Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926)

Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926) “H.G. Wells called this German silent ‘quite the silliest film’; Hitler was so impressed by the conception that many years later he tried (unsuccessfully) to persuade its director, Fritz Lang, to make Nazi movies … One of the last examples of the imaginative—but often monstrous—grandeur of the Golden Period of the German film, Metropolis is a spectacular example of Expressionist design (grouped human beings are used architecturally), with moments of almost incredible beauty and power (the visionary sequence about the Tower of Babel), absurd ineptitudes (the lovesick hero in his preposterous knickerbockers), and oddities that defy analysis (the robot vamp’s bizarre, lewd wink). It’s a wonderful, stupefying folly.” — Pauline Kael

“One of the great achievements in the silent era, a work so audacious in its vision and so angry in its message that it is, if anything, more powerful today than when it was made.” — Roger Ebert

———–

Amazing – every bit of every scene is meaningful. Had I watched it w/o the (text) commentary, I wd not only have missed just about everything meaningful, but wd have probably been bored not realizing how much of it was over my head. W/ the commentary, it becomes so detailed and intricate that it’s a poem.

I highly recommend this movie and highly recommend the commentary. This film, for me, needs someone explaining it to me. W/ it, amazing. W/o it, I’d be lost.

The mediator btwn the head and the hands must be the heart.