The Wasteland Reviewer

The Wasteland Collection: Metropolis (1927)

What is the film that would define science fiction for the next 100 years? Georges Millies certainly crafted plenty of iconic and influential films in his time. A Trip to the Moon is considered the first great film of the genre. But Trip walked so German filmmaker, Fritz Lang, could sprint with his creative juices. Those juices flowed together to bring about Metropolis. This is a towering achievement in film and marks one of the most significant films created in the 1920s. This film tells the story of a futuristic metropolis where the rich are inconceivably wealthy, yet the workers live underground and work endless shifts as cogs in monstrous machines. The son of high society and the daughter of a revolution fall in love while they try to stop a plot by a mad scientist to upheave it all.

What is the most immediate aspect of Metropolis that makes this so influential? The iconography. There are elements in this film that have become some of the most influential themes, ideas, designs, and characters in all of cinema and pop culture. The Machine Man is one of the first great robots in film which is immediately known by so many people who haven’t even heard of Metropolis. That is how influential this design has been. Just look at C3PO. Then you have the mad scientist named Rotwang who created it. Black gloves and wild hair have become some of the basic building blocks for all great mad scientists in film (i.e. Dr. Strangelove). The machines are run by clocklike mechanisms which have become iconic and the main influence for the successful music video for Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga”. That whole music video is based on the world that Lang and his crew created. The metropolis itself is a blueprint for so many cinematic cities including The Matrix, Blade Runner, The Hudsucker Proxy, Batman, and Akira.

How does Metropolis fit into the evolving cinematic landscape of film in 1927? There are a few films in the series that have already highlighted one of the most iconic movements in film including The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. German Expressionism is still one of the most iconic film movements in the history of film. The visual elements of this movement are still seen in film today. Tim Burton was obviously influenced directly by Metropolis. The design of Gotham in his Batman Returns (as well as Batman) film is ripped right from Metropolis, the design of Christopher Walken’s character is heavily influenced by Rotwang’s design. The climactic fight between Batman and the Joker in Batman is set in a similar setting as the climactic conflict in Metropolis. Burton is not the only filmmaker influenced by German Expressionism, but he is certainly the most famous. Lang leveraged this approach in some haunting dreamlike sequences in Metropolis. There is a nightmarish arrival of The Seven Deadly Sins as well as Death which is impactful and iconic in the design. There is a sequence highlighting the seductive nature of The Machine Man (disguised as our heroin). The dreamlike lens and eerie collage of eyes makes for a frighteningly effective representation of a strong gaze (the male gaze upon a lusting woman’s gyrations). Lang shows he was an inventive and trend-setting filmmaker who understood the evolving sensibilities of this growing artform.

But why does Metropolis resonate so strongly still today? Unfortunately, the themes and ideas of the film are still relevant and impactful today. Class warfare (which erupts into revolution and violence in this film) is still a key figure in modern society. As 2025 is on the horizon, the United States will be run by billionaires who only care about sustaining that wealth gap that keeps them where they are. That is the world of Metropolis. We don’t physically live underground, but the working class does indeed drone on sluggish and overwhelmed like they do in Lang’s film. So, many people work multiple jobs as they grind away to barely make ends meet while others in society make private trips into space for pleasure. That is where we are and that is the society that Lang warns us about in Metropolis. The right manipulator is just a nudge from tipping everything into chaos and Metropolis tells a compelling, genre-infused version of that story. When the themes resonate, that is when cinematic magic can happen. Lang’s Metropolis is a towering achievement of cinema and stands as one of the key building blocks of cinema with its timeless themes and incredible craft and storytelling.