Fritz Lang’s Dystopian Masterpiece
The 1927 German Expressionist film Metropolis is the most influential science fiction movie ever made. Fritz Lang’s nightmarish vision inspired Star Wars, Blade Runner and Brazil. George Lucas modeled the design of C3PO after the robot in the film. Stanley Kubrick imitated the mechanical right hand of one of the characters in Dr. Strangelove. The creators of Superman named their comic book city after the film.
Metropolis offers a futuristic view of industrialized life as an external utopia masking a vision of Hell on earth. Thriving capitalists live in a modern city above ground while workers struggle in an oppressive compound below. The story follows the son of the wealthy “city master” as he tries to mediate the gap between the haves and have-nots. Lang focuses on the inevitable class divide of modern cities between oppressed workers and the political bourgeoisie.
With prescience applicable to Silicon Valley, Lang believed that automation created drudgery rather than relieving it. He was a critic of the industrial age. His gothic art deco visuals and heavy biblical symbolism likened modern cities to the Tower of Babel. Lang claimed “The film was born from my first sight of skyscrapers in New York in 1924.” The story was inspired by the writing of H.G. Wells and the play R.U.R. about a robot revolt written by Karel Capek.
