Metropolis (1927 film)

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film set in a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, in which the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences. It is regarded as a pioneering work of the science-fiction genre in movies, being among the first feature-length movies of the genre.

Directed by Fritz Lang. Written by Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang.

There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator.

Freder

I must have a person who is faithful to me, Josaphat - how else will I be able to fulfill my destiny?

To the new Tower of Babel - to my father!

Maria

There can be no understanding between the hand and the head unless the heart acts as mediator.

Today I will tell you the legend of THE TOWER OF BABEL... "Come, let us build us a tower whose top may reach unto the stars! And the top of the tower we will write the words: Great is the world and its Creator! And great is Man!" But the minds that had conceived the Tower of Babel could not build it. The task was too great. So they hired hands for wages. But the hands that built the Tower of Babel knew nothing of the dream of the brain that had conceived it. BABEL. BABEL. BABEL. BABEL. One man's hymns of praise became other men's curses. People spoke the same language, but could not understand each other...

"We shall build a tower that will reach to the stars!" Having conceived Babel, yet unable to build it themselves, they had thousands to build it for them. But those who toiled knew nothing of the dreams of those who planned. And the minds that planned the Tower of Babel cared nothing for the workers who built it. The hymns of praise of the few became the curses of the many - BABEL! BABEL! BABEL! - Between the mind that plans and the hands that build there must be a Mediator, and this must be the heart.

Look! These are your brothers! Look! These are your brothers!

The Machine Man

[disguised as Maria] Who is the living food for the machines in Metropolis? Who lubricates the machine joints with their own blood? Who feeds the machines with their own flesh? Let the machines starve, you fools! Let them die! Kill them - the machines!

[disguised as Maria] Women and men, let no one miss today! Death to the machines!

[disguised as Maria] Let's all watch as the world goes to the devil!

Other

Man at Nightclub: For her, all seven deadly sins!

C.A. Rotwang - the Inventor: She is the most perfect and most obedient tool which mankind ever possessed! Tonight you will see her succeed before the upper ten thousand. You will see her dance...

Dialogue

Joh Frederson: What were you doing in the machine halls, Freder?

Freder: I wanted to look into the faces of the people whose little children are my brothers, my sisters...

Freder: Your magnificent city, Father - and you the brain of this city - and all of us in the city's light...And where are the people, Father, whose hands built your city?

Joh Fredersen: Where they belong...

Freder: In the depths...? What if one day, those in the depths rise up against you?

Grot - the Guardian of the Heart Machine: Who told you to attack the machines, you fools? Without them you'll all die!

Working Woman: It's the witch's fault!

About Metropolis (1927 film)

Berlin boasted the biggest film industry in Europe, producing in Fritz Lang's Metropolis the science-fiction masterpiece of the twenties and in the same director's M the definitive film noir.
- Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. 235

The main thesis was Mrs. Von Harbou's, but I am at least 50 percent responsible because I did it. I was not so politically minded in those days as I am now. You cannot make a social-conscious picture in which you say that the intermediary between the hand and the brain is the heart. I mean, that's a fairy tale – definitely. But I was very interested in machines. Anyway, I didn't like the picture – thought it was silly and stupid – then, when I saw the astronauts: what else are they but part of a machine? It's very hard to talk about pictures—should I say now that I like Metropolis because something I have seen in my imagination comes true, when I detested it after it was finished?
- Fritz Lang, interview with Peter Bogdanovich, in Who The Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors, published in 1998