Metropolis: A Study Guide

Metropolis artwork by Martin Ansin for Mondo posters

Resource can be found here: Metropolis Study Guide.

Clocking in at over 2 hours, without sound, filmed in black and white, and coming from a non-English speaking country; Metropolis can seem like a daunting text for students to get to grips with. Many students have never watched a silent film before, nor do they voluntary engage with cinema made before the advent of colour. The concept of watching a film that asks for the modern day audience to put some degree of effort into engagement is, understandably, challenging for some Year 12s students. 

As the comparative companion for George Orwell's 1984, Fritz Lang's Metropolis occupies the unusual position of being a film that's older than the book that's being studied - and this is a novel that is already viewed as somewhat historical and 'old' by 21st century students. 

Theme and genre aside, Metropolis is an important text because it requires the students to work at establishing a relationship with it. It's not something that the vast majority of them would necessarily watch of their own free will (at least not at this point in their lives); it's a film that has been deliberately placed in the HSC Prescriptions list because it challenges and stretches the understanding of our students. And that's a good thing.

As a silent film in the 21st century, the mode of communication used to convey the narrative of Metropolis is antiquated but not irrelevant. In terms of visual grammar it's actually a very accessible film that conveys its plot in ways that can be universally understood. Contextually speaking, this is for a few reasons:

1. Metropolis was made in 1927, the absolute peak of silent cinema. In this same year The Jazz Singer was made, the first film to have a soundtrack that synchronised with the visuals - making it the first film with dialogue. Whilst The Jazz Singer isn't a particularly good movie it's still safe to say that film was never the same again. In the years leading up to the arrival of sound, silent cinema had developed and creatively expanded to a point in which visual storytelling had become so refined, so precise, and so imaginative that it became a new and wholly legitimate art form. You have to keep in mind that the first moving pictures had been created for audiences back in 1895, meaning that silent cinema had been evolving for 30 years before Metropolis was made. 

As you might guess from this video cover, The Jazz Singer hasn't aged well. Truth be told, it's an incredibly boring film, and the sound only features in certain musical sequences. The use of blackface is also quite problematic.

2. The first sound films were called 'talkies' because suddenly they were filled with all these actors speaking lines of dialogue. Audiences and filmmakers weren't entirely sure how to adapt to this radical change. Charlie Chaplin, one of the most famous stars of the era, refused to bring dialogue into his films for a good ten years after it became a commonplace. Other silent stars, forced to speak on camera for the first time, revealed strange voices that viewers never expected, and their careers were never the same again. For the most part, 'talkies' took their cues from the theatre and all of the creative storytelling from the silent era went out the window. They were hampered by the new requirement of including lots of speaking, and the technology needed to record this also meant that the camera (which had developed into a maneuverable instrument in the 1920s) suddenly became still again. Films became stagey and, in comparison to the grand and epic expressions of imagination that had preceded them, films in the 1930s were invariably dull. This is why Metropolis looks so good compared to many of the films that came after it.

Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, one of the last predominantly silent films. Made in 1936.

3. There was one other significant development that changed the nature of film after Metropolis, and this was the Hays Code. Active from 1930 to 1960, the Hays Code was a form of censorship that restricted the content of motion pictures. Rules ranged from the understandable to the downright offensive: sex and violence and swearing were out, but it also became taboo to mock authority figures, show characters benefiting from crimes, or depict relationships between different races. The result was the 'Golden' era of Hollywood - a time when storytelling became highly coded and stifled. In the case of Metropolis, had the film been made after 1930, the character of 'robot Maria' would most likely be very different (or at the very least the film would never have seen release in any English-speaking countries).

The Hays Code is part of the reason why some scenes were later cut from Metropolis. The image above, portraying the city's risque night life, is from one such removed sequence where worker 11811 gets seduced by the temptations of Metropolis.

So, yes, Metropolis can be a tricky film for some Year 12 Advanced English classes undertaking the Intertextual Perspectives module. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for these students by giving them a study guide that they can use while watching it. And by 'guide' I mean just that, a document that will guide them through the film.

All this means is that the 18 page document I've attached here takes the students through the entirety of the film with a collection of significant screen shots designed to cover all of the major plot points. The shots are arranged into a table with three columns, like this:

The first column contains some brief analysis of the shot, describing what is taking place and connotations or representations implied by certain aspects. The second column is the shot itself, and the third column is blank so the student can create their own links between the analysis and one of the lenses through which they are going to connect it to 1984 - Power/Control, Resistance/Rebellion, or Dystopia/Utopia. Underneath it all is a bar that lists some of the techniques and metanarratives/ideologies contained within the shot. The idea is to frontload, meaning that the students aren't left deciphering the shots when the real aim should be getting them to get stuck into the evaluation of how these shots can be ordered under a conceptual understanding of the text.

Here's an example from the booklet:

 

Explanation/Analysis: Maria enters, surrounded by waif-like children (symbolising her characterisation as a motherly figure). In stark contrast with the 1920s-style and highly-sexualised 'flapper' women, Maria is plainly dressed and has minimal makeup. The use of clouding around the lens (vignetting) signals her salience in her introductory shot and her overall significance in the narrative to come.

Techniques: Characterisation. Symbolism. Contrast. Vignetting. Salience. Costume and makeup.

The student's evaluation could then extend into one of the three aforementioned conceptual understandings. As an example of the dystopian/utopian theme this shot quite clearly demonstrates the disparity between classes - the homely Maria and her miserable urchins contrast against the opulence and decadence of the garden seen in previous shots. This is a society of inequality, where the rich are not even aware of the existence of such wretchedness. 

Here's the document again - Metropolis Study Guide.