconstructed version in the cinema during the Berlinale in 2011 and could not escape the visual opulence and fascination of the film. I was particularly impressed by the depiction of the city as an organism with its many moving and shifting elements. Their arrangement in the vertically stacked sections creates a very special atmosphere and is therefore unique in the canon of film history. Being able to imagine the future also means being able to realise ideas that don't even exist yet. Fritz Lang created a visionary world all of his own, from the videophone to the design of the robot or the skyscraper canyons.

Uwe Blass

The director and author Erica von Moeller studied fine arts in Mainz and communication sciences in Frankfurt before graduating in film at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. She has been making films in various genres and formats since 2001. As a media artist, she develops exhibition projects at the interface between moving image, space and sound. After various teaching assignments in Cologne, Berlin and Trier, she has been a professor of audiovisual media design at the University of Wuppertal since 2011.