A few years ago the Germans announced they had found 'the missing footage to
Metropolis
'. Sure it was in horrific condition, but they vowed to restore it. And they did. The restored film premiered in Germany earlier this year, and has recently made its way to America. It ran last week at the Silent Movie Theatre to an epically sold out crowd (literally by 7:30 it was sold out...that never happens ever for anything) mostly made of men. The bathroom lines hilariously showed the gender disparity...the men's line was usually 20 people long while the women's line barely made 5 people long.
Metropolis is 'one of those' films. Those rare 'almost talkie era' films where people have a vague name recollection:
Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, It Happened One Night,
Clara Bow. In fact the only other silent film most 'film geeks' have seen is Nosferatu. Such aficionados declare both films masterpieces to their respective genres. Somehow I have managed to go 3 years without viewing either (and I very badly wanted to see Nosferatu.) Yes somehow I have seen "
Isle of Love" and "
Kiki" but neither of these films.
So according to the buffs this was the greatest treat EVERZ! To see Metropolis, as intended, for the first time! No previous viewings to mare my feelings towards it. See, like many films, Metropolis was chopped into bits for stupid reasons in its own day. After the German premiere about a half hours worth of footage was cut, supposedly marring the story. In subsequent years the film was been shown and released in the wrong speeds with crappy prints and bad music. Or as I like to call it, "A Fool There Was" syndrome. I've sat through poorly preserved films before, and really insanely bad scores, so neither would taint a film alone for me. However both can murder a wondrous film. I've seen
Pandora's Box twice with the greatest presentations possible (Bob Mitchell, and another one with a man on the Wulitzer at the Orpheum). I seen it a third time a few weeks ago with a horrific 'modern eccentric' score. The film lost all emotional impact for me. I sincerely considered turning on the IPod.
As usual I'm sure my opinion on Metropolis will net me some 'Oh no you dintz!' from the interwebs. But I stand by it. Metropolis is overrated. There. I said it.
I must confess I'm not big on German cinema. To me this film was like the German cinema version of a futuristic
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, or even
Birth of a Nation (all 3 films have some very similar themes and goals, as well as fans and detractors.) I have nothing against German cinema, other than I find most of their silent male actors creepy looking. Like soon to be Nazi Ken dolls (obviously these men were not all Nazis, and some fought against the regime that would soon take power. On the other hand, some didn't.) However I deeply enjoyed Louise Brook's German work, and one can not deny the Germans made some good cinema. Hell they still do. I had a chance to see
Das Leben der Anderen
(2006) on the big screen when it came out...it touched me very deeply. But regardless of all this, Metropolis is still an overrated film.
Its not a BAD film. Its not '
Camille' bad. True I did eventually hit the point where I was like 'lets drown the damn kids and go to bed I've been sitting here for 3 hours', but it wasn't Nazimova bad. Instead everything struck me as just 'meh'. The acting was meh (bordering on bad), the story was meh, the sets were meh. The directing was meh. By the intermission I said to my chairmate, "This is by and far not the best silent movie ever. Whoever said that has probably seen one silent film." And by that point I was optimistic...there were many moments where I kept sitting there thinking it was about to grab me and be interesting...but it never did. You knew all would be well by the end and though the conflict was well...conflict...it was not as interesting as it could be.
Alright kiddies...spoilers and shit below. If you have not seen this film from 1927 then avert your eyes for spoilers will be given.The restored footage was said to 'make the story clearer'. I can definitely see ho wand I can't imagine someone seeing it before the restoration even finding it 'meh'. In short rich white boy lives in Utopia, pretty poor scum woman who teaches children brings them to his Garden of Eden and shames him. Since he's the messiah (heart) he's immediately taken and must find her. Frankly I find it insulting the woman couldn't be the messiah. Is it because she was poor (the hand) or because she's a woman? Is this a Virgin Mary thing? I don't like it. I mean here she is risking her neck by bringing like 40 slave children to the sex romp of Eden and trying to get the workers to rebel peacefully...yet this guy, this odd looking German guy, gets the credit? Screw that.
Of course she naturally somehow falls in love with him (via duty or actual attraction I could never quite figure out) so she was probably cool with it. Rich Whitey's father runs the futuristic 'Metropolis' which is like a new Babylon (the head). He doesn't really care about the poor 'hands' he can't see, but he was royally pissed his son wandered down into the 'under city' (where they make the poor people work and live) where he witnessed an explosion that killed a lot of poor men.
Head guy orders his creepy minions to follow his son, and his son tries to trick him by using a kiss ass assistant who he thinks is a good man. He then switches places with a worker so he can 'see for himself' the life of the poor. This delves into quite an amusing and interesting subplot that can only be found in the restored footage. Not very long necessarily, and frankly I feel its under explored (yeah the minion figures out he's in the under city, but not until the very last damn minute and even then its not very conclusive). Everyone praises the futuristic sets, which are admittedly interesting. But they aren't as mind blowing as everyone seems to say. IF we had seen more of this upper world with the double well, it would have maybe given a more interesting angle to the subplot and the film. Everything in this film (even fully restored) feels like it stopped about 10 minutes short of where it belonged. Everything I would say is literally 10 minutes underdeveloped.
So whitey goes into the under city and finds Maria preaching in full Mary glory. She talks of a messiah (a heart to communicate between the 'head' and the 'hand') and he announces he is that. They kiss and apparently are now madly in love.
In the meantime there is a mad professor and we learn a subplot that could have stood 10 more minutes. Head was apparently married to a 'Hel' who died giving birth to our Messiah. The mad professor is in love/obsessed with Hel and vows she is not dead, he will bring her back and insinuates he put her brain in a robot. But this becomes confusing as Hel is supposedly some sort of Goddess type herself and this is never further explored. Instead the Robot becomes a blank (much like Futurama and the 'Kidnappers' episode) in which Mad Professor can make it look like anyone and do his bidding. His EVIL bidding.
Head orders him to make the robot look like Maria, who he now knows is preaching to the workers. His plan is to make her do his bidding and have the workers lose faith in her. Also she'll be sexy and dance.
Whitey explores what looks like a Church, where we see the 7 deadly sins (plus death for good measure). Meanwhile the Mad Professor kidnaps Maria in an extended chase scene. Her acting here is just god awful. He eventually gets her and models the robot in her image while he takes the real Maria prisoner.
Robotic Maria is apparently a better actress. She's also way sexier. As promised she dances as a luncheon for the top richest whities ever. They all seem to go into orgasmic convulsions just WATCHING her dance. Meanwhile the allusion is made that now this robotic Maria is essentially the anti Christ...she is unleashing the 7 deadly sins on the world. Men fight and lust over her, and kill each other (and themselves) for her. She continues laughing the entire time, in true Theda Bara vamp fashion.
Evil Maria spends the rest of her time telling the workers to violently rebel, so the Head can use brutal force against them. Messiah sees this and tries to say she is not the real Maria. But the workers don't listen and try to kill him (instead they accidentally kill his double who briefly switched places with him.) They then rebel...like full scale REBEL!
Good Maria is still trapped with the Mad Professor, who in true mad fashion, tells her of his evil plan (that the anti Christ doesn't do the Head's bidding, but his, and he's telling it to destroy the Head in honor of Hel). The Head overhears this and in the only remaining lost scenes in the film he fights the Mad Professor. Maria escapes after surely convulsing like Lillian Gish in a closet for 5 minutes.
The Messiah and the Assistant try to find Maria, or something...they seem to be doddling through the now empty worker's city and boy do they sit on their hands. The workers are still full scale rebelling. They destroy the machines and make their way to the 'heart' machine, which apparently powers everything ever. The guy who runs it tries to stop them but they are too stupid to listen. He says that their worker's city will flood (their homes and anything in it) but they don't care. The Head tells him to let the worker's do as they wish. So they destroy the machine. Very very stupidedly it turns out.
Somehow Maria finds her way to the now abandoned worker's city. She sees the water start to rise. She also sees toddlers running around confused. Oh shit...the ignorant masses left their children behind while they rebelled and now their children will drown. In fairness this is a perfect example of my '10 minutes' theory. I'd venture to say this scene had the most 'found' footage and it made it quite compelling. You would not get the full scale without this footage. For about 10 minutes you are entertained, wondering if they, and the literal 100 children, will make it out alive or not.
Maria pulls the heavy lever to ring the bell and warn the children. Meanwhile their stupid parents are dancing around the destroyed machine. Somehow the Messiah and friend make their way over to Maria and find a way to help the children escape. The now saved horde goes to the Garden of Eden where they will wait for their parents...except for the fact that now the parents realized they just essentially drowned their children. And they call Maria (well Anti Christ Maria) a witch and decide to 'burn her at the stake'.
Anti Christ Maria is having a ball at some party in Babylon, still laughing. Maria wanders off for some reason and catches the horde trying to burn her robotic form. As she hides from them the Mad Professor finds her and decides she is Hel, who he must leer towards. He starts chasing her through a church. A lot of pointless shit happens with the unwashed masses being told their kids are safe, the robot is burned, and Maria is saved. Then the heart has the head and hands shaked hands and we are done. Several hours later.
I think more than anything I am offended by the story. Its just so bad. It and the acting. It kept 'almost' getting there...but it never did. It needs severe tightening in the early to middle stages (without eliminating the subplot) and then the climax happening with the children. So many damn allusions were made to Christianity and the Church that it went out of its way to try and make some sense of something about it. But I never quite got 'what' and it just hampered the story more. Instead of being independent saviors of their future world, Maria and whats his face are basically Mary and Jesus allusions. We have some preaching and sinning, Babylon and a church, but it never makes the compelling point its trying for. I can hear the nerds shout angrily right about now but I will stand by this: Metropolis would be 80 times better if it followed
Futurama
's format. That's right...a cartoon made several decades later (and probably inspired by the film) got that 'religion/God savior complex' so much more right than this film.
It just was not convincing for me. This guy is in the Garden of Eden with a literal garden of sexy Follies looking girls, Maria stands there for 2 seconds, and now he must marry her or something? And Maria sees him those 2 seconds (and she must have planned that excursion) but when he announces he's the messiah we get the good ol fashioned movie kiss? And now these two are so in to each other they must try to save each other (and mostly fail at it) for 2 more hours? The 'interesting' part is just not there for me. The most 'interesting' bit in this poorly executed relationship is the surreal graphics, such as the Messiah's hallucinations when he first sees Robotic Maria (thinking she's the real one.)
More insulting than the story was the acting. Normal people give silent film a bad name by saying it was 'overacted'. I think, even by German standards, this thing was overacted. Maria was just terrible. Like Lillian Gish in 50% overacting mode. When she became Robotic Maria she became 80 times more interesting, but as regular Maria she rarely becomes compelling. The men fans of this film swoon over her and for the first half I could not understand why. When robotic Maria appeared I suddenly kind of got it. But honestly even that is just 'meh'. She's vamping in the old style and a lot less fun to watch than
Theda Bara,
Nita Naldi, or Louise Brooks.
The male actors never grab me. I did like the Mad Professor but that '10 minutes' thing found his storyline just hacked to death. Why is he so stupid as to loudly tell Maria his plan? What's this Hel thing? And why does he blame the Head for it? I mean we get like 5 second explanations for all of this but none really are satisfying enough. What's worse is we don't see him again until the Church cornering of Maria. Now he's REALLY mad and thinks she's Hel. Why? We are never told what Hel really looked like. Seems there's a piss poor insinuation that Maria looks and or acts like Hel. But its just NEVER explored. Not enough to make me feel I understood it without 60 minutes of analysis.
And I hate films where that happens.
I already stated my opinion on the effects. The eerie thing is its just how ugly LA turned out, minus that Art Deco class we lost in the 50s (damn you 50s!). The directing was nothing special, though there are a few parts I do have praise for. Any part where the surrealist effects came in. Especially the 'whore of Babylon' dance of Anti Christ Maria. Very well edited.
My overall impression of Metropolis is simply this: its an okay film, but it is by and far not even near a 'best film', let alone of the silent era. I'm very perplexed as to how it tops those lists. While I rarely agree with aficionados on any high talk academic bullshit of any art, I can watch a 'critically praised' film and usually see where they got that from (Except "
The New World
". That was a piece of crap and anyone who encourages that director should be shot.). While its nowhere near my tastes, I greatly respected and enjoyed 'Citizen Kane'. I definitely can appreciate 'Birth of a Nation'. 'Sunset Blvd' is riveting. 'Singin in the Rain' is a bit fluffy but fun. I loved 'It Happened One Night' much to my own surprise...and well...
Chaplin. But holy God I wouldn't even put this film on a list with 'Singin in the Rain'. Its mediocre as a silent at best, and if they're placing THIS on the top lists, then why not better silents?
What 'better' silents? This is the kind of thing that would get the OTC wheezing to a heart attack, but I think there are some generally agreed upons, including the
top grossing list. "The Crowd", "The Big Parade", "Pandora's Box", Any Chaplin (ANY), Any Lon Chaney (ANY). Even its counterparts marred with issues (such as creakiness, length, and racism) "Birth of a Nation" and "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" should be more reverred. 'Fluff' like "It", "Son of the Sheik", "Little Annie Rooney", "Sadie Thompson", "Way Down East"...ANY of that should rank higher than Metropolis on an 'impressive list.
One could argue no0bs would find it easier to attune to. I disagree highly with that. Modern people don't like to read and they don't like anything that is 'too long'. Metropolis kills both of these. Modern people like action, sex appeal, explosions, something! Frankly I think if more modern people (both men and women) had seen "The Big Parade" that would rank worlds above the mediocrity of Metropolis.
You know what it is? Men.
There is a serious man issue in film buffery. I can think of only a handful of women, and beyond the grating Pauline Kael none of them are professionals in such a matter. There is no woman Kevin Brownlow. All the more ironic considering this industry was very heavily made by a woman (and many more women jumped in on the 'firsts'). At a screening of the restored "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" I was quite chaffed to find the QnA with Brownlow turned into a Rex Ingram love fest. Yes Ingram had his skills, but that film was his AND June Mathis' masterpiece.
June Mathis was the boss and she selected Ingram. They worked very closely together (and I still suspect, had an affair. Need more evidence to declare it though.) Where was June? Nowhere. The final question was from a woman, "Can you tell us anything about June Mathis, her life and her work?" Brownlow said no, he found her style annoying (not his exact words, I am paraphrasing here) and had very little interest in her. He apparently knew nothing of her life as literally 0 information was given other than 'She died while watching a Broadway show'. And that was given by the moderator, Randy Hamberkamp.
This was a woman who was the third most influential writer of the silent era. She made
Rudolph Valentino. And while she had her flops, she was also a very important executive. Nope. Not interesting! Accusations of a sort of accidental sexism have been lobbed at Brownlow before, as his wonderful book "The Parade's Gone By" only included two women though he did interview many silent starlets. In fairness he did later release book on the films of
Mary Pickford. His film restorations and work to preserve silent film are tireless and should be commended in every form and way...they are tip top and wonderful. But then the 'eminent head' of silent film preservation has little interest in women filmmakers other than in relation to the men he finds fascinating well...you get more of THIS.
Men and no0bs. That's what I make of these hailed 'masterpieces' that are just so damn dull in comparison to much better silents. Its like Buster Keaton's "The General". "MASTERPIECE" they shout. Its one of those rare silents that not only gets a proper preservation and release, as well as theatrical showing, but also gets mentioned in major newspapers and press. It is one of his dullest films (I'd say the Navigator competes, but may not pass it as such.) I quite enjoyed, "Our Hospitality" way more. Nope...The General is the silent masterpiece. As a Buster Keaton its meh. As a silent its Metropolis meh: never quite gets where its going and only has brief moments of interesting. But it has things guys like (trains and war and stuff) and an explosion for good measure. So surely it is a 'masterpiece'. Not enough explosions in Chaplin films apparently (speaking strictly of his features the only thing that comes close is the war scenes in
The Great Dictator.)
Why must they be men who are no0bs? Because if they were men who knew silents they'd be storming the doors for more Ingram and more King Vidor. Because "The Big Parade" would be given "The General" treatment...while in reality its sitting in a vault...pretty and restored by tied up by a copyright holder who doesn't want to pay the restorers to release it; or do shit themselves. Same for The Four Horsemen, except that one is public domain. That's the biggest shame to me: we have someone like Kevin Brownlow and Carl Davis who can restore and rescore a silent to its original beauty...yet no one wants to give them a dime or the attention to do it anymore. I weep on this matter.
I think the only thing Metropolis should be hailed as is an early sci fi film. I'm not sure there are other sincere examples before it, and it is certainly the first 'masterpiece' of the genre (meaning like Birth of a Nation it redefined anything before it, but is not necessarily still an easy film to enjoy). I guess I would count some Lon Chaney films in that vein but I am not nuanced enough in this area to argue it. But I do know this: Metropolis is NOT the best silent film. And it is not a silent masterpiece.
PS: As an apology to the proud fan boys I have broken the hearts of: I have boobs. That should be enough to forgive me. Or so
The Big Bang Theory
(an equally poorly romantic plot written show with an occasional witty moment) tells me.
Rachel Schildgen will be writing an article on Banky's infamous wedding dresses soon, but I was so excited I had to put this up (and to think the little liars of the world just wrote today how my publishing company is going under and my books aren't ever coming out! The best defense is to just keep on living and doing what I'm doing. The reason they are so insidious is they say things that sound 'true enough'...but are pure bullshit. Of course both conmen have made a career of it.)
. When I first watched the film I immediately googled Karl Dane...and found Laura Petersen Balogh's site. There was no biography yet (now there is. Buy it.
) Now Vilma Banky has a biography. Now we wait for Affairs Valentino
(which also suffers from Grade A bullshit being said of it.) Honestly my favorite scene in the film is when Karl is trying to keep Vilma quiet while Valentino lies to himself (yes...its that awesome). She bites him. Someone youtube this now!
there have been two film finds. A mid 20s film of hers (1924), "The Breaking Point" is being screened at Cinecon 46 this Fall. 
