FULL METROPOLIS by Fritz Lang An (Un)silent Film (Amir Sanjari) New York 2024

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: METROPOLIS An (Un)silent Film   
• Composer: Sanjari Amir   
• Libretto: N/A  
• Venue & Opera Company: New School Tishman Auditorium, New York,  
• Recorded: April 10, 2024
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers: N/A
• Conductor: Robert Kahn  
• Orchestra: Mannes Orchestra  
• Stage Director: Fritz Lang  
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: College of Performing Arts at The New School  
• Date Published: 2024  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: nosubs  
• Video Recording from: YouTube     FULL VIDEO
•  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou’s 1925 novel of the same name (which was intentionally written as a treatment). It stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and Brigitte Helm. Erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studios for Universum Film A.G. (UFA). Metropolis is regarded as a pioneering science-fiction film, being among the first feature-length ones of that genre. Filming took place over 17 months in 1925–26 at a cost of more than five million Reichsmarks, or the equivalent of about €21 million.

Made in Germany during the Weimar period, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of the city master, and Maria, a saintly figure to the workers, to overcome the vast gulf separating the classes in their city and bring the workers together with Joh Fredersen, the city master. The film’s message is encompassed in the final inter-title: “The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart”.

Metropolis met a mixed reception upon release. Critics found it visually beautiful and powerful – the film’s art direction by Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, and Karl Vollbrecht draws influence from opera, Bauhaus, Cubist, and Futurist design, along with touches of the Gothic in the scenes in the catacombs, the cathedral and Rotwang’s house – and lauded its complex special effects, but accused its story of being naive. H. G. Wells described the film as “silly”, and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls the story “trite” and its politics “ludicrously simplistic”. Its alleged communist message was also criticized.

The film’s long running time also came in for criticism. It was cut substantially after its German premiere. Many attempts have been made since the 1970s to restore the film. In 1984, Italian music producer Giorgio Moroder released a truncated version with a soundtrack by rock artists including Freddie Mercury, Loverboy, and Adam Ant. In 2001, a new reconstruction of Metropolis was shown at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2008, a damaged print of Lang’s original cut of the film was found in a museum in Argentina. According to the explanation in the restored film, “the material was heavily damaged and, because it had been printed on 16mm film stock, does not have the full-aperture silent picture ratio” and “in order to maintain the scale of the restored footage, the missing portion of the frame appears black” while “black frames indicate points at which footage is still lost”. After a long restoration process that required additional materials provided by a print from New Zealand, the film was 95% restored and shown on large screens in Berlin and Frankfurt simultaneously on 12 February 2010.

Metropolis is now widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made, ranking 67th in Sight and Sound’s 2022 critics’ poll. In 2001, the film was inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, the first film thus distinguished. On 1 January 2023, the film’s American reserved copyright expired, thereby entering the film into the public domain.

Plot

Set photograph of the Maschinenmensch from Metropolis
In the future, wealthy industrialists and business magnates and their top employees reign over the city of Metropolis from colossal skyscrapers, while underground-dwelling workers toil to operate the great machines that power it. Joh Fredersen is the city’s master. His son, Freder, idles away his time at sports and in a pleasure garden, but is interrupted by the arrival of a young woman named Maria, who has brought a group of workers’ children to witness the lifestyle of their rich “brothers”. Maria and the children are ushered away, but Freder becomes fascinated by her and goes to the lower levels to find her. In the machine halls, he witnesses the explosion of a huge machine that kills and injures numerous workers. Freder has a hallucination that the machine is a temple of Moloch and the workers are being fed to it. When the hallucination ends, and he sees the dead workers being carried away on stretchers, he hurries to tell his father about the accident.

Grot, foreman of the Heart Machine, brings Fredersen secret maps found on the dead workers. Fredersen fires his assistant Josaphat for not being the first to bring him details about the explosion or the maps. After seeing his father’s cold indifference towards the harsh conditions faced by the workers, Freder secretly rebels against him by deciding to help the workers. He enlists Josaphat’s assistance and returns to the machine halls, where he trades places with a worker who has collapsed from exhaustion.

Fredersen takes the maps to the inventor Rotwang to learn their meaning. Rotwang had been in love with a woman named Hel, who left him to marry Fredersen and later died giving birth to Freder. Rotwang shows Fredersen a robot he has built to “resurrect” Hel. The maps show a network of catacombs beneath Metropolis, and the two men go to investigate. They eavesdrop on a gathering of workers, including Freder. Maria addresses them, prophesying the arrival of a mediator who can bring the working and ruling classes together. Freder believes he can fill the role and declares his love for Maria.

Fredersen orders Rotwang to give Maria’s likeness to the robot so that it can discredit her among the workers, but is unaware that Rotwang plans to use the robot to destroy Metropolis and ruin both Fredersen and Freder. Rotwang kidnaps Maria, transfers her likeness to the robot, then sends the robot to Fredersen. Freder finds the two embracing and, believing it is the real Maria, falls into a prolonged delirium. Intercut with his hallucinations, the false Maria unleashes chaos throughout Metropolis, driving men to murder and stirring dissent among the workers.

Freder recovers and returns to the catacombs, accompanied by Josaphat. Finding the false Maria urging the workers to rise up and destroy the machines, he accuses her of not being the real Maria. The workers follow the false Maria from their city to the machine halls, leaving their children behind. They destroy the machines, triggering a flood in their city deeper underground. The real Maria, having escaped from Rotwang’s house, rescues the children with help from Freder and Josaphat. Grot berates the celebrating workers for abandoning their children in the flooded city. Believing their children to be dead, the hysterical workers capture the false Maria and burn her at the stake. A horrified Freder watches, not understanding the deception, until the fire reveals her to be a robot. Rotwang becomes delusional, seeing the real Maria as his lost Hel, and chases her to the roof of the cathedral, pursued by Freder. The two men fight as Fredersen and the workers watch from the street, and Rotwang falls to his death. Freder fulfills his role as mediator by linking the hands of Fredersen and Grot to bring them together.