"I don't like Metropolis. The ending is false. I didn't like it even when I made the film."
Director Fritz Lang, 1958 |
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God Smothered With A Dish-Rag
TIME March 14, 1926
Metropolis UFA, German creators of the masterpieces, Siegfried, The Last Laugh, Variety, have released what they herald as their supreme achievement, Metropolis. It is the name of a futuristic city, built on a gargantuan iron skeleton, the dwelling-place of men who live to slave for their machines. The philosophical content: Efficiency, the fiend created by Inventor to resemble Mary (symbol of heart-love) thus to win the soul of man for capitalist Masterman, leads Humanity toward destruction. Humanity discovers its error, burns Efficiency at the stake, thus releases itself from industrial slavery. Understanding, sympathy, apparently are needed to lessen the labors of man, not mechanical exactitude. |
 The dramatic substance is even shoddier. Villian Inventor chases Mary up a roof, intent upon dashing her to earth, in the manner of spiteful evil-doers since Desperate Desmond. The hero pursues. The villan topples off the roof. With Efficiency and Invention thus disposed of, happiness comes to man, the hero finds the heroine's lips. Ufa might better have shut the eyes of its great cameras than permit them to reflect nonsense in such grandeur.
Photos MOMA Film Archives
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