The robot here is the HAL, the computer aboard the spaceship Discovery One. Since he can control hardware, i.e., the spaceship, you could argue that HAL is a robot, with the whole ship being his body. HAL and the alien monolith in 2001 are two of the best creations of science fiction, alongside Asimov’s psychohistory and Herbert’s planet Dune. The Girl and the Robot.
Stirred by the visionary power of ',' Irevisited 's 'Metropolis' and once again fell under itseerie spell. The movie has a plot that defies common sense, but its verydiscontinuity is a strength.
It makes 'Metropolis' hallucinatory-a nightmarewithout the reassurance of a steadying story line. Few films have ever beenmore visually exhilarating.Generallyconsidered the first great science-fiction film, 'Metropolis' (1927)fixed for the rest of the century the image of a futuristic city as a hell ofscientific progress and human despair. From this film, in various ways,descended not only “Dark City” but “,” “,”“Alphaville,” “,” “,” and Batman's Gotham City. Thelaboratory of its evil genius, Rotwang, created the visual look of madscientists for decades to come, especially after it was mirrored in “Bride ofFrankenstein” (1935).
And the device of the “false Maria,” the robot who lookslike a human being, inspired the “Replicants” of “Blade Runner.” Even Rotwang'sartificial hand was given homage in “.”. Whatmany of these movies have in common is a loner hero who discovers the innerworkings of the future society, penetrating the system that would control thepopulation. Even Batman's villains are the descendants of Rotwang, giggling asthey pull the levels that will enforce their will. The buried message ispowerful: Science and industry will become the weapons of demagogues.“Metropolis”employed vast sets, 25,000 extras and astonishing special effects to create twoworlds: the great city of Metropolis, with its stadiums, skyscrapers andexpressways in the sky, and the subterranean workers’ city, where the clockface shows 10 hours to cram another day into the work week. Lang's film is thesummit of German Expressionism, the combination of stylized sets, dramaticcamera angles, bold shadows and frankly artificial theatrics.Theproduction itself made even Stanley Kubrick's mania for control look benign.According to Patrick McGilligan's book Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast, theextras were hurled into violent mob scenes, made to stand for hours in coldwater and handled more like props than human beings. The heroine was made tojump from high places, and when she was burned at a stake, Lang used real flames.The irony was that Lang's directorial style was not unlike the approach of thevillain in his film.Thestory tells of a great city whose two halves-the pampered citizens of thesurface and the slaves of the depths-are ignorant of one another. The city isrun by the ruthless Joh Fredersen , a businessman-dictator.
Hisson Freder is in the Pleasure Gardens one day when Maria, a woman from the subterranean city, brings a group of workers'children to the surface. Freder, struck by Maria’s beauty and astonished tolearn of the life led by the workers, seeks out the demented genius Rotwang, who knows the secrets of the lower world. Whatfollows is Freder's descent into the depths and his attempts to help theworkers, who are rallied by the revolutionary Maria.
Meanwhile, Rotwang devisesa robot, captures the real Maria, and transfers her face to the robot-so thatthe workers, still following Maria, can be fooled and controlled. (Theelectrical arcs, bubbling beakers, glowing rings of light and mad scientistprops in the transformation sequence have influenced a thousand films.)Langdevelops this story with scenes of astonishing originality. Consider the firstglimpse of the underground power plant, with workers straining to move heavydial hands back and forth. What they're doing makes no logical sense, butvisually the connection is obvious: They are controlled like hands on a clock.And when the machinery explodes, Freder has a vision in which the machineryturns into an obscene devouring monster.Otherdramatic visual sequences: a chase scene in the darkened catacombs, with thereal Maria pursued by Rotwang (the beam of his light is like a club to bludgeonher).
The image of the Tower of Babel as Maria addresses the workers. Theirfaces, arrayed in darkness from the top to the bottom of the screen.
The doorsin Rotwang's house, opening and closing on their own. The lascivious dance ofthe false Maria, as the workers look on, the screen filled with large, wet,staring eyeballs. The flood of the lower city and the undulating arms of thechildren flocking to Maria to be saved.Thegaps and logical puzzles of the story (some caused by clumsy re-editing afterthe film left Lang's hands) are swept away by this torrent of images. “To enjoythe film, the viewer must observe but never think,” the critic Arthur Lennigsaid, and Pauline Kael contrasted its “moments of almost incredible beauty andpower” with “absurd ineptitudes.” Even when the plot seems adrift, the movieitself never lacks confidence: The city and system are so overpowering theydwarf any merely logical problems.
Although Lang saw his movie asanti-authoritarian, the Nazis liked it enough to offer him control of theirfilm industry (he fled to America instead). Some of the ideas in “Metropolis”seem echoed in Leni Riefenstahl's pro-Hitler “Triumph of theWill”(1935)-where, of course, they have lost their irony. Muchof what we see in “Metropolis” doesn't exist except in visual trickery.
Thespecial effects were the work of Eugene Schuefftan, who later worked in Hollywoodas the cinematographer of “Lilith” and “.” According to Magill'sSurvey of Cinema, his photographic system “allowed people and miniature sets tobe combined in a single shot, through the use of mirrors, rather thanlaboratory work.” Other effects were created in the camera by cinematographerKarl Freund.Theresult was astonishing for its time. Without all of the digital tricks oftoday, “Metropolis” fills the imagination. Today the effects look like effects,but that's their appeal. Looking at the original “King Kong” not long ago, Ifound that its effects, primitive by modern standards, gained a certain weirdeffectiveness.
Because they looked strange and unworldly compared to the slick,utterly convincing effects that are now possible, they were more evocative: Theeffects in movies like “” and “” are done so well, bycomparison, that we simply think we are looking at real things, which is notquite the same kind of fun.“Metropolis”has not existed for years in the version that Lang completed. It was chopped bydistributors, censors and exhibitors, key footage was lost, and only byreferring to the novelization of the story by Thea vonHarbou can various storygaps be explained. In 1984 a reconstructed version was released, adding footagegathered from Germany and Australia to existing prints, and that version,produced by Giorgio Moroder, was color tinted “according to Lang's originalintentions” and given an MTV-style musical score. This is the version mostoften seen today.Puristsquite reasonably object to it, but one can turn off the sound and dial down thecolor to create a silent black-and-white print. I am not crazy about thesoundtrack, but in watching the Moroder version I enjoyed the tinting and feltthat Lang's vision was so powerful it swept aside the quibbles: It's better tosee this well-restored print with all the available footage than to standentirely on principle.“Metropolis”does what many great films do, creating a time, place and characters sostriking that they become part of our arsenal of images for imagining theworld. The ideas of “Metropolis” have been so often absorbed into popularculture that its horrific future city is almost a given (whendared to create an alternative utopian future in 1991 with “Defending YourLife,” it seemed wrong, somehow, without Satanic urban hellscapes). Lang filmedfor nearly a year, driven by obsession, often cruel to his colleagues, aperfectionist madman, and the result is one of those seminal films withoutwhich the others cannot be fully appreciated.