8 ms·

H. G. Wells reviews "Metropolis" (1927)

116 points by pmoriarty 6y ago

m-i-l 6y ago
"Up to 1914 Wells was in the main a true prophet ... [but] Wells is too sane to understand the modern world. The succession of lower-middle-class novels which are his greatest achievement stopped short at the other war and never really began again, and since 1920 he has squandered his talents in slaying paper dragons."[0] [0] George Orwell: https://orwell.ru/library/reviews/wells/english/e_whws https://orwell.ru/library/reviews/wells/english/e_whws
sorokod 6y ago
I never thought of Metropolis as hard SciFi but Wells obviously does and finds it lacking.
dvt 6y ago
It's very interesting to see H. G. Wells being so optimistic about the future, merely a decade after WWI and the atrocities therein (does anyone know if he fought in the Great War?): > And what this film anticipates is not unemployment, but drudge employment, which is precisely what is passing away. Its fabricators have not even realized that the machine ousts the drudge. [...] 'Efficiency' means large-scale productions, machinery as fully developed as possible, and high wages. Of course, he ended up being wrong and Metropolis (along with Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times) ended up being eerily right. Modern life is a drudge. People don't toil in the fields, but they waste away in office buildings. The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  > Modern life is a drudge. People don't toil in the fields, but they waste away in office buildings. The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance. As Monty Python says, “Always look on the bright side of life!”
- coldtea 6y ago
  >And what this film anticipates is not unemployment, but drudge employment, which is precisely what is passing away That didn't age well... https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp/0141983477 https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp...
- shakna 6y ago
  > does anyone know if he fought in the Great War? I don't believe he did, though he certainly saw it up close and personal. Wells wrote extensively during WWI, publishing many articles and pieces about what he called a necessary evil, as well as writing condolence letters to soldiers. To write "War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War", he was invited to tour the French and Italian fronts, but initially resisted the idea (before finally relenting): > For my own part I did not want to go. I evaded a suggestion that I should go in 1915. I travel badly, I spread French and Italian with incredible atrocity, and am extreme Pacifist. I hate soldiering. And also I did not want to write anything "under instruction"
- ekianjo 6y ago
  > The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance. And yet we have the highest rates of literacy ever, and Wikipedia is one the most visited sites ever: Amusing how someone can make blanket claims without checking the data. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/literate-and-illiterate-world-population https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/literate-and-illiterate-w... Let's not proliferate ignorance further.
  - dvt 6y ago
    How you make the leap from "ignorance" to "illiteracy" -- especially when I mention the internet (where literacy would be a prerequisite) seems disingenuous. There's a lot of evidence showing that internet "siloing" exacerbates phenomena like the Dunning–Kruger effect[1][2]. I know this is a controversial opinion (especially here on HN), but I don't think Wikipedia is a net positive for society. It democratizes knowledge in the worst possible way and its bias (which ranges from the far left, to the far right -- although more often the former -- depending on the article) is obvious to anyone with a discerning eye. There's a reason you can't cite Wikipedia in college (or heck, even high school) papers. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-age-of-ignorance_b_11666646 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-age-of-ignorance_b_116666... [2] https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/the-internet-isnt-making-us-dumber-its-making-us-more-meta-ignorant.html https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/the-internet-isnt-making-us-d...
    - disconcision 6y ago
      there's a reason, but bias isn't it, afaict
      - caf 6y ago
        Yes, for those old enough to remember a time when research for a school project required hitting the library stacks, encyclopedias were never acceptable sources after about grade 6.
- Veen 6y ago
  > does anyone know if he fought in the Great War He was too old to fight in WW1. He was born in 1866, so he was 48 when the war started. He did work at Wellington House (the War Propaganda Bureau) towards the end of the war, though.
GauntletWizard 6y ago
I feel like Wells could have written the same article today, barely a few words of difference save the dates. Oddly, some of the places that the review jarred me most were in the way he called the lack of “originality” - Having seen (a cut, since there’s so many) the film, much of it’s aesthetic seems timeless by their inclusion. To the modern eye, they seem to hint at the cyclical nature of style. To Wells, it seemed lazy. Perhaps to Herr Lang, it was a reflection of how the more things changed the more they stay the same (or perhaps we need not be so charitable and accept Mr. Wells’ interpretation).
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
I grew up watching the 1984 version of this silent film that was put to 80s music (Freddy Mercury of Queen, Pat Benetar, etc). Fond memories, thanks to my father.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  There was an (IIRC) electro-blues soundtracked version on YouTube a few years back, but I can't seem to find it now...
  - IndySun 6y ago
    Not sure what electro-blues is, but the wiki page lists some alternative soundtracks. Here's one that might be described as electro-blues... https://degenerateartensemble.bandcamp.com/album/metropolis https://degenerateartensemble.bandcamp.com/album/metropolis
- davidg109 6y ago
  Came here to pretty much say the same thing. Think I saw it on MuchMusic Canada... when they used to play music. Maybe H.G. would've rocked out to it.
mixmastamyk 6y ago
I recently watched Metropolis for the first time with my kiddo, to learn about silent film and earlier ideas about the future. That it was set 100 years in the future and nearing 2027 made the prospect intriguing. While some of the themes are obvious—rich living in the sky, poor toiling underground… I had trouble fully understanding the point of the lady robot and "heart mediating between the head and the hand" angle. Wells' helped me come to a better understanding, thanks for that. I think he gets much right, about art's fear of technology. I found his complaints about car and plane models nitpicky however. (They had already spent too much, I suppose they could have spent more.) I am generally pro-technology/efficiency, however there are negative aspects that often need to be addressed for the good of society, and aren't. But then he drops square into urban planning and the density/NIMBY debate, which affects many parts of society today: That vertical city of the future we know now is, to put it mildly, highly improbable. Even in New York and Chicago, where the pressure on the central sites is exceptionally great, it is only the central office and entertainment region that soars and excavates. And the same centripetal pressure that leads to the utmost exploitation of site values at the centre leads also to the driving out of industrialism and labour from the population center to cheaper areas, and of residential life to more open and airy surroundings. That was all discussed and written about before 1900. Somewhere about 1930 the geniuses of Ufa studios will come up to a book of Anticipations which was written more than a quarter of a century ago. The British census returns of 1901 proved clearly that city populations were becoming centrifugal, and that every increase in horizontal traffic facilities produced a further distribution. This vertical social stratification is stale old stuff. So far from being 'a hundred years hence,' Metropolis, in its forms and shapes, is already, as a possibility, a third of a century out of date. He's both right and wrong, and there is definitely a tension between these forces today. Mid-century the movement was outward, these days inward. It took decades, but NIMBYs seem to have finally lost the upper hand, in my city at least. Population is increasing so it is somewhat inevitable in the long run. Interestingly, Wells also gets bogged down in the details of mechanical efficiency, which have put numbers of folks out of work. But when we watched it, my brain immediately converted the factory to a metaphor of modern work, not the physical production of cheap goods. We see today it is quite possible to fleece the poor and increase homelessness by limiting housing and inflating assets, cheap goods or not. Manipulating the masses has never been easier, as well. In any case, lots to think about.
codeflo 6y ago
Last year, I had the opportunity to watch Metropolis accompanied by a live orchestra. I have to say, it was quite the experience, somewhere between movie and concert, with the audience applauding after each act. It made me truly appreciate silent films as a lost form of art, I can't recommend it highly enough. Having said that, yes, the film is not what we would today call "hard sci-fi". But a lot of the things that Wells criticizes as unrealistic are clearly intentional and meant to be symbolic, like the machines not serving any visible purpose. H. G. Wells obviously recognized this, which makes the review read a bit unfair and bitter. I wonder if there's a story behind this.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  I watched it with a live orchestra too. It was amazing, and I would highly recommend anyone interested in the film do anything they can to have that experience. It really brings the film to a whole other level, far beyond what you'd get when watching it with a pre-recorded soundtrack.
  - tannhaeuser 6y ago
    If you're into that, I can also recommend Frank Strobel's version and live recording (with full orchestra and chorus) of Prokoview's score to Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible", bringing a film-opera experience like very few other movies. Fun fact: the first part is said to have been Stalin's favourite movie, while the second was censored
agambrahma 6y ago
A quote from the review: > 'Efficiency' means large-scale productions, machinery as fully developed as possible, and __high__ __wages__. The British Government delegation sent to study success in America has reported unanimously to that effect. > The increasingly efficient industrialism of America has so little need of drudges that it has set up the severest barriers against the flooding of the United States by drudge immigration.
lqet 6y ago
Watched it a few years ago. The filming and scenery is very impressive, but the story - not so much. Here are some German reviews from 1927: "Thea von Harbou invents an impossible plot that is crammed with motifs. Nothing but emotional phrases. Dreadful. A serious topic cruelly kitsched up. Effects not because the story demands them, but because the film wants to show its tricks. The end, the tearful reconciliation between employer and employee - awful." "Take ten tons of horror, pour a tenth of sentimentality over it, cook it up with social sensitivity and spice it up with mysticism as needed, stir it up with marks (seven million) and you get a topnotch colossal film." "The director apparently had an utopian film in mind that should contain the major contemporary currents. Something for everyone: the "Metropolis" for the bourgeoisie, the assault on the machines for the workers, the collective for the Social Democrats, a good heart and the spirit of the savior for the Christians. Apart from the kitschy content, the film's technical performance is undoubtedly excellent and unmatched to date." If you want to see a great Fritz Lang movie, watch "M" (1931). It's much, much better [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_I2akJ0k2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_I2akJ0k2w
- senectus1 6y ago
  > The filming and scenery is very impressive, but the story - not so much. Perfect summary.
- vmception 6y ago
  Many cult classics had similar reviews at the time. Total flops full of honesty, where somehow someway we are supposed to forget that and never question the significance of a film once it was entered cult classic territory. No, I won't name one as it would ironically dilute my point.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "If you want to see a great Fritz Lang movie, watch "M" (1931). It's much, much better" As a huge Fritz Lang fan, I strongly disagree. M is a darling of mainstream film critics, but in my opinion it's absolutely atrocious, massively overrated, and not worthy of shining Metropolis' boots. That said, Lang has some other masterpieces I would recommend, like Kremhild's Revenge and the Dr Mabuse series. I'd watch those long before touching M. Back to those German reviews of Metropolis, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in to proto-Nazi Germany's discounting "sentimentality" in Metropolis. We know where hard-hearted disavowals of sentimentality led.
gregd 6y ago
We watched this during film school in college. We were told it was one of Adolf Hitler's favorite movies by one of his favorite Directors, Fritz Lang. Watching that movie having been told it was Hitler's favorite, was eerie to say the least.
- watwut 6y ago
  Hitler also liked Mickey Mouse.
Nition 6y ago
It's a bit like a music expert analysing the latest pop song and finding it lacking - same old chords, structure, topic, no new ideas at all. But a product for the masses will be enjoyed by the masses, who aren't so acutely aware of - or so tired of - the same clichés.
- JKCalhoun 6y ago
  Yeah, he would have hated "Star Wars", LOL.
8bitsrule 6y ago
Wells: "it would have been almost as easy, no more costly, and far more interesting to have taken some pains to gather the opinions of a few bright young research students and ambitious, modernizing architects and engineers about the trend of modern invention, and develop these artistically. Any technical school would have been delighted to supply sketches and suggestions for the aviation and transport of A.D. 2027." True, to a slight extent. OTOH, Lang starting filming only 23 years after Méliès. 'Trip to the Moon'. It's quite a leap from a 12-minute short to spending 17 months and 5+M Reichsmarks to make a 151-minute monsterpiece. Is it over the top? Compare to US silents of the time (UFA partnered with Paramount and MGM for financing to finish it). Imagine how Wells, a major geek, have moaned about the all the needless sentiment and emotion in George Pal's wonderful realizations of his greatest works? Compare them to his 1936 baby, 'Things to Come' with its cold, mechanical dialog, 'awkward pace and uninvolving characters'. I've seen Pal's dozens of times, 'Things' one-half time.
david927 6y ago
I think he completely missed the point of the film. It wasn’t an attempt to predict what the world would look like in a hundred years. It was a fable. When the interior of a scene was larger than the exterior, it wasn’t a mistake but an intended effect. Lang wasn’t saying, “This is the future,” but rather, “we need to beware of a future that bends this way.” And he was right. The mechanizations that were meant, as Wells says, to liberate us didn’t entirely. We’re no longer marching shoulder to shoulder to the caves to work mechanically, but half of us go to low paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted. An Amazon or Uber driver may not look like a fleshy cog in an oversized machine but he or she might certainly feel that way. Lang was sitting us down as children and telling us a fable and the fable had a moral: in the future we need to take care lest we the humans are reduced to machinery and the machinery sublimated to human. And Lang was prescient because, 100 years later, that is what we’ve found.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  > but half of us go to low paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted And half of us go to high paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted. Beware the cultural, subconscious lie that "more money means you're happier". Plenty of low-paid people are happier at their jobs than plenty of millionaires.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
    Then why keep all this money in the hand of unhappy people (who mostly hoard it)? Does unhappiness help with capital allocation? Could concentrating wealth in the hands of a few cause unhappiness and trouble both their owner nor the rest of society (who would do better if they had more control)?
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      I didn't say all rich people are unhappy, I said not all poor people are unhappy and not all rich people are happy.
corysama 6y ago
For modern audiences, I would recommend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(novel) over the film adaption. The film is amazing for it’s time. But, is... difficult to appreciate today. The book however, has some of the most intense imagery I’ve ever read. I had to put it down between pages to give my mind a bit of time to process each scene. An important bit of context for the book is that it was written by a woman who moved from an agrarian village in Germany —where nothing had changed for hundreds of years— to height-of-the-Industrial-Revolution New York. It was quite a shock. And, imagine the book is from her extrapolations. A fun bit is that it was written long before the invention of computers. So, this vision of a technologically advanced society has no concept of computerization and substitutes mind-numbing, body-crushing proletariat labor as the means of automation.
watwut 6y ago
I have seen this twice - one in tv and one with life music played by local band - as used to be done back in day, except music was electronic. The experience was much different. One with local band was awesome, one of best movies ever. The one in tv was boring and meh. It was interesting to see how much difference the backround can make.
- IndySun 6y ago
  I'd be interested to know if this is true of all comparative AudioVisual experiences, that being that 'live', an event, with other people, is always the more memorable.
  - watwut 6y ago
    I dont think it was only the presence of other people. The local band was simply better then music on tv which I completely forgot.
    - IndySun 6y ago
      Nice. So maybe not 'true', just depends; like most things.
richardfey 6y ago
Watch the restored version scored by Giorgio Moroder; it is a sublime experience.
dusted 6y ago
I think H.G. Wells would be rather impressed with Metropolis if he had grown up with the popular movies of today ;-) > That vertical city of the future we know now is, to put it mildly, highly improbable. Interestingly, in his own movie, "Things to come" from 1936, we see that exact same idea.

116 points by pmoriarty 6y ago

"Up to 1914 Wells was in the main a true prophet ... [but] Wells is too sane to understand the modern world. The succession of lower-middle-class novels which are his greatest achievement stopped short at the other war and never really began again, and since 1920 he has squandered his talents in slaying paper dragons."[0] [0] George Orwell: https://orwell.ru/library/reviews/wells/english/e_whws https://orwell.ru/library/reviews/wells/english/e_whws

sorokod 6y ago

I never thought of Metropolis as hard SciFi but Wells obviously does and finds it lacking.

dvt 6y ago

It's very interesting to see H. G. Wells being so optimistic about the future, merely a decade after WWI and the atrocities therein (does anyone know if he fought in the Great War?): > And what this film anticipates is not unemployment, but drudge employment, which is precisely what is passing away. Its fabricators have not even realized that the machine ousts the drudge. [...] 'Efficiency' means large-scale productions, machinery as fully developed as possible, and high wages. Of course, he ended up being wrong and Metropolis (along with Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times) ended up being eerily right. Modern life is a drudge. People don't toil in the fields, but they waste away in office buildings. The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
> Modern life is a drudge. People don't toil in the fields, but they waste away in office buildings. The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance. As Monty Python says, “Always look on the bright side of life!”
coldtea 6y ago
>And what this film anticipates is not unemployment, but drudge employment, which is precisely what is passing away That didn't age well... https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp/0141983477 https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp...
shakna 6y ago
> does anyone know if he fought in the Great War? I don't believe he did, though he certainly saw it up close and personal. Wells wrote extensively during WWI, publishing many articles and pieces about what he called a necessary evil, as well as writing condolence letters to soldiers. To write "War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War", he was invited to tour the French and Italian fronts, but initially resisted the idea (before finally relenting): > For my own part I did not want to go. I evaded a suggestion that I should go in 1915. I travel badly, I spread French and Italian with incredible atrocity, and am extreme Pacifist. I hate soldiering. And also I did not want to write anything "under instruction"
ekianjo 6y ago
> The internet wasn't the harbinger of a new Enlightenment, but often does the opposite: it proliferates ignorance. And yet we have the highest rates of literacy ever, and Wikipedia is one the most visited sites ever: Amusing how someone can make blanket claims without checking the data. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/literate-and-illiterate-world-population https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/literate-and-illiterate-w... Let's not proliferate ignorance further.
- dvt 6y ago
  How you make the leap from "ignorance" to "illiteracy" -- especially when I mention the internet (where literacy would be a prerequisite) seems disingenuous. There's a lot of evidence showing that internet "siloing" exacerbates phenomena like the Dunning–Kruger effect[1][2]. I know this is a controversial opinion (especially here on HN), but I don't think Wikipedia is a net positive for society. It democratizes knowledge in the worst possible way and its bias (which ranges from the far left, to the far right -- although more often the former -- depending on the article) is obvious to anyone with a discerning eye. There's a reason you can't cite Wikipedia in college (or heck, even high school) papers. [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-age-of-ignorance_b_11666646 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-age-of-ignorance_b_116666... [2] https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/the-internet-isnt-making-us-dumber-its-making-us-more-meta-ignorant.html https://www.thecut.com/2016/07/the-internet-isnt-making-us-d...
  - disconcision 6y ago
    there's a reason, but bias isn't it, afaict
    - caf 6y ago
      Yes, for those old enough to remember a time when research for a school project required hitting the library stacks, encyclopedias were never acceptable sources after about grade 6.
Veen 6y ago
> does anyone know if he fought in the Great War He was too old to fight in WW1. He was born in 1866, so he was 48 when the war started. He did work at Wellington House (the War Propaganda Bureau) towards the end of the war, though.

GauntletWizard 6y ago

I feel like Wells could have written the same article today, barely a few words of difference save the dates. Oddly, some of the places that the review jarred me most were in the way he called the lack of “originality” - Having seen (a cut, since there’s so many) the film, much of it’s aesthetic seems timeless by their inclusion. To the modern eye, they seem to hint at the cyclical nature of style. To Wells, it seemed lazy. Perhaps to Herr Lang, it was a reflection of how the more things changed the more they stay the same (or perhaps we need not be so charitable and accept Mr. Wells’ interpretation).

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

I grew up watching the 1984 version of this silent film that was put to 80s music (Freddy Mercury of Queen, Pat Benetar, etc). Fond memories, thanks to my father.

082349872349872 6y ago
There was an (IIRC) electro-blues soundtracked version on YouTube a few years back, but I can't seem to find it now...
- IndySun 6y ago
  Not sure what electro-blues is, but the wiki page lists some alternative soundtracks. Here's one that might be described as electro-blues... https://degenerateartensemble.bandcamp.com/album/metropolis https://degenerateartensemble.bandcamp.com/album/metropolis
davidg109 6y ago
Came here to pretty much say the same thing. Think I saw it on MuchMusic Canada... when they used to play music. Maybe H.G. would've rocked out to it.

mixmastamyk 6y ago

I recently watched Metropolis for the first time with my kiddo, to learn about silent film and earlier ideas about the future. That it was set 100 years in the future and nearing 2027 made the prospect intriguing. While some of the themes are obvious—rich living in the sky, poor toiling underground… I had trouble fully understanding the point of the lady robot and "heart mediating between the head and the hand" angle. Wells' helped me come to a better understanding, thanks for that. I think he gets much right, about art's fear of technology. I found his complaints about car and plane models nitpicky however. (They had already spent too much, I suppose they could have spent more.) I am generally pro-technology/efficiency, however there are negative aspects that often need to be addressed for the good of society, and aren't. But then he drops square into urban planning and the density/NIMBY debate, which affects many parts of society today: That vertical city of the future we know now is, to put it mildly, highly improbable. Even in New York and Chicago, where the pressure on the central sites is exceptionally great, it is only the central office and entertainment region that soars and excavates. And the same centripetal pressure that leads to the utmost exploitation of site values at the centre leads also to the driving out of industrialism and labour from the population center to cheaper areas, and of residential life to more open and airy surroundings. That was all discussed and written about before 1900. Somewhere about 1930 the geniuses of Ufa studios will come up to a book of Anticipations which was written more than a quarter of a century ago. The British census returns of 1901 proved clearly that city populations were becoming centrifugal, and that every increase in horizontal traffic facilities produced a further distribution. This vertical social stratification is stale old stuff. So far from being 'a hundred years hence,' Metropolis, in its forms and shapes, is already, as a possibility, a third of a century out of date. He's both right and wrong, and there is definitely a tension between these forces today. Mid-century the movement was outward, these days inward. It took decades, but NIMBYs seem to have finally lost the upper hand, in my city at least. Population is increasing so it is somewhat inevitable in the long run. Interestingly, Wells also gets bogged down in the details of mechanical efficiency, which have put numbers of folks out of work. But when we watched it, my brain immediately converted the factory to a metaphor of modern work, not the physical production of cheap goods. We see today it is quite possible to fleece the poor and increase homelessness by limiting housing and inflating assets, cheap goods or not. Manipulating the masses has never been easier, as well. In any case, lots to think about.

codeflo 6y ago

Last year, I had the opportunity to watch Metropolis accompanied by a live orchestra. I have to say, it was quite the experience, somewhere between movie and concert, with the audience applauding after each act. It made me truly appreciate silent films as a lost form of art, I can't recommend it highly enough. Having said that, yes, the film is not what we would today call "hard sci-fi". But a lot of the things that Wells criticizes as unrealistic are clearly intentional and meant to be symbolic, like the machines not serving any visible purpose. H. G. Wells obviously recognized this, which makes the review read a bit unfair and bitter. I wonder if there's a story behind this.

pmoriarty 6y ago
I watched it with a live orchestra too. It was amazing, and I would highly recommend anyone interested in the film do anything they can to have that experience. It really brings the film to a whole other level, far beyond what you'd get when watching it with a pre-recorded soundtrack.
- tannhaeuser 6y ago
  If you're into that, I can also recommend Frank Strobel's version and live recording (with full orchestra and chorus) of Prokoview's score to Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible", bringing a film-opera experience like very few other movies. Fun fact: the first part is said to have been Stalin's favourite movie, while the second was censored

agambrahma 6y ago

A quote from the review: > 'Efficiency' means large-scale productions, machinery as fully developed as possible, and __high__ __wages__. The British Government delegation sent to study success in America has reported unanimously to that effect. > The increasingly efficient industrialism of America has so little need of drudges that it has set up the severest barriers against the flooding of the United States by drudge immigration.

lqet 6y ago

Watched it a few years ago. The filming and scenery is very impressive, but the story - not so much. Here are some German reviews from 1927: "Thea von Harbou invents an impossible plot that is crammed with motifs. Nothing but emotional phrases. Dreadful. A serious topic cruelly kitsched up. Effects not because the story demands them, but because the film wants to show its tricks. The end, the tearful reconciliation between employer and employee - awful." "Take ten tons of horror, pour a tenth of sentimentality over it, cook it up with social sensitivity and spice it up with mysticism as needed, stir it up with marks (seven million) and you get a topnotch colossal film." "The director apparently had an utopian film in mind that should contain the major contemporary currents. Something for everyone: the "Metropolis" for the bourgeoisie, the assault on the machines for the workers, the collective for the Social Democrats, a good heart and the spirit of the savior for the Christians. Apart from the kitschy content, the film's technical performance is undoubtedly excellent and unmatched to date." If you want to see a great Fritz Lang movie, watch "M" (1931). It's much, much better [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_I2akJ0k2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_I2akJ0k2w

senectus1 6y ago
> The filming and scenery is very impressive, but the story - not so much. Perfect summary.
vmception 6y ago
Many cult classics had similar reviews at the time. Total flops full of honesty, where somehow someway we are supposed to forget that and never question the significance of a film once it was entered cult classic territory. No, I won't name one as it would ironically dilute my point.
pmoriarty 6y ago
"If you want to see a great Fritz Lang movie, watch "M" (1931). It's much, much better" As a huge Fritz Lang fan, I strongly disagree. M is a darling of mainstream film critics, but in my opinion it's absolutely atrocious, massively overrated, and not worthy of shining Metropolis' boots. That said, Lang has some other masterpieces I would recommend, like Kremhild's Revenge and the Dr Mabuse series. I'd watch those long before touching M. Back to those German reviews of Metropolis, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in to proto-Nazi Germany's discounting "sentimentality" in Metropolis. We know where hard-hearted disavowals of sentimentality led.

gregd 6y ago

We watched this during film school in college. We were told it was one of Adolf Hitler's favorite movies by one of his favorite Directors, Fritz Lang. Watching that movie having been told it was Hitler's favorite, was eerie to say the least.

watwut 6y ago
Hitler also liked Mickey Mouse.

Nition 6y ago

It's a bit like a music expert analysing the latest pop song and finding it lacking - same old chords, structure, topic, no new ideas at all. But a product for the masses will be enjoyed by the masses, who aren't so acutely aware of - or so tired of - the same clichés.

JKCalhoun 6y ago
Yeah, he would have hated "Star Wars", LOL.

8bitsrule 6y ago

Wells: "it would have been almost as easy, no more costly, and far more interesting to have taken some pains to gather the opinions of a few bright young research students and ambitious, modernizing architects and engineers about the trend of modern invention, and develop these artistically. Any technical school would have been delighted to supply sketches and suggestions for the aviation and transport of A.D. 2027." True, to a slight extent. OTOH, Lang starting filming only 23 years after Méliès. 'Trip to the Moon'. It's quite a leap from a 12-minute short to spending 17 months and 5+M Reichsmarks to make a 151-minute monsterpiece. Is it over the top? Compare to US silents of the time (UFA partnered with Paramount and MGM for financing to finish it). Imagine how Wells, a major geek, have moaned about the all the needless sentiment and emotion in George Pal's wonderful realizations of his greatest works? Compare them to his 1936 baby, 'Things to Come' with its cold, mechanical dialog, 'awkward pace and uninvolving characters'. I've seen Pal's dozens of times, 'Things' one-half time.

david927 6y ago

I think he completely missed the point of the film. It wasn’t an attempt to predict what the world would look like in a hundred years. It was a fable. When the interior of a scene was larger than the exterior, it wasn’t a mistake but an intended effect. Lang wasn’t saying, “This is the future,” but rather, “we need to beware of a future that bends this way.” And he was right. The mechanizations that were meant, as Wells says, to liberate us didn’t entirely. We’re no longer marching shoulder to shoulder to the caves to work mechanically, but half of us go to low paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted. An Amazon or Uber driver may not look like a fleshy cog in an oversized machine but he or she might certainly feel that way. Lang was sitting us down as children and telling us a fable and the fable had a moral: in the future we need to take care lest we the humans are reduced to machinery and the machinery sublimated to human. And Lang was prescient because, 100 years later, that is what we’ve found.

StavrosK 6y ago
> but half of us go to low paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted And half of us go to high paid jobs that are not somehow more human than what he depicted. Beware the cultural, subconscious lie that "more money means you're happier". Plenty of low-paid people are happier at their jobs than plenty of millionaires.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
  Then why keep all this money in the hand of unhappy people (who mostly hoard it)? Does unhappiness help with capital allocation? Could concentrating wealth in the hands of a few cause unhappiness and trouble both their owner nor the rest of society (who would do better if they had more control)?
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    I didn't say all rich people are unhappy, I said not all poor people are unhappy and not all rich people are happy.

corysama 6y ago

For modern audiences, I would recommend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(novel) over the film adaption. The film is amazing for it’s time. But, is... difficult to appreciate today. The book however, has some of the most intense imagery I’ve ever read. I had to put it down between pages to give my mind a bit of time to process each scene. An important bit of context for the book is that it was written by a woman who moved from an agrarian village in Germany —where nothing had changed for hundreds of years— to height-of-the-Industrial-Revolution New York. It was quite a shock. And, imagine the book is from her extrapolations. A fun bit is that it was written long before the invention of computers. So, this vision of a technologically advanced society has no concept of computerization and substitutes mind-numbing, body-crushing proletariat labor as the means of automation.

watwut 6y ago

I have seen this twice - one in tv and one with life music played by local band - as used to be done back in day, except music was electronic. The experience was much different. One with local band was awesome, one of best movies ever. The one in tv was boring and meh. It was interesting to see how much difference the backround can make.

IndySun 6y ago
I'd be interested to know if this is true of all comparative AudioVisual experiences, that being that 'live', an event, with other people, is always the more memorable.
- watwut 6y ago
  I dont think it was only the presence of other people. The local band was simply better then music on tv which I completely forgot.
  - IndySun 6y ago
    Nice. So maybe not 'true', just depends; like most things.

richardfey 6y ago

Watch the restored version scored by Giorgio Moroder; it is a sublime experience.

dusted 6y ago

I think H.G. Wells would be rather impressed with Metropolis if he had grown up with the popular movies of today ;-) > That vertical city of the future we know now is, to put it mildly, highly improbable. Interestingly, in his own movie, "Things to come" from 1936, we see that exact same idea.