This is an entry in "The Big Ones," a series covering 32 classic films for the first time on The Dancing Image. There are spoilers.
Well, here we are again - "The Big Ones" has resumed after a two-week break. From now on, I'll be posting rapid-fire, twice a day since these entries have been written ahead of time. Part of the reason I took my extended break, besides blogger burnout, was ambivalence about the series mission. I think it's a great idea to grapple with the warhorses of cinema history, but sometimes it can be difficult to find something to say. Not necessarily because so much has been said already (I feel everyone has their own unique perspective to articulate, and that they will notice things or make connections others have not) - but because I don't always respond strongly to the work in question. "The Big Ones" is not "The Favorites" (though I'd like to do that series too someday) despite some overlap. To be honest, I probably would not repeat the exercise, as there's a "forced" quality to the viewing - even the ones I normally enjoy - that can make it more of a chore than a pleasure, though I hope the pieces themselves have been enjoyable.
Metropolis is a no-brainer for inclusion in such an exercise. It's a hugely famous film, maybe the most famous of the silent era, and its influence on science fiction, one of the most popular screen genres, has been immense. It's one of the two or three most celebrated films of an iconic auteur, Fritz Lang, whose very visage screams "film director" with only Erich von Stroheim and Cecil B. DeMille as rivals. And it's part of one of the key national movements in film history, German Expressionism, with its lavish sets, moody lighting, and stylized acting. However, to be perfectly honest, I've never been crazy about Metropolis. I love many of the images and sequences but as a whole it fails to capture me. The story is not particularly enticing and so much of the movie revolves around the narrative; individual set pieces get to soar skyward but there's always some plot development or expositional sequence to bring the film back down to earth. The fault is probably with me, for missing some key connection that everyone else is getting, but there it is. There are other Langs I like way more (Die Nibelungen particularly strikes my fancy) and really, I'm much more a Murnau guy anyway.
However, for two or three minutes Metropolis completely sucks me under its spell. That's the passage I want to discuss right now, by far my favorite sequence in the movie: Maria's mesmerizing reimagining of the Tower of Babel, delivered during a sermon to desperate workers who slave away in the underground factory that keeps Metropolis humming.
