Interview with Fritz Lang, Beverley Hills, August 12, 1972 | Hacker News Reader

Interview with Fritz Lang, Beverley Hills, August 12, 1972

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58 pointsbenbreen23 comments

So hear me out. Although Metropolis is a milestone in technical cinematic terms, the actual story is silly, the moral at the end is patronising, and the sci-fi content is weak, even for its time. So the modern equivalent would be something with a huge budget, flashy production and amazing special effects but with a rubbish story. Something like Starship Troopers maybe (although thats actually quite good as a satire). Or maybe 'Cowboys and Aliens'.

When you watch it and it seems a bit hokey, don't make excuses for it. It most probably seemed equally hokey to people at the time. For example here's a contemporary review by H. G. Wells:

The film’s air of having something grave and wonderful to say is transparent pretence. It has nothing to do with any social or moral issue before the world or with any that can ever conceivably arise. It is bunkum and poor and thin even as bunkum. I am astonished at the toleration shown it by quite a number of film critics on both sides of the Atlantic.

https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/07/h-g-wells-re...

I agree. While I think M is a masterpiece in almost every aspect, I tried watching Metropolis several times and always found it to be mediocre at best. I cannot understand the hype around this movie.

Besides H.G. Wells, contemporary German critics were also spot on:

> Thea von Harbou erfindet eine unmögliche Personenhandlung, die in den Motiven überstopft wird. […] Immer wird mit Gefühlsphrasen gearbeitet. Schrecklich. Ein sachliches Thema grausam verkitscht. Effekte, nicht weil Weltanschauungen zu Explosionen drängen, sondern weil der Film seine Tricks will. Der Schluß, die tränenreiche Versöhnung von Arbeitgeber und Arbeitnehmer – entsetzlich.“

Slightly improved Google translation:

>Thea von Harbou (she was the screenwriter) invents an impossible plot which is overstuffed with motifs. [...] She is only working with emotional clichées. Dreadful. A serious subject cruelly made into kitsch. Effects not because the depicted world demands it, but because the film wants its tricks. The end - the tearful reconciliation of employer and employee - awful."

– Berliner Börsen-Courier, 11. Januar 1927

> Nimm zehn Tonnen Grausen, gieße ein Zehntel Sentimentalität darüber, koche es mit sozialem Empfinden auf und würze es mit Mystik nach Bedarf, verrühre das Ganze mit Mark (sieben Millionen) und du erhältst einen prima Kolossalfilm.

> Take ten tons of horror, pour a tenth of sentimentality over it, cook it with social feeling and season it with mysticism as needed, mix with Mark (seven million of it) (Mark the currency, but it may also be understood as bone marrow ("Knochenmark") or tomato puree ("Tomatenmark") in the context of cooking, which is the joke here) and you get a great colossal movie.

– Simplicissimus Nr. 44/1927

It's basically a turd as a story; a lame piece of socialist moralizing with lots of cheap stereotypes. I assume it got made at all because the author was married to Fritz Lang, though she certainly wrote better screenplays before and after this one. It was the design elements of the movie and "special effects" which made it worth remembering.

Its not even socialist. At the end, employer and employee are united by Love. I have no idea where to pin that on the political spectrum.

Social democracy -- that is, almost every government in the west today.

Agreed. I've only seen it once but I recall feeling "what's the big deal" at the end.

However the interview made me re-think this a bit. That the interviewer mistook the number of extras by a large margin speaks to the cinematic "tricks" (as cited pejoratively in parent post) being successful even thirty years later.

I imagine this was an eye-opening moment for moviegoers the same way Citizen Kane was - like nothing seen before, so deeply impactful.

> So the modern equivalent would be something with a huge budget, flashy production and amazing special effects but with a rubbish story. Something like Starship Troopers maybe (although thats actually quite good as a satire). Or maybe 'Cowboys and Aliens'.

So... Avatar ?

Just as I was going to say that...

Although I think that plot aside, Metropolis has far more artistic merit than Avatar (or anything Cameron ever made, makes, or will make).

I dunno, The Terminator was pretty good.

On artistic merit? I don't think so. As brainless entertainment, as long as you don't mind plot holes you could drive a whole T-1000 factory through, it was pretty good (because Ah-nuld), but as something else... I don't think so, just a typical Cameron

As someone who is a fan of the movie(I ordered the Blu-ray as soon as I learned they were releasing the recovered footage), it's a lousy story. I like it because of the aesthetics.

The sort of thing that we now call 'production design'?

Fritz lang said as much himself. See theoriginal reception section:

"The main thesis was Mrs. Von Harbou's, but I am at least 50 percent responsible because I did it. I was not so politically minded in those days as I am now. You cannot make a social-conscious picture in which you say that the intermediary between the hand and the brain is the heart. I mean, that's a fairy tale—definitely. But I was very interested in machines. Anyway, I didn't like the picture—thought it was silly and stupid—then, when I saw the astronauts: what else are they but part of a machine? It's very hard to talk about pictures—should I say now that I like Metropolis because something I have seen in my imagination comes true, when I detested it after it was finished?"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)

>So hear me out. Although Metropolis is a milestone in technical cinematic terms, the actual story is silly, the moral at the end is patronising, and the sci-fi content is weak, even for its time. So the modern equivalent would be something with a huge budget, flashy production and amazing special effects but with a rubbish story.

So like 99% of the Marvel and DC movies? (Startship Troppers have no "rubbish story". It's based on a classic book, and the additional humor in the movie elevates it even more).

>When you watch it and it seems a bit hokey, don't make excuses for it. It most probably seemed equally hokey to people at the time.

On the other hand Roger Ebert and many modern critics beg to differ.

I watched Scarlet Street a few days ago. What an awesome movie. Noir with a very dark ending... It's got a lot of talk about art in it, quite funny at times, mocking critics and the art world. A painter falls into the hands of a con-man and his girlfriend. Very highly recommended.

Semi-tangential recommendation, and since Godard is mentioned in the article: Le Mepris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_(film))

Fritz Lang shows up in that, IIRC

the main musical theme is amazing. still thinking about it, saw it decades ago.

Georges Delerue was an incredible composer. The theme:

https://youtu.be/aUs4awmb3-o

If you have any interest in Metropolis the movie, you really should read Metropolis the book. It is the most intensely visual work I’ve ever read. I would often need to take a minute between pages to work through the descriptions in my head.

Been thinking a lot about "metropolis" lately. Need to watch it again soon.

which version? there is now a version which includes all the scenes (from an archive in Argentina, IIRC)

Saw this in Edinburgh recently with a live DJ soundtrack by Le Vangelis. Only time I've seen it so I was a bit skeptical about the music but it made it so much more incredible.

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