This silent film tells the story of a futuristic society where a mad scientist
        uses a beautiful robot to incite a revolt amongst exploited workers. A young
        man of the upper class abandons his luxurious life to aid the revolt.

                                         Fritz Lang: Metropolis

      After 1917 expressionist drama dominated the German theater for about six years--during which time production styles also cultivated expressive exaggerations
and distortion--and left its mark on the silent cinema, especially in the films of
Fritz Lang and Robert Wiene.  Expressionism left an important legacy of technique
to many later writers.  The aims of the expressionist movement were assimilated
by Dada, and can also be discerned in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones (1921)
and The Hairy Ape (1922), and in Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine (1923).

     In [the] decade[of the twenties], the European film industries recovered from
the war to produce one of the richest artistic periods in film history.  The German cinema, stimulated by Expressionism in painting and the theater and by the design theories of the Bauhaus, created bizarrely expressionistic settings for such fantasies
as Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1919), F. W. MURNAU's Nosferatu (1922), and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). . .

     A long and distinguished career in Germany made Fritz Lang, (b. Vienna, Dec. 5, 1890, d. Aug. 2,1976, probably the most famous of the many European film directors who fled Hitler for Hollywood during the 1930s.  Lang's early studies of painting and architecture clearly influenced the expressionist style and grand scale of such films as Destiny (1921), the two-part Nibelung Saga (1924), and his celebrated depiction of a futuristic slave society, Metropolis (1927).  During the same period Lang was also making smaller-scaled studies of criminal society in Dr.  Mabuse the Gambler (1922) and The Spy (1928), which, with The Last Will of Dr.  Mabuse (1932), strongly suggested his anti-Nazi sentiments.  Lang's interest in the criminal mind produced his masterpiece--the chilling portrait of a child killer, M (1931), Lang's first sound film, starring Peter Lorre.  Lang left Germany for France in 1933.
      Lang made a highly successful American debut with Fury (1936), an indictment
of mob violence, followed by a plea for social justice in You Only Live Once (1937).  These films gave way to a succession of melodramas, most notably The Ministry of
Fear (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945), that painted a picture of society less in terms of social issues than of a nameless,
oppressive sense of dread. These expressionist nightmares, along with M, constitute
the height of Lang's achievement. . .

                                                                      William S. Pechter
 
 

1)  Describe the city of the future as Fritz Lang portrayed it in the 1927 classic,
    Metropolis. Identify those images (elements) that are futuristic for their time,
    and those that reflect the time as it was (and really illustrating the era in
    which the film was produced).
 

2)  How did he see society of the Future?  What impact do you think Hitler’s plans
    for Germany had on Lang’s portrayal of the society of Metropolis?
 

3)  a. The characters of Freder, his father, Frederson, Rotwang, and Maria all
       represent parts of society.  What parts of society do they represent, and
       in what way do they reflect those parts?

    b. Is Lang saying that these elements will always be with us?  Why?

4)  a. How does Lang’s production capture the evil of the future?

    b. Do you see any relation to Hitler and his leadership (Goring or Goebbels)?

5)  a. What makes Lang’s “robot” different from the robots we are used to
       seeing in films?

    b. What affect does this create?

6)  Why does Frederson want the robot in Maria’s image?

7)  a. How does Lang conclude his story?

    b. What does this say about his views of the future?

    c. Is this a realistic or romantic view of history?  Explain.
 

8)  a. What effect does the rock opera music create for a silent film?

    b. In what way does this (modern addition) add to the futuristic
       sense of the film?

9)  a. Search the WWW for Fritz Lang.  What happened to Lang in
       Hitler's Germany?

    b. Describe Lang's career after Hitler's rise to power?  Be
       Thorough in your response.
 
 

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