Metropolis: ground-breaking sci-fi film is celebrating its 90th birthday
The famous Metropolis
A futuristic city from the year 2026 which was created by the film’s writer Fritz Lang. Metropolis is a city of sumptuousness and luxury, the look of which is reminiscent of the conglomeration of skyscrapers which started to be built at the time when the film was made. In Berlin, where the film’s writer lived, a tender was being held at just that time for development of the area near Friedrichstraße station. It is not difficult to guess what was built there. It was a skyscraper!
A silent story which became a cult phenomenon
Metropolis is a luxury city where extremely wealthy people live. In order for them to have things so good, they exploit workers who work under the ground in the harshest of conditions. Love blossoms in such an extremely hierarchical society. The son of the ruler of Metropolis falls in love with the beautiful Maria, who tries to alleviate the pain and suffering of the workers, who then start to revolt. The story has a happy ending when the luxurious leaders of the city shake hands with the workers.
Metropolis nowadays represents a classic story, various forms of which we can see in dozens of other films. However, in the first half of the 20th century, this was an absolutely divergent, controversial, silent film which did not exactly evoke a wave of enthusiasm among critics.
Despite this, Metropolis is nowadays regarded as one of the ground-breaking films of all time. It for example provided inspiration for the creators of the Matrix, the luxury fashion designer Donatella Versace and Lady Gaga for her music videos.
A flop at its time
The critics were merciless when rating the film in 1927. Not only was the film too different, something which was not desirable at that time, it was also quite overpriced for its time. Filming cost five million German Reichsmarks, which would today be the equivalent of approximately USD 16 million. Nowadays this figure represents an incredibly low amount, if we take into consideration the fact that films are also shot at a cost of USD 200 million.
Another problem was the length of the film which lasted 153 minutes. Due to the fact that it was “too long” for that time, it was cut several times and there are now several different edited versions. Unfortunately, the original film lasting 153 minutes has vanished from the face of the earth and nobody will ever see it again. Instead of this, it exists in lengths ranging from 90 to 120 minutes.
Can we expect a film adaptation?
Maybe. There is speculation in the film world of adaptation of the legendary film Metropolis in the form of a miniseries. If this really is filmed, we can expect the result in 4 to 5 years’ time.
