Metropolis

Metropolis is a landmark film in the world of cinema due to its groundwork for what the science fiction genre is today and for the meticulously constructed sets that are showcased in the film which show that this film is very advanced for its time. Albeit Metropolis is an extremely important film and provided the basis for much of the film we know and love today, it has its downfalls in the way in which women are portrayed. In all film, “gender is a part of every story ever told (Gocsik, Barsam, Monahan 56)” but in Metropolis, women are depicted in two ways: as nurturers and as solely sexual objects. Due to the fact that women are portrayed in a much different light than the leading male characters of Metropolis, how does the film’s cinematography aide in this portrayal and affect the reception of the film by audiences? A film’s cinematography is a huge factor in deciding how an audience feels about certain characters and situations and Metropolis is no stranger to this concept.

As can be inferred from the previous paragraph, the most recent at home film screening for the course Writing for Media and Visual Culture 201 was of the 1927 German expressionist film, Metropolis. This film, directed by Fritz Lang, was screened for many years in an incomplete form because many integral portions of the film were lost and could not be found. About 80 years after the film’s original release, the complete version resurfaced and was found in 2008 in a museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The full-length Metropolis, an emotional roller-coaster of two hours and twenty-eight minutes, is currently streaming in its full glory on Netflix if any of you are interested.

Metropolis takes place in the futuristic year of 2026 and follows the journey of our main character Freder Frederson, the son of Joh Frederson, as he begins to discover the truth of the society that he lives in. Freder’s journey through the dystopian society of Metropolis is led by his quest to win the heart and to learn more of the main female character in the film, Maria. Through this quest, Freder discovers that the city of Metropolis consists of two parts: the hardworking men that reside underground and maintain the great machines that the city runs on and the upper class elite who simply turn a blind eye to what occurs below their glistening city’s polished surface. Enlightened to the fact that the city he had thought he had known is actually all a facade, Freder now dedicates the entirety of the rest of the film searching for justice for the workers while Maria’s two coexisting personifications drive the men of the city mad with promises of hope for a mediator as well as desire for her alter-ego. While on this quest, Freder and many of the other main male characters encounter various women who are simply put into the film to be the subject of men’s desire and control.

In the patriarchal society of Metropolis it is quickly discovered that men consider themselves to be superior to all of the women in the city and they consider themselves to be in control of the women’s actions. The women, on the other hand, are very passive and meekly follow the traditional roles that the men of the society have approved of and continue on with their lives without questioning a thing. The women that are shown in the movie are all very beautiful and clearly are seen through the camera’s male gaze.

The first scene containing female characters takes place in The Eternal Garden. The Eternal Garden is a place that was created by the elite portion of the society for powerful men’s sons to come to get their egos fluffed by ornately dressed and made up women. Of the powerful men mentioned, Freder is one of them and he can have his pick of any of these women as depicted by the quotation,“which of you ladies shall today have the honor of entertaining Master Freder, Joh Frederson’s son?” Following this dehumanizing comment, each of the women begin to slither around the garden and each start to flaunt themselves like prized show ponies until one of them is chosen. Once chosen, the ‘luckiest’ of the women begins playfully interacting with Freder and begins slinking herself around his body and shows that she is clearly only there to be a form of momentary entertainment. Freder is quickly distracted from this rendezvous by a new, glowing presence in the room: Maria.

Maria’s entrance into the scene is introduced by her surrounded by many poor and dirty looking children which she contrasts with a saintly glow surrounding her wherever she goes. The camera mainly shows Maria from a wide angle in order to get the full expression of the care-giving effect that Maria is personifying. Freder quickly becomes enthralled with Maria’s good natured characterization and disregards the garden woman which shows how disposable women in the film are and that the woman was nothing to Freder because he was clearly just waiting for a better subject to come along. Maria is depicted as “true as gold” through the camera’s male gaze in this scene because of the way in which “audiences identify with male gaze (Gocsik, Barsam, Monahan 56).” The close-up of Maria following the long shot of her with the children, shows the full expression of Maria’s large, doe-like eyes that are turned upward to show that she is just another damsel that only a man like Freder can take care of and save.

Throughout the course of the film, the audience and Freder discover that Maria is truly considered a saint to the underground workers as the film takes a journey to the catacombs where Maria preaches of peace and harmony between the two levels of society. Maria is continually shown from wide angle and medium shots so that the audience will continue to absorb the glow that follows Maria which shows just how saintly she truly is. The camera shots showcase Maria’s wide, unblinking, eyes and outstretched hands that are reaching out for approval to show the audience the stark contrast of the other side of Maria that is to come.

Maria goes through a transformation following the scene in the catacombs when Rotwang targets Maria as the new face of his humanoid robot. During this scene, Rotwang follows Maria’s movements with what appears to be a spotlight. We see the light chasing Maria all over her body until it reaches her head which is where the light appears in a halo form for a moment and then quickly flickers out. This is representative of Maria’s future transformation because once the robotic Maria is introduced into the film, the saint-like halo of light no longer follows her movements. Additionally in this scene,  Maria appears to be fearful of what Rotwang’s intentions are and she is constantly grabbing her chest and writhing around the catacombs at which time the film then cuts to a scene of statues of the seven deadly sins, one of which is lust. The statue of lust and the way in which Maria is carrying herself in this scene are mirror images of one another and this foreshadows the fact that Maria’s evil android will soon be the epitome of lust itself.

An integral aspect of Metropolis is when Rotwang takes Maria to help him animate his android. After Freder’s desperate attempts to save Maria from Rotwang’s grasps, he fails and is faced with the new version of the Maria he once loved: Evil Maria.  Evil Maria is shown in a stark contrast to the original Maria in multiple ways. Evil Maria is shown mostly through close up shots which helps to show the audience the great transformation that happened to Maria’s personality when it was put into the evil androids body. The close up shots show Maria with much heavier makeup than before which deludes her once saintly appearance and now makes her much more sexualized than before because when any woman goes through emotional trauma and a transformation she automatically breaks out her black eyeliner. Evil Maria is much more sexualized than the original Maria and this is shown through her closeups and the way that she is seen through the camera’s male gaze. The men in the film only look at Evil Maria in the way that compares to the way that a hungry animal looks at a piece of meat. The men are throwing themselves at Maria and are driven mad by her overtly sexual exterior and are killing one another in attempts to get a fraction of Evil Maria’s attention. One man in the film, when referencing Evil Maria in Yoshiwara, states “for her -- all deadly sins!” as evil Maria contorts and alters her body’s natural angles to mirror the altered and twisted personality inside.

In a stark contrast to the men throwing themselves at Evil Maria while she’s on stage and chasing her through the streets of Metropolis in a lust fueled rampage, the original Maria finds herself being chased after and crawled towards while on an elevated platform but by the children of the city whose parents have abandoned them while revolting as the films begins to head toward it’s conclusion. The different depictions of the women in Metropolis contradict one another. The message that the film seems to be trying to send to the audience is that the men in the film want their women easily accessible and to be their play things whenever they want but the men will drop the women instantly when the image of a virginal saint like woman comes into the picture because this is the type of women that the men believe they should be with once they are done getting their kicks with the garden women. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is an extremely advanced and important film for the time period of 1927 Germany but the time period that Lang is depicting in the film (the year 2026) is now close to present time and it can be assumed that many of the modern women of today would not want any part of the world in which Freder and Maria reside if women continue to be treated as objects instead of people.  

Works Cited:

-Gocsik, Monahan, et al. Writing About Movies. W.W. Norton & Company, 2016.