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If You Like ‘Blade Runner’ Why Not Try ‘Metropolis’

Science fiction is an absolutely inescapable genre in modern cinema so it’s easy to forget that prior to 1977 and George Lucas’s ‘Star Wars’ this was not the case. With a few exceptions sci-fi existed as B-movies with low budgets, ironically since to do the genre justice it tends to require higher budgets than most other films. There’s no doubt that several factors are responsible; available technology, money, public interest, the studio system, money, but, as is always the way in film, some people are way ahead of the curve. When you go to silent films looking for science fiction there’s really only one place to go; Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’. I hasten to add that the reason ‘Metropolis’ is the only place to go is not because it’s the only silent sci-fi film (although it is in slim company), it’s because it is the best by a very, very respectable difference.

Probably the first sci-fi film is Georges Melies’s ‘A Trip to the Moon’ (1902). It is only twelve minutes long, but is a landmark in early cinema and holds up surprisingly well for something over a hundred years old (it was played for comedy which always holds up better). The early ‘trick films’ frequently used what could loosely be termed sci-fi, they took advantage of the fact that the public was very unfamiliar with how film worked and so were constantly amazed by cinematic sleight of hand that seems pretty unimpressive these days. Melies is the best remembered of these, and with good cause, but one should not forget his British counterpart, R. W. Paul, whose curiously titled film ‘The ‘?’ Motorist’ features a car driving around the rings of Saturn. Innovative though these pioneers were, for serious sci-fi, that an audience of today would recognise, you really have to wait until ‘Metropolis’.

In 1928, the year after ‘Metropolis’ was released, author Philip K. Dick was born, he was to become synonymous with a type of sci-fi story called the ‘dystopian future’, which basically means that everything is going to go to hell. His visions of the future grow from the paranoia of 1950’s America. He imagined capitalism extended to the nth degree, where media organisations became all powerful and pleasure was available at the push of a button and yet where people still managed to live in fear. (It’s probably worth noting that a fairly healthy drug intake also contributed.) He took the world he lived in and extrapolated a future from it. To be honest he wasn’t all that far out. In many ways ‘Metropolis’ does the same, imagine what the world might be like if Hitler had won the Second World War, then extrapolate that and what you get might look a lot like ‘Metropolis’. Crucially both Dick and Lang lived in disturbing times, they saw the future and it looked bad to them, and they pushed this into their respective visions.

Such is the influence of Dick that modern sci-fi almost all buys into the dystopian vision, apparently we are all doomed but at least we got some good films out of it. And this is a point worth making, Dick is influential (take a look at how many of his stories have been filmed) but so is ‘Blade Runner’, it’s hard to say exactly which is more so. None of the films (excluding ‘A Scanner Darkly’) bears a great resemblance to their source material, though many feel true to the spirit of Dick. And they are not alone, ‘The Matrix’, ‘The Truman Show’ even something as gung ho as ‘The Terminator’, they all owe a debt to Dick’s vision.

But let’s not mention that again, this is about the film, it’s important to keep the two separate and equally important to remember that ‘Blade Runner’ is a cinematic masterpiece in it’s own right (plus I haven‘t read ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ on which ‘Blade Runner’ is based so me commenting is pretty pointless). From it’s grim atmosphere, pioneering design, powerhouse central performances and iconic score by Vangelis this is a great film, and, despite the imitators that have followed, it is also a unique one. In fact, despite the fifty five years that separate them, ‘Metropolis’ is still as good a frame of comparison as any.

So what do these two films have in common besides their bleak predictions? For starters the look of them, design is massively important in both films (though crucially not at the expense of the direction). Were it not for the fact that ‘Blade Runner’ is shot almost exclusively in the night then Lawrence G. Paul’s vast cityscape would look very similar to the Metropolis designed by Erich Kettelhut. Viewed from above that is, the tall buildings, thousands of lights and vehicles, all seeming to be centred around the almost temple like edifice of the Tyrell building in ‘Blade Runner’ and the New Tower of Babel in ‘Metropolis’ are very similar, but at ground level it’s a different story. In ‘Blade Runner’ the poverty stricken lower classes live in low level slums, jammed next to each other, one gets the impression that, in this city, the feet of the rich never touch the actual ground. In Metropolis the streets are as nice as the towers, it is a perfect city for people to live in, this is because the working classes, who labour to keep the wheels of Metropolis turning, are kept beneath the ground, they’d just make the place look untidy. Which rather hits to the main difference between the two films, they both present grim views of the future with a massive difference between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, but in ‘Blade Runner’ this difference seems to have happened over time, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; capitalism. ‘Metropolis’ presents a society where the poor did not work their way down into the underground city over time, they were shoved there, this is an exclusionist society. With the benefit of hindsight it’s all too easy to read all sorts into this pre-world war two film, but looking at the shuffling workers on their way to work themselves to death in the factory and their skinny, ragged children in the worker’s city it’s hard not to see it as prescient of the concentration camps.

Of course the other prominent thing that both films have in common is robots, or at least artificial life forms, the exact nature of the replicants in ‘Blade Runner’ is never really addressed. ‘Metropolis’ is one of those films which has a single image with which people are familiar even when they have never seen the film or have any idea what it is about; the image is of the robot form of Maria. She barely appears in the film and yet she has become massively iconic, as is often the way in Expressionist films (also see Cesare in ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ (1919) and Count Graf Orlok in ‘Nosferatu’ (1922)). Partly this is because she looks like C3PO’s sexy mother (actress Brigitte Helm who plays the woman the robot will become is also inside that robot suit), but it’s also a great image and the transformation scene when the robot becomes flesh is incredible. At the time, exactly how the special effects were done would not have been known by most who saw the film, this was at a time when effects could not be added in editing and they were all done in camera and on one piece of film, suffice it to say that legendary cameraman Karl Freund had to expose the film 30 times to achieve the final effect in this sequence. The female replicant Zhora in ‘Blade Runner’ is an erotic dancer and the robot Maria, once she is made into a woman, does the same in another phenomenal sequence with amazing effects which sees Maria becoming the whore of Babylon, the living personification of the seven deadly sins, causing delirium in the entranced men of Metropolis and bringing death down on the city. It is also one of the most erotic sequences ever put on film and one which could not have been made in America at the time. This is the start of the tradition of ‘sexy robots’ in cinema which echoes all the way down to ‘Terminator 3’ and goes via both Zhora and Pris in ‘Blade Runner’. But, however great Zhora and Pris are, there is only one replicant to talk about. As Roy Batty, Rutger Hauer gives the performance of a lifetime, he is absolutely mesmerising, the centre of the film, in much the same way that Maria is in ‘Metropolis’. But, while Maria is constructed for a purpose, programmed by the scientist Rotwang to destroy Metropolis, Roy has a mind and a will of his own. Roy is a great bad guy, he is cold blooded and does not think twice about killing to get what he wants, on the other hand he only wants to live beyond his four year lifespan, Roy is a bad guy we can have sympathy with. His poetic flamboyance is a deliberate contrast to Harrison Ford’s buttoned down Deckard, and his eventual demise gives the film it’s most human moment.

This is the irony and central premise of ‘Blade Runner’, we know nothing of Deckard, he is an isolated figure in a rumpled shirt and tie, he seldom shows emotion, and when he does it tends to be fear, even his ‘love scene’ with Sean Young’s Rachel is rough rather than tender. He is trying to kill the replicants. The replicants, and Roy especially, we know, we know their history and characters, they show emotion when members of their number are killed, they are glamorous and full of life. They are just trying to exist. Deckard is a far more robotic presence while Roy is more human, and in the end Roy saves his enemy, recognising the importance of life and, in a sense, gaining his humanity. Both films share this theme of dehumanising, in ‘Metropolis’ the workers movements are robotic, they are barely alive. And yet when they come to life for the revolt at the end they do the most inhuman things, even burning Maria at the stake (it proves to be a robot but they do not know this). The film is about how we choose to treat our social inferiors as less than human, the workers are every bit as much slaves as the replicants.

Another thing that both films have in common, and which has been much discussed, is their religious imagery. It’s fairly subtle in ‘Blade Runner’, really just hanging on the one moment when Roy, in an effort to keep himself alive with self-harm, pushes a nail through his own hand. He ends his life wearing only a small pair of shorts and with a dove clutched in his hands having just saved Deckard’s life, the Christ like imagery is surely intentional. Religion is a more central theme in ‘Metropolis’, part of the story rather than just a metaphor. And it does not confine itself to Christianity, another of the films most memorable images is when the hero Freder finds his way into the factory and sees the M Machine, in his minds eye it turns into a pagan temple to the god Moloch, into the fiery mouth of which the workers are hurled. That of course is a metaphor but we also have Maria (the real one rather than the robot made flesh) preaching to the workers in an ancient crypt in the catacombs backed by an array of crosses, she tells the Biblical story of the tower of Babel which becomes one of the central points of the film, it is an antidote to the paganism we have seen in the factory. The robot Maria becomes an embodiment of the whore of Babylon. And of course the name Maria has some religious connotations as well.

This leads to another interesting area, while ‘Blade Runner’ is resolutely a science fiction film, ‘Metropolis’ mixes genres. The ultra-futuristic concept of the mechanical city gives way to the more familiar expressionist territory of gothic catacombs as one goes deeper. The inventor (read mad scientist) Rotwang (Lang regular Rudolph Klein-Rogge) lives in a tumbledown cottage sandwiched between massive skyscrapers, immediately setting him apart from the rest of the city, his doors are timber and his laboratory has more than a bit of the Frankenstein about it. ‘Blade Runner’ successfully links the present to the future while ‘Metropolis seems to bypass the present, tying the future to the past, to religion, myth and legend. The only crossover is one of the more unusual elements in ‘Blade Runner’; the unicorn which appears in Deckard’s dream.

In terms of cast Metropolis falls pray to the curse of a number of expressionist films, the weak hero. Possibly these characters seemed better at the time but it hard to believe. ‘Metropolis’s leading man, who suffers the unfortunate name ‘Freder Fredersen’ (played by Gustav Frohlich) is one of Metropolis’s idle rich. He switches places with one of the workers (a noble but pretty pointless gesture) and barely makes it through one afternoon. He has a habit of coming over faint and when Maria changes from sweet and innocent to sexual and alluring (as she is now the robot) he is confined to his bed for some time. It is hard to believe that here is the saviour the city has been looking for, and frankly his ridiculous jodhpurs do not help. Harrison Ford is a far more solid hero, proving once again that he is officially the ‘World’s Greatest Reluctant Hero’, despite his cold, unemotional nature he is still a character we can empathise with and root for. Sean Young’s heroine, the replicant Rachel, has little to do but come to terms with the fact that she is a replicant and therefore has not much longer to live but she is fine in the role. As is Brigitte Helm as the virginally perfect Maria with whom Freder falls in love at first sight. But let’s not mess about, it’s as the robot Maria, the bad girl, that Helm really excels, the difference in her performances is remarkable to start with and it is a performance that fills a long and fairly downbeat film with a raw energy and passion (astonishingly Helm was only 18 at the time with barely any acting experience). We have already discussed the eroticism of her performance (though frankly I could talk about it all day) but the robot Maria also has a mania about her which makes her presence all the more insidious and unsettling. She whips the workers into a revolutionary fervour such that they even forget about their own children. But it is her final moments that really stand out, tied to a stake on top of a massive bonfire, not afraid, but howling with manic laughter as the flames lick around her. Needless to say that her counterpart in ‘Blade Runner’ is Roy Batty, the unholy martyr, less dynamic until his final scenes but just as mesmerising. Both films also benefit from a strong supporting cast, as Maria is both love interest and villain, so Tyrell in ‘Blade Runner’ is the equivalent of both Rotwang and Joh Fredersen in ‘Metropolis’, the scientist and civic leader.

The similarities go on; Ridley Scott is a very visual storyteller in the best silent traditions, he has the good sense to show the audience what he wants them to know rather than telling them. ‘Blade Runner’ is basically a futuristic film noir, a genre which grew from the expressionist movement in it’s bleakness and use of darkness and light. But sooner or later in discussing both these films one has too discuss the endings. Lang always hated the end of ‘Metropolis’, I have been unable to discover the reasons why but it’s not too hard to guess. ‘Metropolis’ was Hitler’s favourite film and Lang was offered the job of official film maker for the Nazi party (the story is he refused and left Germany the same day, and though that’s probably just a story he did not take the job). It is also notable that the film was written by Lang’s wife, Thea von Harbou, who was a Nazi sympathiser. There is no overt display of fascism in the film (although the stadium is stunningly similar to that which would be used a few years later for the Olympics), but it is hard to avoid the sense at the end that everything would have been so much better if the workers had not made such a fuss and got on with it. It is this staunchly anti-communist sentiment which may have appealed to Hitler. Also it is Rotwang, who is trying to avenge the woman he loves, who is thrown to his death from the gothic cathedral while Joh Fredersen, who has been keeping his workers in slavery and plotting to kill quite a lot of them, walks away without any real punishment. And although a new amicable relationship is established between management and labour, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that once the credits have rolled the workers will be back down on the machines fixing the problems that their reprehensible revolt has caused. It’s a slightly uncomfortable ending to a magnificent film.

The ending of ‘Blade Runner’ has a better know history and has been a cause celebre for those in favour of a director’s artistic vision. Early screenings convinced executives that the film was too confusing which led to the introduction of a shockingly poor voiceover and a new ending to combat the bleakness of the conclusion. Fortunately Ridley Scott had the opportunity to re-edit the film and release a Directors Cut, dispensing with the voiceover and putting the original ending back. This is where the main argument about ‘Blade Runner’ comes in, while the suggestion is virtually absent from the theatrical release, the Director’s Cut suggests strongly that Deckard himself is a replicant. Scott has gone on record as saying that he always saw Deckard as a replicant while Ford is adamant that he is not. In the end it’s down to personal preference, if Deckard is not a replicant then the ending is a little odd, on the other hand if he is then it raises some serious questions about the rest of the film. Personally I have always seen the film as a brilliant look at what defines humanity, contrasting the robotic human Deckard and the human robot Batty, that point is completely trashed by the suggestion that Deckard is a replicant, so for me the ending is the film’s weakest point. Disagreements, on this and other points, between Scott and Ford blighted the ‘Blade Runner’ shoot, though both agreed that the theatrical release was awful. At least Scott was able to have another crack at his film (and at the time of writing a new version has just been released titled ‘The Final Cut’). The same good fortune was not available to Lang.

‘Metropolis’ took 310 days and 60 nights to shoot and cost four times it’s original budget, the final cost was $2million at a time when the average cost of an MGM film in America was $40 thousand. It practically bankrupted the UFA studios and then tanked on it’s release. When it was released in America it was adapted by a man who, and let’s be quite fair to him here, was a complete moron. He did not like the idea of a man building a robot to replace the woman he loved, so he changed the titles, cut out a quarter of the film and changed the plot substantially. Worse still, this was the version that saw mass release in Germany. Lang’s original version no longer exists in it’s entirety, the most complete version available has restored all existing footage and inserted titles and still photos to make up the missing scenes. We have the original story back (thank God) but the images are gone forever.

VERDICT

Unlike most of the films discussed in this book, this is not simply a comparison between two good films but one between two masterpieces. ‘Metropolis’s power and reputation does not simply reside in it’s phenomenal influence, it is an amazing film.

Likewise ‘Blade Runner’ is brilliant piece of work and one which seems likely to last long into the future.

Are they accurate visions of the future? ‘Blade Runner’ is set in 2019, it’s not looking good for flying cars or lifelike human substitutes, which is what you get for setting your film a mere thirty seven years in the future. ‘Metropolis’ was set in 2000 (a lifetime away in 1927) and, although robots are disappointingly absent, it doesn’t look that far from the truth, television, video phones and cities built upwards rather than outwards (which was criticised as fantasy at the time) have come to pass.

What  happened to the respective directors is interesting and comparable too. During his German silent period Lang was almost unsurpassed (only the genius of F. W. Murnau nudged ahead) but he handled the transition to sound better than probably any other major silent director. His first talkie ‘M’ is possibly his best film ever and he followed this up with a sequel to his silent hit ’Dr Mabuse, The Gambler’(1922), called ‘The Testament of Dr. Mabuse’, which is even more disturbing than the original. Then the offer from Hitler came and Lang fled, ending up in Hollywood. There is nothing wrong with the films he made there, indeed there are some genuine classics such as ‘Fury’ and ‘The Big Heat’, but there were to be no more iconic, genre defining masterpieces. There was no room in the Hollywood studio system for a maverick spend thrift. Like Lang, Ridley Scott has never been constrained by genre, though his two best films ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Alien’ are firmly rooted in sci-fi. He now seems to have settled into the Hollywood blockbuster life, making mostly good solid films (‘Gladiator’ his best in recent years) but without the spark of original genius which once burned in his work. At the time of writing he has recently released ‘American Gangster’, which is fine, no more, no less.

None of which is important in judging which is the superior film. Neither is without it’s faults. Fritz Lang in his silent period seldom made a film that could not be called ‘epic’ (‘Dr Mabuse, The Gambler’ is four and half hours long) and ‘Metropolis could stand a sharper edit. ‘Blade Runner’s lavish visuals sometimes overshadow the actors and Scott’s camera takes on the self indulgence of a music video. The problematic endings we have already looked at. But all this is nit picking, perhaps more than any other pairing in this book this one is made in heaven and I feel confident in saying that if you like ‘Blade Runner’ you will like ’Metropolis’ (once you have got past the fact that it’s silent).

If I had a gun to my head I prefer ‘Metropolis’. It’s blending of genres, iconic scenes and imagery, the camerawork of Karl Freund, the score of Gottfried Huppertz and the blinding central performance by Brigitte Helm, make it a classic among classics.

If you have feedback, you can e-mail Robin here.

Copyright © 2007 Robin Bailes