Metropolis at the Cinematheque in Paris

Despite the ingenuity of its ending and its pro-Nazi script (signed by Thea von Harbou, nazi party member and at that time wife of Fritz Lang, director of the film), Metropolis (1927) remains today as one of the most fascinating and  captivating films of all times.

Fritz Lang himself in later years lost no opportunity to express how much he hated the end of the film. He did not lack reasons to express such a view. According to the legend from the first moment that Hitler and Goebbels saw it in a small provincial town decided that if they ever came to power they would offer to the creator of the unforgettable hypnotic images the direction of a new German film industry oriented to film propaganda production that would enhance the prestige of the Third Reich.

The famous story told memorably by Fritz Lang himself in Godard’s Le Mépris, of how on the night of a day in 1933 Hitler and Goebbels made their promise come true and Fritz Lang got and offer he could not refuse.  The Viennese director hastily packed his bags and left to Hollywood never to return.

Metropolis script pales in comparison. Around the year 2000,  a mammoth city is ruled by the great industrialist John Frederson. The workers of the factories are a lazy sort of a underworld sub-human species that despite their deplorable living conditions do not rebel due to the power of word of a young woman named Mary who makes them believe they need to wait patiently for the advent of a mediator. Frederson kidnap Mary and makes a mad scientist who conveniently happens to be Jewish build a replica of her in robot form, the Evil Mary but it becomes uncontrollable and encourages workers to revolt and destroy. It is finally defeated by the intervention of the expected mediator, who is none other than the son of Frederson in love with the real Mary, who rescues her, and ends up being the bridge that maintains the expected stability of the hierarchy without conflict that society must be based on .

Nevertheless, the visual power of the film is overwhelming, mostly thanks  to his prodigious artistic direction, creating a set design that still cause us untold wonder and excitement. Precisely around them, distributed in six basic areas (the city of the children, the city of workers, the Acropolis, the Rotwang laboratory , the catacombs and the cathedral)  an exhibition about the film that can be admired until the 29th of January at the Cinematheque in Paris (http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/expositions-cinema/metropolis/).

Paul Oilzum

Along with drawings, reproductions of costumes, production secrets, key scenes, etc.., a life size reconstruction of the original Robot can be seen. Be fascinated by this unique world only if you rent apartments in Paris

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Translated by: Marc
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