Program Notes: Metropolis

By A. Kori Hill

In the United States alone, 70 percent of the more than 10,000 films made between 1912 and 1929 have been lost. “Lost” as in, only a trailer, one scene or a still from the film currently exists. Metropolis (1927) does not count as a lost film. But for many years, it was incomplete. Following its premiere, the film was heavily edited. As decades passed, copies of the original were misplaced or left to decay, a fact many chalked up to the sad reality of film preservation. 

That was, until 2008, when an original cut was discovered in an Argentinian museum. Although severely damaged, preservationists were able to restore 95 percent of the film by combining it with reels from a print in New Zealand. This version debuted in early 2010, and was released on DVD by Kino Lorber later that year as The Complete Metropolis. Audiences could now see the film with missing scenes restored to their original location within the narrative, paired with a new recording by Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and featuring the original score by Gottfried Huppertz.  

The Metropolis score is deeply Romantic in character and scope. Huppertz weaves key themes to harken back to incidents and ideas explored earlier in the film. Interestingly, Huppertz delays the music until the last third of the credits. As the cast names scroll past, a triumphant brass chorale culminates in a full orchestral statement of the main theme as the title card (literally) illuminates the screen. Huppertz moves immediately from bombast to dizzying repetitive figures to a morose, trudging motive. This matches Lang’s transition from the splendor of the city to the repetitive movement of the machinery to the defeated walk of two groups of workers, one set leaving their shifts while the other arrives.  

Metropolis is considered a landmark in filmmaking. Directed by Fritz Lang, the screenplay was a joint venture between Lang and his collaborator and wife, Thea von Harbou. Von Harbou penned the novel Metropolis in 1925 to serve as the basis for their cinematic adaptation. The story is one of class division and reconciliation, set in an art deco city of technological might. But this progress is built upon the labor of the poor and overworked. Such inequities cannot be maintained unless a person with understanding and empathy (the Heart) can bring the ruling class (the Mind) and the workers (the Hand) together. 

Freder, the son of the master of Metropolis, Jon Frederson (the Mind), is abruptly exposed to the sordid conditions of the workers when a woman named Maria brings a group of workers’ children to see how their rich brothers live in the dazzling city above ground. Intrigued by this woman and the condition of the children, Freder journeys underground and witnesses several workers killed by a mechanical malfunction. It is here that the dizzying repetition and metallic quality of the music returns and lengthens, corresponding with the timed movements of workers as they shift from right to left. They are no longer human, but literally cogs in a machine.  

Freder resolves to help the workers and enters a conflict with his father, who connives with the inventor Rotwang to create an android version of Maria to sow division among the workers and retain power. Because the real Maria is not only Freder’s love interest; she is also a prophet, heralding the arrival of a person who will bring the ruling and working classes together. During a speech from Maria, framed to mirror Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the tender, hopeful music that introduced her returns, soothing and inspiring the workers and Freder with the vision of a better world for them all.  

But Rotwang has his own plans, as he was once in love with a woman, Hel, who married Frederson and died giving birth to Freder. He intends to use the false Maria to destroy Frederson and the entire city, a plan that almost comes to fruition. As she performs a scandalous dance for a group of hedonist men, Huppertz’s score returns to the repetitive whirl and rhythmic beat, interspersed with a major secondary theme and quote of the Dias Irae. After inciting the ruling class, the false Maria prompts the workers to destroy the machines, which floods their homes and nearly kills their children. Grot (the Hand) is the first to realize their folly, and both Rotwang and the false Maria meet their ends. Here, Freder fulfills Maria’s prophecy: he has become the Heart, who, by bringing his father and Grot together, prompts the first step towards reconciliation and justice. 

Frank Strobel has a close relationship with Metropolis and the Huppertz score. He reconstructed the score with Marco Jovic and conducted the Berlin Radio Symphony in the re-recording made for the film’s 2010 release. Strobel also arranged segments of Shostakovich symphonies for Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925), which the Seattle Symphony performed last season. Strobel is renowned for his live symphony-and-film work, and since 2000, has been Artistic Director of the European Film Philharmonic. With his return to Benaroya Hall, Strobel keeps an outmoded method of movie-watching and scoring alive: where the viewer must pay attention to the actors’ movements and motions as well as reading the title cards; and where the music can vary depending on what theater (and with which orchestra) you’re watching it. 

Metropolis has also inspired numerous other seminal works in film, music and art. In 1984, music producer Giorgio Moroder restored and produced a truncated version of the film, writing original songs for its score that were performed by major artists such as Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar and Bonnie Tyler. Osamu Tezuka, the “Godfather of Manga,” penned an original story within the world created by von Harbou and Lang. But instead of the android being programmed as the antagonist, Tezuka’s Metropolis (1949) is populated by a robotic underclass. This Metropolis was adapted into a stunning 2001 film by anime director Rintaro, and that, in turn, fueled the themes explored in Janelle Monáe’s debut album, The ArchAndroid (2010).  

The best art leaves you with more questions. Metropolis is one of those works, considering questions that preoccupy us today: the mechanization of society and humanity; the necessity of equality; and that all parts of the human experience — especially emotion — are key to building a beautiful and just world. As the inter-title card declares: “The Mediator of the Mind and the Hands, must be the Heart!”