Metropolis

Gazing intently at the woman in a glass case, Rotwang, the mad scientistinventor in Fritz Lang's classic silent filmMetropolis (1927) is about to turn levers in his lab and launch a startling change: he will create an exact duplicate of the good-heartedMaria, who lies imprisoned with electrodes on her head. In this pivotal scene, pictured on the cover of this issue of T&C, Maria's features will soon be transferred to the wired metal robot in the background. A close-up of the robot's face magically dissolves into the face of Maria, her eyes suddenly open, and she turns into a dangerous temptress who will lead the city's workers astray.

With its dramatic, overheated plot, striking set designs, and innovative special effects, Metropolis is in many ways a film about the uses of science and technology to create transformations-the transformation of the city into a marvel of modernity, the transformation of Metropolis's workers into robotic slaves, and the transformation of the saintly Maria into a diabolical and destructive femme fatale.

In the film, with its screenplay by Lang's wife Thea von Harbou, the "good"Maria offers kindness and comfort to the beleaguered workers, who move with numbing clock-like regularity in this ruthlessly industrialized world. Joh Fredersen, the master of Metropolis, fears that the workers might rebel and decides that Maria's influence must be undermined. He asks Rotwang to create a duplicate or false Maria to challenge the real Maria's credibility and destroy the workers' belief in her. Fredersen's son Freder, meanwhile, becomes entranced with the real Maria and horrified when Rotwang captures her to serve his evil purposes.

The facsimile or falseMaria soon becomes an alluring siren at the city's upper-city Yoshiwara nightclub; she also leads the workers in the underground city in a rampage where they smash the power station, causing a flood. Later, the workers burn the false Maria at the stake, and at the film's end Maria is united with Freder, and the two, as well as Joh, join hands in reconciliation.

From its dramatic opening montage of pounding pistons to its brilliant scenic designs capturing the marvels of the modern city to its grim scenes of factory enslavement, Metropolis offers a revealing look at Lang's own conflicted and equivocal views of twentieth-century technology and...