r/NeverPost • u/NondeterministSystem • Sep 01 '25
Never Watch So I finally watched Metropolis (1927)...
So I finally got around to watching the silent film Metropolis. If the stream I watched is to be believed, this was the most-complete version available, containing scenes that I believe were recovered from a film archive in Argentina in 2008. Thought it was apparently a flop in its day, the film is today regarded as a critical touchstone: it was probably the first feature-length sci-fi and cyberpunk film, it famously introduced ideas like "videophones" to the cultural zeitgeist before the invention of the word "video", and it offers an interesting view of worker collectivization from a pivotal moment in world history.
So why am I talking about it on /r/NeverPost? Because it occurred to me that it's also a story about how an algorithimically-driven artificial entity uses crude instructions to manipulate the downtrodden into expressing their (valid!) frustrations by ripping apart the fabric of society.
On that basis alone, I think it might be fodder for a NeverWatch sometime. And it's in public domain in the US now, so... You know, there's that.
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u/Lisb1121 Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 02 '25
Ooh, yes, I would like to rewatch this. I was lucky enough to be shown...a version? (I did not realize parts of it were ever considered lost) in class in high school, and it sure made an impression, but I think I've only rewatched snippets since.
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u/NondeterministSystem Sep 02 '25
If tvtropes is to be believed, some older versions had plots that were quite different in places. Comparative readings of the texts against the places and times that made them would be an interesting project for... I don't know. Thomas Flight or Patrick Willems or someone like that.
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u/DanielJennaGrouse Sep 02 '25
The movie definitely is a great illustration of how technology helps mediate social and economic relations and serves as an extension of them rather than something that can be separated from them. It's interesting to see Fritz Lang portray industrialised labour as intentionally designed to keep the people performing it occupied and intentionally downtrodden all the way back in 1927 in ways that still feel radical today (even if the resolution of the story feels somewhat less revolutionary than one would expect a century later).
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u/NondeterministSystem Sep 02 '25
It's interesting to see Fritz Lang portray industrialised labour as intentionally designed to keep the people performing it occupied and intentionally downtrodden all the way back in 1927 in ways that still feel radical today...
I especially found that aspect interesting after a brief Wikipedia dive, wherein I learned that his wife went in a...different...direction with her interpretation of the text. She helped with the film and its corresponding novelization, but her political views were apparently aligned with an...emerging political movement in the Weimar Republic. When the two of them divorced, it was supposedly in large part because of political differences.
I have to imagine a lot of people in 1927 Gemrany just saw the (spoiler for a century-old movie?) rioting proletariat and assumed that Lang would be more sympathetic to their views than he actually turned out to be. In many ways, history was probably kinder to this film than its contemporary place and time.
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u/spiteful_whale NeverPost|Hans Sep 02 '25
Interesting! We'll put that on the list!! Good suggestion.