Originalveröffentlichung in: Peters, Olaf (Hrsg.): Berlin Metropolis : 1918 - 1933; [published in conjunction with the exhibition Berlin Metropolis: 1918 - 1933, Neue Galerie New York, October 1, 2015 - January 4, 2016], München 2015, S. 136-161

BABELSBERG/BABYLON

FRITZ LANG'S "METROPOLIS" REINTERPRETED

Jurgen Muller

Anyone picking up Thea von Harbou’s novel subterranean production plants in order to en­ 1. Thea von Harbou, Metropolis today will be amazed by the pathos able an aristocratic class to live a comfortable dedication page for the author expressed in it. Without a doubt, the life. Only the love affair between Maria, a young Metropolis , 1926. author had a knack for performance: “I place woman, and Freder—the son of Fredersen, the Published by August Scherl-Verlag, Berlin this book in your hands, Fried” [Fig. 1] is the ruler of Metropolis —gets things moving. There unctuous dedication of her novel to her hus­ is an uprising in which the evil inventor Rotwang band, Fritz Lang.1 In 1926 the text was pub­ wants to take vengeance on Fredersen for hav ­ lished, in an abridged version, as a serial novel ing taking away his great love long ago. Initially, in the Frankfurt weekly paper Das lllustrlerte Fredersen believes he is allied with Rotwang, Blatt,2 then the book was published by August but in reality the latter is pursuing his own ends. Scherl-Verlag in Berlin, a year before the leg­ He has created an artificial human being with endary film premiered. which he hopes to resurrect his former love.

In addition to the dedication to her husband, Because the workers are dissatisfied, Freders­ there is another prelude [Fig. 2] in which the en asks Rotwang to design the robot to resem­ author offers the reader her own assessment ble the young woman from the masses. His in­ of the work: “This book is not of today or of the tention is to incite them to give him a pretext to future. It tells of no place. It serves no cause, respond violently. The plan fails. In the end, the party or class. It has a moral which grows on insane inventor is overcome by the young Fred­ the pillar of understanding: The mediator be ­ er, who throws him off the roof of the cathedral. tween brain and hand must be the heart. ’”3 A new era begins for Metropolis. The subterra­ What is the riddle Von Flarbou wants to offer nean world of the workers is destroyed, so that her reader here? First she tells us what the there is no basis any longer for the exploitative book isn’t and rejects any attempt to exploit or system. A better future can begin in which the instrumentalize her text, only to end with the world is no longer divided into top and bottom. sentimental assertion about the heart. 4 The social order in Metropolis seems strange­ The film Metropolis is very famous.5 It depicts ly premodern. The ruling class stands face to a distant future in which the working class has face with the workers, with no bourgeoisie that been deprived of all rights and slaves away in could mediate the rise and fall. Joh Fredersen

136 BABELSBERG/BABYLON is the ruler above it all. The images in his com­ nection to the old, venerable cathedral, which pany headquarters present him to be a power­ is consciously contrasted with the high-rises ful industry tycoon. As the plot progresses, he of the modern world in Metropolis. With its re­ is the character who has to change the most ligiously tinged critique of capitalism, we may for a new order to prevail. 6 In Metropolis, the old find the story naive, but the crucial thing about stand against the young, which initially brings the construction of the plot is that the injustice to mind the conflict of fathers and sons. This cannot be recognized by the people living above opposition is clearest, however, in the narrative ground. These idlers do not notice that their strand of the finale that concerns the rescuing carefree existence is due to the work of others. 7 of the workers' children. They symbolize the fu­ As a result, the viewers are identified a little mor- ture of the whole population. The sequence of alistically with the people of the upper world, and their rescue is given unusually extensive cov­ the storyline is claimed to be politically topical. erage in the film. In shot after shot, the chil- With reference to the novel, Wolfgang Braun-

...... “ ‘ ‘

3d) (egc bicfcsS 33ud) in ©cine <$riet>

*(k atcdjic, IntMuniJoic fcct uorteOnllcn Sopvililbl 1020 01) Diiifliilt Sifrnl ». ">• *>• O- ®« ,,n Hunt won Vtiifliili a*ctt ®. m. 6. »«Hn

dren run up the steps outof their subterranean gart has even spoken of a “Catholicizing uto­ neighborhoods to escape the flood. pia,” which could be about a renewal of the Catholic order.8 This thesis deserves discus­ In both the novel and the film, the cryptic use sion insofar as it raises the question of whether of Christian symbols and motifs is striking. The the novel and the film and the ethics advocat ­ members of the group of workers led by Maria, ed in both are to be understood as national or who assemble in hidden, subterranean locations, transnational. At the end of the film, when the are called “Gothics. ” This established a con­ residents of Metropolis are standing in front

JURGEN MOLLER 137 of the cathedral, has the class society been ambitious films as Cabiria, Birth of a Nation , Na­ overcome? Are the people agreeing on a new poleon , and Battleship Potemkin. In Metropolis , Christian ethics that bridges differences? Or is Lang was attempting nothing less than creating the new order an old one in the sense of the a national film icon—building a German cathe ­ premodern? Are state and religion united again dral of film, so to speak—an ambition that the from now on? If so, the “good news” of the film film does not, however, live up to at any point. goes back to a time before the Enlightenment. Metropolis has been interpreted either politi­ If we want to reflect on the film in a fresh way, cally or mythically, in the sense of a fairy tale. we have to be on guard against the laudatory It began with Siegfried Kracauer's book From rhetoric of the masterpiece and of world cultur­ Caligari to Hitler, which accused the film of a al heritage. Instead, it is necessary to explain protofascist tendency because of its penchant how such a well-versed screenwriter and an for crowd scenes.'0 In Tom Gunning’s biography

2. Thea von Harbou, second dedication page for Metropolis , 1926. Published by August Scherl-Verlag, Berlin

(TVcfctf 23ud> fft fcln 'Ofcffi «9ii(f> (ft fcfn 3ufunfttfb(l5. Qlrfctf ©urf> fpfclt nfrgcntwo. Dltfctf >3ucf) Went fclncr Sfnbcn,?, fefner SWflfjc, fefner Portef. 'SXefetf 33u($ (ft e(n Wefctjefyen, ttatf fief) urn e(nc (JrftnntnW ronft: 2H(tilcr 3»if« r b o u

experienced director could have ignored the of Lang, the psychoanalytical depth structure audience so completely. Fritz Lang produced of the film is emphasized in the spirit of an Oe- Ufa’s most expensive film ever; at five million dipal drama." Thomas Elsaesser also argued reichsmarks, it eclipsed everything that had that the narrative had an ahistorical structure. come before it.9 Certainly the film represents He devoted a monograph to the film that, for an enormous effort, but at the same time it was long stretches, comes across as a research a flop in German cinemas. The director's goal report with commentary. 12 Elsaesser opts for a was to be on a par with such innovative and deconstructive reading in which all interpreta ­

138 BABELSBERG/BABYLON tions based on intention and attributing mean­ rial. Von Harbou knew how to develop a story ing are played out against one another in order from images: to reveal the film’s ability to be more intelligent than its interpreters. The catalogue published Joh Fredersen's eyes wandered over by the Berliner Kinemathek in 2010 offers no Metropolis, a restless roaring sea with a significantly new interpretations.' 3 The most surf of light. In the flashes and waves, the interesting essay is Eva Horn's political inter­ Niagara Falls of light, in the color-play of pretation, which takes up a number of political revolving towers of light and brilliance, threads by asking who is in charge in Metropo ­ Metropolis seemed to have become trans­ lis but does not manage to tie them together.' 4 parent. The houses, dissected into cones Norbert Grab ’s recently published biography of and cubes by the moving scythes of the Lang is also merely descriptive when it comes search-lights, gleamed, towering up, hov- to Metropolis and contributes little new to the eringly, light flowing down their flanks like film's interpretation.' 5 Many of the interpreta ­ rain. The streets licked up the shining radi ­ tions thus far have been vague. Some are re­ ance, themselves shining, and the things tellings rather than interpretations. They offer gliding upon them, an incessant stream, an inadequate response to the film's visuality threw cones of light before them. Only the by failing to offer an iconographic reading. The cathedral, with the star-crowned Virgin on key images of the film are ignored. the top of its tower, lay stretched out, mas­ sively, down in the city, like a black giant The film was indeed difficult to understand, lying in an enchanted sleep.'8 because extreme cuts were made after an unsuccessful premiere on January 10, 1927. Numerous passages could be quoted as ev­ Channing Pollock, who was hired to reedit the idence of Thea von Harbou’s mastery of lan­ film for release in the United States, said that guage, but it suffices to say that the primary Metropolis was symbolism in its purest form, so quality of the text is visual. When it seems that no viewer could even guess what it was necessary to her, the author imitates Friedrich about at all.'6 Yet it was Pollock who took on Nietzsche ’s Zarathustra or orients herself the task of shortening the film from around around the Bible. She makes her prose glitter two-and-a-half hours to just under two hours. and spark and then follows it with a pathos-lad ­ From that time, roughly a quarter of the work en description in somber words. In contrast to was lost, and despite several attempts it would the film, part of the appeal of the novel is a not be possible to reconstruct it nearly com­ certain remnant of Expressionism that makes pletely until 2008, when a previously unknown the city with its “open mouths” seem alive. copy was discovered in Buenos Aires.'7 This The evilness of the machines is dramatized in version of the film, completed in 2010, is the ever-new variations. They represent the ter­ basis of my interpretation, whose new results rifying beings of prehistoric times. They roar essentially derive from the parts of the work and demand to be fed people. It would have that were previously unavailable. been considerably more difficult for the film to achieve such clear stylistic categorization.' 9 MONUMENTAL AND SUBLIME If we begin with a discussion of the quality of When Fritz Lang would later discuss Metropolis the novel, reading it reveals its author’s feel for in interviews, he never tired of emphasizing the an especially cinematic treatment of the mate­ quality of the film’s architecture: Otto Hunte,

JURGEN MULLER 139 Erich Kettelhut, and Karl Vollbrecht were re­ nium”), beneath the partial title “Die Stadt der sponsible for the buildings.20 As in the novel, the Zukunft” (The City of the Future).24 Similar vi­ night views of the immense city also reveal the sions of future architecture were offered on the technical identity of the sublime.21 The painting cover of an illustrated guidebook King ’s Views of The Tower of Babel by Erich Kettelhut [Fig. 3] of New York of 1911 by Moses King [Fig. 4], is one of the most beautiful shots in the film in showing a sky teeming with airships over New that respect: through a bar of diagonal lines, the York and bridges connecting the buildings.26 viewer's gaze is led left and right in the lower area, dramatizing even more the looming of the Whatever models may have been used, the building. Technology transforms darkness into aesthetic persuasiveness of Metropolis de­ an imposing sea of lights that makes the Tower rives from its rigorous use of the experience of of Babel look like a precious stone. The splen­ space. We do not need to hear the arguments didly filmed architecture turns Lang's work into of the workers because we vividly feel the op­ a kind of cinematic vedute.22 The film graphi ­ pressiveness of their cramped living conditions. cally evokes the glittering skyline of an enor­ Space and daylight become privileges of the mous city of the future,which has preserved its ruling class. Over the course of the film we are venerable cathedral like a relics of past ages. taught that the grand view we are repeatedly Thanks to its visionary images of a city of the offered is not innocent, in that perceiving a city future, Lang's Metropolis is one of the most is connected with power. The view down from beautiful films of the twentieth century. Those above is reserved for the rulers. There is a sub­ responsible for the film’s architecture took their terranean world and one above the ground, a lead from popular models: illustrations of the world of progress and the future above and a bestseller Die Welt in 100 Jahren (The World in world of marching and eternal repetition below. a Hundred Years) of 1910 already imagined the Even more than that, when the film begins to increased use of spotlights and flying machines show images of oppressed works, we recall the in the cityscape of the future.23 The striving into slavery of the Israelites in Egypt, just as the film the heights and the three-dimensional use of as a whole brings together the aesthetic of the space with elevated roads and railways and epic film and that of the science-fiction film, as bridges between buildings are also anticipat ­ Tom Gunning has rightly noted. 26 ed in a print that accompanied Hudson Max­ im's “Das 1000 jahrige Reich der Maschinen ” Our perspective on skyscrapers is that of a (a translation of “Man’s Machine-Made Millen­ camera looking down from a dizzying height. We are liberated from the gravity pulling on our 3. Erich Kettelhut, The bodies in order to become all eyes. Architecture Tower of Babel, 1927, becomes an experience of immense height and oil on cardboard painting made for Fritz Lang’s depth. Its enormous size eliminates the differ­ Metropolis. ence between nature and culture. This quality of an aesthetic of the sublime belongs both to the science fiction film and the genre of the utopia. The architecture of the French Revolution finds its legitimate successor here. Dietrich Neumann has placed Metropolis in the context of the ar­ chitectural debates in Weimar on the pros and cons of high-rise architecture and referred to a

140 BABELSBERG/BABYLON series of possible models for it27 Of particular 4. Cover of King's Views interest is his reference to Oswald Spengler ’s of New York published by Moses King, 1911 study in cultural criticism, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (translated as The Decline of the West), which as early as 1923 predicted a hor ­ ror scenario of giant cities of the future. This ideological context strikes me as more plausible than seeking to understand Metropolis as an ex­ perimental field for discussions of the architec ­ ture theory of the Weimar Republic.

Because there have been repeated referenc­ es to Bruno Taut, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and other important High Modernist architects in discussions of Metropolis, it should be em­ phasized that Lang and von Harbou indulge in a decided antimodernism in their science fic­ tion film. The “tower building” as an expression of modern culture is the counterimage to the “spiritual” cathedral. The high-rise architecture, CmKlbllT 1VM1 l'k^' IVY MOSES KING. INC. the automobiles, the videophone, the night ­ club, the newspaper stand, and the billboards direction. 29 He is naming nothing less than one are elements of an unbridled modernism that of the most famous images of technological refer critically to the alienated present. Metrop­ progress. Yet, like the labyrinthine architecture olis contains neither a modernist credo nor an of Giambattista Piranesi before him, the high- homage to its own era. The identifiable real el­ rise jungle of the megalopolis offers a grand ements are part of the world to be overcome. perspective but no orientation. 30 No people can be seen; the drivers and passengers of the It has been noted many times that it was Fritz vehicles do not seem to play a role any longer. Lang himself who identified the New York The technologically smooth running of this skyline as an emblematic image in the context urban life seems to be fulfilled in itself. Without of Metropolis. On a trip to the United States it having been explicitly stated, this city must with Erich Pommer, this impression, which was have achieved dimensions that make a march familiar to everyone who traveled to America on foot seem senseless. Modern architecture in earlier times, inspired his new film.28 The is mystified: high-rises as symbols of progress Manhattan skyline has two meanings. On and rationality reveal their labyrinthine quality. the one hand, it announces to the traveler: You have survived the dangerous journey The Tower of Babel, the building of which is and are now safe. On the other hand, it is an described in the Bible and to which Thea von image of hope that conveys to those arriving Harbou had referred in her novel, has become an image of America as the land of unlimited part of cultural memory as the first high-rise in possibilities. So when Lang refers to the history. 31 This form of building thus already had symbol of the skyline familiar to everyone, he negative connotations in the Old Testament. is pointing the viewer’s attention in a certain The work of humanity displeases the Lord:

JURGEN MULLER 141 5. Four film stills from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, 1927

as punishment, people are scattered across workers. To the latter, working on building the the earth and their language confounded. The project seems like senseless oppression, so skyscraper proves to be unsuitable as a way of the project fails. The “brain ” and the “hands ” honoring God. By citing the building of the tow­ emerge separately from Babel ’s confusion of er, the film is quoting a symbolism of hubris that tongues.33 the viewer is intended to apply to Metropolis. 32 In both cases, human reason is not reined in by Nevertheless, the building of the Tower of morality and is expressed as soulless progress. Babylon is certainly an image of human creativity. Seen in this way, the episode with the building It shows the grand achievements people are of the tower is an allegory of progress and at capable of. In Lang’s version of the biblical tale, the same time of failure. At that moment when however, the problem of inventive, visionary the architects lost sight of their original inten­ human beings is inseparable from their fate as tion of praising God, the project became an end political beings. The building of the tower is a in itself. This is expressly emphasized, since in knotty problem; its construction demands not the film Maria ’s interpretation does not see the only intelligence but also community. In order to project of building the tower itself as immoral; erect an enormous building, a group has to be rather, it should be built to honor human beings organized. When conquering the third dimension, and their Creator. But the necessary commu­ the world is divided into top and bottom, which nication is between those who thought up and becomes an expression of social hierarchy. Seen initiated the project—the head, as it were—and in this way, the Tower of Babel is a metaphor not the organs charged with implementing it, the of the state but of injustice.

142 BABELSBERG/BABYLON PLAYING WITH THE This play with the aesthetic boundary is sure­ AESTHETIC BOUNDARY ly most impressive in the sequences dedicat­ Not just today but already in 1927, Metropolis ed to saving the children. When the workers had a difficult time reaching a cinema in a rage—as predicted and provoked by Joh audience. From the outset, people objected to Fredersen—storm and destroy the heart ma­ its false pathos. That applies not only to the chine, their homes are flooded, along with the plot but also to the arc of tension. When the children who have been forgotten in them. As false Maria has to be burned at the stake at Maria and Freder try to save those left behind the end of the film, or when the children are with dramatic actions, the viewer is addressed saved from the flood waters, and the people in a way that deserves closer analysis. When from the workers' world run up or down the Maria sounds the large alarm bell on the cen­ steps in powerful crowd shots, the viewer is tral square to summon help, the rescue action left unmoved. Nor is the love story developed, begins. As she uses the level to set the bell's and one is left uncertain about what one is clapper in motion, there is a cut, and it looks as supposed to consider good and above all why. if the viewer is in the bell's position [Fig. 5], to The fact that Rotwang is thrown from the roof that the clapper moves toward us and strikes of the cathedral? The flooding of the workers' the movie screen from inside. This does not city? A new chapter in the story of Metropolis serve to assign a role in the sense of a sub­ beginning? Viewers don’t really grow fond of jective camera but rather makes the audito­ any of the characters. Everything about the rium and the viewers sitting there the theme. film seems artificial and hypothetical. This changes again a short time later when the children, hoping to be saved from the flood- Yet the director and the screenwriter did their waters, extend their hands toward Maria and best to reach the viewer. They tried to integrate Freder to seek help. The camera then shows viewers artfully into the film by addressing the children from a top view, thus putting the them with the camera directly and subjective­ viewer in the role of the rescuing couple. ly. Lang's diverse use of the stylistic means of breaking down the aesthetic boundary demon­ But for that moment when the clapper strikes strates that it was particularly relevant to him. the movie screen, the fiction is abolished. The A few examples can be identified and distin­ audience is aware of its presence. “Finally you guished. The viewers not only adopt the role of Freder eavesdropping on the sermon of 6. Ufa-Pavillon, Nollendorfplatz 4, Berlin, the monk Desertus, during which he holds up screening Fritz Lang’s a Bible with a woodcut of the whore of Baby ­ Metropolis, 1927 lon, but they are also blinded with Rotwang's flashlight along with Maria, get into a wild duel with an admirer of the mechanical Maria, are called to order by the whistling of the workers’ leader Grot, and gaze in parallel with the ex­ cited audience in the Yoshiwara. As a rule, the subjective camera goes hand in hand with a role assignment that enables us to experience a certain scene directly with the eyes of the person involved. 34

JURGEN MULLER 143 the only cinema where Metropolis was shown after the premiere, and it was on the program until May 13 [Fig. 6], 35 The alarm bell from the film's finale was placed over the entrance, so that fiction and reality were already associated for the viewer.

THE DIRECTOR AS PAINTER When I subject Metropolis to an iconographic analysis here, I assume that there can be dif­ ferent ways of referring to works of the visual arts in film. Such a citation need not neces­ sarily add to the semantics but can merely have a vague meaning. Important directors of the Weimar era understood their work as high art and saw themselves in the tradition of the fine arts. Such references testify to directors' self-image as “painters" and to their familiarity with artistic traditions. One need only think of artists such as Ernst Lubitsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau.36

Looking at Lang’s “Arbeitsgemeinschaft im Film” (Working Team in Film), published in 1924, just a few years before Metropolis, in the film journal Kinematograph, this self-image leaps out.37 The director's self-identification as artist is clear when he writes: “For I knew that he [the cameraman Karl Hoffmann] would make everything that I as painter had dreamed of the visual aspects of the Nibelungen come true with his application of light and shadow. ”38 The 7. Film still from Fritz Lang’s awaken and note that it is about your future!” director spoke of a cinematic and working team Metropolis showing a the images seem to want to say. It speaks for that together produced Die Nibelungen—a film garden fountain juxtaposed itself that this shot is repeated seven times that was created “not in the American style,” as with Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly over the course of the rescue. Why does Lang he writes, significantly. Lang's presentation of Delights, before 1593. so excessively use this stylistic technique of himself as painter did not go unnoticed. That Museo del Prado, Madrid evoking the present movement? Something his allusions to the history of art were perceived similar is achieved in the finale, playing with the by his contemporaries is demonstrated, in a viewers' anxiety about the helpless children. It not especially flattering way, by Paul Ickes, is not just about the now but also about the fu­ who wrote in his review of Metropolis: “Your ture of the entire people! It is interesting in this misfortune, dear Mr. Fritz Lang, is that the idea context to note that a modification was made means nothing to you, only the image. You cling to the Ufa-Pavillon am Nollendorfplatz. It was to the painting. ”39

144 BABELSBERG/BABYLON Elsaesser aptly wrote of the “tableau-style” in there was still a knowledgeable public result­ reference to Metropolis, whose deceleration ing from an upbringing in bourgeois education, and dramatization of the single image may have and film was understood to be a natural part been irritating to adherents of montage cinema. 40 of this culture and helped shape it.44 Not only In her catalogue Filmbilder, Vorbilder, Heide Goethe's drama Faust but also Durer’s series Schonemann makes an interesting attempt to of woodcuts on the Revelation of Saint John determine in detail how the visual arts influenced and knowledge of the fapade of Strasbourg Lang. She persuasively links the head of the Cathedral were part of a general education at “mechanical man” to a work by Oskar Schlemmer, the time that no longer exists today. That does his sketch of a mask for the Scheibentanzer not mean that people of that era were “more (wheel dancers). 41 For the worker's struggle educated" but only that culture was organized against the merciless clock, she points to a work more strictly according to the canon. by Kurt Schmidt from 1924.42 Also persuasive as relevant in connection with Metropolis is her The garden in which the jeunesse doree of Me­ reference to the context of the skycraper debate tropolis spends its time at the beginning of the

8. Michael Erhart, Virgin of Mercy, reportedly from the high altarpiece of the Church of our Lady in Ravensburg, ca. 1480, carved and painted linden wood with gilding. Skulpturensammlung, Bode-Museum, Berlin

9. Film still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis showing Maria in the heavenly gardens with a crowd of children in Berlin in the early 1920s and the designs of Bruno Taut43 The models mentioned in her catalog are certainly convincing in terms of their form, but it is striking that nearly all the references to works of art for the science fiction film are to art contemporaneous with Lang.

If we go beyond the findings of Schonemann's catalogue to ask what works of visual art are cited in Metropolis , it is possible to identify some references that have yet to be discov­ ered by film scholars. Such an approach can, however, also be criticized, for doesn’t such an interpretation presume an ideal viewer with enormous visual knowledge? Indeed, my in­ terpretation presumes that in the Weimar era

JURGEN MULLER 145 10. Pieter Breughel film has a fountain whose design recalls one on he offers a picture of decadence and idleness the Elder, The Tower of the central panel of Hieronymus Bosch ’s Gar­ coupled with the innocence of paradise. Babel, 1568, oil on panel. den of Earthly Delights [Fig. 7]. The figure on Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, the fountain, half covered by a jet of water, is a Another art historical reference follows that The Netherlands siren, like the one also found on Bosch ’s pan ­ one: the scene in which Maria is leading the el—a common reference to the seduction of children of the workers into the world of the 11. Film still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis showing the world. Lang has Freder’s teasing and erotic ruling class. At first we see from the perspec ­ a Babel-like tower play with a companion take place here. Thus tive of Maria and the children —in the manner of a subjective camera—a young woman in chic clothing. When Maria then appears in the heav ­ enly gardens with the crowd of children, she resembles a Virgin of Mercy [Figs. 8-9], which is also the case in the description in the nov­ el. Just as prominent as Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights is a quotation from Pieter Breughel’s The Tower of Babel in Rotterdam [Figs. 10-11], the first high-rise in the history of the world, as we recognize in the context of the film.45 When Maria tells the Bible story, the makers of the film show an architect looking at a model of the tower. As in Brueghel’s paint ­ ing, the building is a ramp that tapers upward in a spiral. The sequence of the building of the tower is presented in its allegorical character. It becomes a symbol. The architect has simi­ larities with Auguste Rodin's The Thinker [Fig. 12] making him a multiple metaphor, for homo faber but also for the ordering and visionary statesman who must direct society toward a common goal [Fig. 13].46 Another impressive scene is the one in which Death leaves the ca­ thedral to come over to Metropolis —an allusion to the famous painting by Arnold Bocklin in which the plague is rushing toward the viewer [Fig. 14]. It is an aesthetic game that Fritz Lang was able to translate into a succinct cinematic sequence in which Death, swinging a scythe, tries to descend into the auditorium. The direc­ tor made a painter ’s idea even more radical.

The film becomes even more allusive just be ­ fore the dance of the false Maria, which does not really have a corresponding scene in the novel. First, the lid of a censer opens [Fig. 15];

146 BABELSBERG/BABYLON 12. Auguste Rodin, The Thinker, 1880-82, bronze

13. Film still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis showing the architect sitting near a model of the Babel-like tower

14. Film still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis showing Death leaving the cathedral juxtaposed with Arnold Bocklin ’s Plague, 1898, tempera on wood. Kunstmuseum Basel

JURGEN MULLER 147 15. Film still from Fritz it recalls a medieval rose window, and indeed center, and the cathedral itself, which can be Lang’s Metropolis just none other than that of the Strasbourg Cathe ­ understood as a symbol of national tradition. before the dance of the dral. The mysterious vessel itself from which Finally, there is a quotation in the film architec ­ false Maria juxtaposed with a medieval rose window the false Maria steps out recalls a medieval ture. The heart machine of Metropolis [Fig. 18] from Strasbourg Cathedral baptismal font [Figs. 16-17], Other borrowings alludes to Etienne-LouisBoullee's Cenotaph for from the visual arts include the medieval round Isaac Newton [Fig. 19]—an analogy that makes dance of vices, with the Grim Reaper in the sense in that it is the place containing the city’s

16. Film still from Fritz Lang's Metropolis showing the false Maria stepping out of a mysterious vessel

17. Medieval baptismal font

148 BABELSBERG/BABYLON energy. The reference to Boullee also tells us of understood as a response to a modern age that the modern identity of Metropolis, which has its resulted from the necessities of the capitalist counter image in the medieval cathedral. economy.

The problem of the iconography is not limited to works of art being used as models. Joh Freder- sen, played by Alfred Abel, recalls probably the most famous capitalist of the time: Henry Ford, whose likeness could be seen in numer­ ous articles in newspapers and magazines in the 1920s, and who enjoyed great popularity in Germany as well.47 18. Film still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis showing Looking again at the quotations of the rose the heart machine of window of the Strasbourg Cathedral and the Metropolis Durer woodcuts, an educated person might 19. Etienne-Louis Boullee, call on his knowledge of literature, since Cenotaph for Isaac Newton, Goethe used this very example in his Sturm- 1784 und-Drang (Storm and Stress) manifesto “Von deutscher Baukunst” (translated as “On Ger­ man Architecture"). The Strasbourg Cathe ­ dral was, Goethe wrote “brought about by the strong, rugged German soul.” And Goethe too preferred the “wood-carved face” by the “manly Durer,” thanks to its beauty.48 By evoking such topoi of the German discourse on culture—one BABYLON AND BABELSBERG might also think of Thomas Mann's distinction These are interesting references, and doubt­ between culture (= German) and civilization (= less they are characteristic of the film’s aes­ French) in Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen thetic ambitions. But what about the level of (translated as Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man) political meaning? Siegfried Kracauer early on of 191849—the film gives its audience the op­ made the film's insistence on crowd scenes the portunity to activate its visual knowledge that point of departurefor his reflections and deter­ not only wants to be regarded as a specifically mined that its content was protofascist. How­ Germanic one but also claims, according to ever, Kracauer’s thesis with regard to Metro­ the nationalist ideology of culture, that its polis did not lead to other specific observations most profound appreciation can only be felt by but instead to arguments about a Zeitgeist that a deep German soul. Thus the film also aims determined everything. 60 That is problematic to reinforce the national common sense of an in that the Zeitgeist can, famously, adopt any elevated stratum of viewers. But this common form. It is always already there and is respon ­ sense goes hand in hand with a critique of the sible for everything. In contrast to Kracauer, I existing culture. For the education that shows would like to retain the paradigm of subjective through in the film quotation is inseparable intentionality. Thea von Harbou’s novel and her from the reference to the greatness of the past, screenplay, but also the film, have an intend­ it is the expression of a nation that wants to be ed statement, regardless of how many readers

JURGEN MULLER 20. Film still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis showing Desertus during a sermon to the people in the church

21. Michelangelo, detail of The Last Judgment from the ceiling of The Sistine Chapel, 1508-12, painted plaster. Vatican City

or viewers understand it or not. This message that the sequence with the monk Desertus on is not “contraband," as Kracauer called it, that the pulpit is shown twice in the film. When the consciously influenced the making of the film. monk presents the woodcut, it is especially em­ Rather, it corresponds to a worldview that is still phasized. Once again fiction and reality meet recognizable today. here, since the viewer in the cinema is equated with the visitors to the mass at this moment. After all the comparisons between images in The actual viewer is once again integrated into the film and works of the fine arts, it is reason ­ the narrative: This message about the whore of able to observe that Lang’s film placed great Babylon is for the viewer. demands on education as a way of distinguish­ 22. Whore of Babylon, ing itself from American productions. But what woodcut is the real message of Metropolis ? The key im­ age in the whole form is in the scene of the monk Desertus's sermon—that is to say, in a sequence that could only be rediscovered in the latest reconstruction. During his church ser­ vice, which the young Freder attends, Desertus refers to the whore of Babylon in his sermon and holds up a woodcut to the people in the church [Fig. 20]. Her image is seen in an illus­ trated Bible, and soon thereafter it will recur in a dream that seems to comment on the real events around the false Maria. It should be em­ phasized, in keeping with it being a key image,

150 BABELSBERG/BABYLON The monk ’s stance also alludes to an apoca ­ 25. Matthias Gerung, The White lyptic context. For the figure of Desertus get­ Rider and the Whore of Babylon , sheet from The Apocalypse, ting worked up, Lang cites none other than ca. 1550, woodcut the figure of Christ from Michelangelo ’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel [Fig. 21].5 > To take another brief look at the woodcut he holds up: it shows the whore on the scarlet animal and holding a “golden cup” in her hand [Fig. 22],62 Lang may have borrowed this motif from Durer's Apocalypse [Fig. 23]. In doing so, he used the motif quite literally, but rotated it 45 degrees toward the viewer. Watching the film, we now find ourselves where the men succumb to the whore, as described in the Book of Rev­ elation in the Bible. The woodcut is thus a key image because it becomes the means of inter­ pretation, so to speak. For once one has recog­ nized the key, other scenes can be connected. For example, the death by fire of the false Ma­ ria [Fig. 24] refers to the story of the Apoca ­ lypse in the Bible, as depicted, for example in a woodcut by Matthias Gerung [Fig. 25]. 53 Fi­ nally, Freder’s fight with Rotwang, in which the inventor falls from the roof of the cathedral, is

JURGEN MULLER 151 reminiscent of the archangel Michael's strug­ of the Apocalypse and the whore of Babylon. 57 gle with Satan, whose fall into hell introduced These apocalyptic-biblical allusions together the Millennium.64 Once again, there is a refer­ permit a view of Metropolis as a decadent den ence to Durer’s woodcut of the Apocalypse, of iniquity doomed to fall.68 which shows the struggle with the monster in the foreground, and the heavenly Jerusalem If we bring all these discoveries together, the is already visible in the background on the left, film Metropolis offers nothing less than the watched over by an angel, and its gate takes prospect of the beginning of the thousand-year the form of a cathedral fagade. 55 reign of the Millennium. As we know, the Na-

26. Film still from Fritz In the final scene, when the workers stream to tional Socialist idea of the thousand-year Lang’s Metropolis juxta­ the entrance of the cathedral, one is also re­ Reich is of biblical origin and can be traced posed with a medieval minded of the iconography of medieval altar- back to the Book of Revelation. 59 The final altarpiece pieces [Fig. 26]. One thinks of humanity saved reign is preceded by a struggle between good and permitted to enter the heavenly Jerusalem and evil, and the film alludes to its stages in after the Last Judgment.56 It is all the more many ways. First, it does so by using motifs astonishing that this context of apocalyptic im­ from the Apocalypse and, second, by repeating ages has not been acknowledged in the inter­ the narrative structure of the biblical story. To pretation of the film, especially given that the bring about the final reign, it is, however, neces­ contrast of the true and false Maria, which is so sary to get rid of Satan (Rotwang) and the false important to the narrative, has its point of de­ Maria, to remove everything foreign from the parture in the biblical opposition of the woman body of the people. Various interpreters have

152 BABELSBERG/BABYLON emphasized that the name Rotwang is Jewish describes the various characteristics that Sep­ in origin and also referred to the Golem motif of tember combines: he is stingy and superstitious the artificial human and the presentation of the like a Scot; his greed is from the Levant; his fru­ inventor Rotwang as a magician. Anton Kaes gality from China; he has mindless daydream­ made the figure of the “Jew Rotwang ” and the ing from the satisfied bushman; his ecstatic femme fatale Maria out to be scapegoats who dancing is like that of a Ukrainian. Although are excluded from the harmonious ending. 60 the character of September does not appear in the film, Yoshiwara is nevertheless presented If we ask whether there are racist motifs in as a “racial melting pot.” The nightclub shares

27. Film still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis showing the Yoshiwara nightclub

28. Film still from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis showing a multiple exposure shot with three prostitutes laughing at the viewer

its name with the Japanese red-light district of 29. Aphorism from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis : “Mittler the Edo period, which was famous well beyond zwischen Him und Handen Japan's borders. 62 The Asian-looking architec ­ muss das Herz sein!" (The Sinnspruck; ture of the portal [Fig. 27] and decorative ob ­ mediator between brain and MITTLER ZWISCHEN jects, such as Chinese lanterns, reinforce the muscle must be the heart!) HIRN UND HANDEN connection implied by the name. At the same time, the interior of Yoshiwara recalls a chic MUSS DAS HERZ SEIN! nightclub with jazz music.

The entertainment district is characterized in a sequence in which we see gambling as Metropolis , we should mention not only the anti- well as a shot created by multiple exposure Semitism identified by Kaes but also a signifi­ in which three prostitutes laugh provocative ­ cant sequence that has been overlooked thus ly at the viewer: an Asian, an African, and a far. Already in the novel Metropolis, the owner European woman [Fig. 28]. The censer in of the nightclub, whose name is September, is which the mechanical Maria is produced at the characterized in a particularly disparaging way: beginning of her dance is, significantly, borne “The proprietor of Yoshiwara used to earn mon­ by several black men, who at the end are re­ ey in a variety of ways. One of them, and quite placed by means of a dissolve with sculptures positively the most harmless, was to make bets of the seven deadly sins that have come to life. that no man—be he never so widely travelled— This discovery is all the more significant giv­ was capable of guessing to what weird mixture en that the issue of “race” does not seem to of races he owed his face.”61 The author then play a role at all anywhere in the film outside

JURGEN MULLER 153 of the Yoshiwara nightclub. Elsewhere we find time immemorial. 63 But Thea von Harbou up­ only white Europeans. Yoshiwara, by contrast, dated the image in a specific way. Her apho ­ is presented in several passages as a place of rism is about the presumption of the thematic prostitution and promiscuity—a semantic field part-to-whole relationship of the state. In re­ to which racial mixing can be added. By su­ ality, she was speaking of the community of perimposing three women of different ethnic people related by blood as a prerequisite for origin, Lang alluded to the racial mixing that the state.64 It represents an indivisible ethnic defined America. The nightclub Yoshiwara is a group. The heart is not a metaphor of love but symbol of an American that is “impure” from a rather the muscle that keeps the blood circu­ racial perspective. lating. For von Harbou, blood as a sign of the unityof a “race” represents the connection and The racial semantics do not in fact first occur prerequisite for a body politic. 66 Hence she was with the motif of Rotwang or the insinuated following common organological concepts in “racial mixing” in Yoshiwara but already in the which the body of the people is compared to aphorism that says that the heart should be the the closed circulation of blood. mediator between the brain and the hand. In the novel as in the film, this aphorism initially func­ "METROPOLIS" AND tions as a paratext: “The mediator between brain THE THIRD REICH and hand must be the heart. ” In the film, too, it Lang's film Metropolis was a conflicted proj­ precedes the action proper [Fig. 29], It functions ect. An advanced technology was used to as a leitmotif. When Freder and Maria meet at denounce technology; and the most sophisti ­ the beginning of the film, because she has come cated methods were used to cast doubt on the to the upper world with the children, the young future. The architecture of the high-rise played man clutches his heart. Later he asks his father: a central role in this. It was intended to epit­ “And where are the people, father, who built your omize the soullessness of the modern world. city with their hands? ” The alienation between In the context of the film, scholars have rightly head and hand is discussed again when Maria referred to Oswald Spengler ’s Untergang des is telling the story of Babel, as discussed above. Abendlandes, but to me Arthur Moeller van den Finally, Freder clutches his heart again when he Bruck's book Das dritte Reich (translated as speaks to Maria after her sermon. Maria repeats Germany's Third Empire) seems just as import­ this gesture as a kind of sign of recognition. So ant as a point of intellectual contact [Fig. 30].66 it should come as no surprise that the aphorism The term “third empire” originated with the me­ should appear again at the end of the film as the dieval mystic Joachim of Fiore, who prophesied final intertitle when Fredersen and the workers, the coming of a third empire of the Holy Spirit represented by Grot, are reconciled: “The me­ after the Age of the Father and the Age of the diator between brain and hand must be the Son. 67 Joachim was already prophesying the heart! ” What significance should we attribute to worldly perspective on a historical last empire. this leitmotif and aphorism? Is the metaphor of But Moeller van den Bruck updated this medi­ the heart an exhortation to love one ’s neighbor eval historical construction for his own purpos­ and to solidarity? es: He identified as the First Empire the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages; he char ­ The metaphor of the heart used in the apho ­ acterized as the Second Empire the German rism is anything but new; after all, the body has Reich under Otto von Bismarck. The future been used as a metaphor for the state since Third Empire was supposed to be founded on a

154 BABELSBERG/BABYLON combination of nationalism and socialism. 68 In ularized it, so that it was later taken up by the truth, however, it was the majestic metaphors National Socialists. 72 of mission and fate that Moeller van den Bruck hoped would lend his message of the superior­ Moeller van den Bruck’s Das dritte Reich is a ity of the German people an irrefutable certain­ promise that does not bear much exposure to ty. God’s place has simply been taken by the light. His explanations of it are strikingly brief, nation in the sense of a Volk. when one considers that just 15 of its two 250 pages enigmatically suggest the future empire. It suffices to say here that the millenarianism This quite successful book assigned a crucial of this conservative intellectual made use of task for the future to the German people and long-established ideas. The aforementioned tried, in a vague way, to build a bridge between book lays out a political dream of conservative socialism and nationalism. 73 intellectuals of the era.69 Moeller van den Bruck enjoyed great respect as a cultural historian, Moeller van den Bruck’s enemies are capital ­ theorist of the state, and populist-nationalist ism, liberalism, Marxism and the values of the Enlightenment associated with the French Revolution. This was not without effects on 30. Cover of Arthur Moeller van den Bruck’s Metropolis. Again and again, the film has shots book Das dritte Reich revealing the unbridled aggression of the work­ (translated as Germany’s ers, to the musical leitmotif of the “Marseillaise. ” Third Empire), 1923 Its depiction of the life of workers under capi­ talism was just as monotonous, turning human beings into cogs in the production process. So­ cialism, capitalism, and rule by the few, Metro­ polis teaches us, lead to catastrophe. I hear the same basic tone in the polemical reckoning of Moeller van den Bruck, a member of the Jung- konservativen (Young Conservatives) move­ ment, that is found in the novel and the film. In both, the modern age is defined as a Bab ­ ylonian interim realm that must be overcome journalist.70 Born in Solingen in 1876 and self- and destroyed to reach the final thousand-year taught, he published the eight-volume work Reich. According to Van der Bruck: German Die Deutschen, unsere Menschengeschichte nationalism is the champion of the Final Em­ (The Germans: Our Human History) in 1905, pire: ever promised, never fulfilled. to name just one of his numerous works.7' In 1914 he volunteered for the war and was It is the peculiar prerogative of the German soon working in the foreign department of the people for which other peoples vie with us. Oberste Heeresleitung (Supreme Army Com­ In the World War the peoples fought against mand), where he worked in the press depart­ the Empire-for-the-sake-of-the-empire, the ment of the Foreign Ministry. In his magnum Empire-for-the-sake-of-world-hegemo- opus of 1923, Das dritte Reich, he reinterpret­ ny, in which we claimed our very material ed the medieval Christian concept of a worldly share. Each of these nations wanted an final realm of peace for the present and pop ­ empire of its own: a sphere and empire of

JURGEN MULLER 155 Latin or Anglo-Saxon or Pan-Slav thought. perspective, the secular present must have They annihilated our material empire. They seemed like disoriented activity that risked still tremble before its political shadow. 74 sinking into chaos unless there was a renewed connection to transcendence. 81 The implicit yet The final three sentences in particular, how ­ clear message of Metropolis is that legitimate ever, will be remembered; they make clear the political order cannot be the result of human world-historical dimension that falls to the ordi­ dealings but can only be conceived as the nary German as the guardian of the West: “The fulfillment of the promise of the history of ape and tiger in man are threatening. The shad ­ salvation. 82 Seen in this way, the film addresses ow of Africa falls across Europe. It is our task to not only the Apocalypse and the thousand-year be guardians on the threshold of values.”75 reign it predicts, but also the phantom pain of the loss of transcendence when the German Reich If one follows Klaus Vondung, the linking of de­ fell. Accordingly, my political interpretation of the cline and renewal, destruction and redemption, film tries to show the catastrophic willingness of must be seen as the central structural feature the time to leap blindly into the transcendence of the Apocalypse. The apocalyptic visionary of a Volksgemeinschaft (community of the years suggest redemption; political conflict people). If we add to this the political context is elevated to the religiously metaphysical. 76 of the Weimar era, the description of the film Redemption only seems possible any longer would have to be changed: Metropolis is the if the old order falls.77 Vondung emphasiz ­ story of becoming a state in a volkisch —that is es the radicalization that goes hand in hand to say, racist—sense. My interpretation of the with apocalyptic thinking and makes the use classic film is an attempt to take that political of violence seem legitimate. The enemy rep­ message seriously. It is terrifying to see how resents evil personified; he is depicted as a naively the film has been interpreted thus far “cruel and insidious, a repulsive and revolting and how it could advance to become world animal, ” which makes the use of extreme vio­ cultural heritage without being questioned. lence necessary. 78 In a much more literal sense than Siegfried Kracauer intended, the film had If we return once again to the aphorism of the a prognostic quality. It talks about an emerg­ novel and the film—the heart as mediator be ­ ing thousand-year Reich and vague fantasies tween brain and hand —we can draw parallels of redemption in the Weimar era to which the between von Harbou's concern and that of German people were receptive because they Moeller van den Bruck. For it is striking how were waiting for a leader.79 much the author takes her lead from the pref­ ace to Das Dritte Reich when she claims a The legitimacy of the new democratic order standpoint beyond classes, trends, and par­ was cast in doubt in the circles to which Thea ties.83 Moeller van den Bruck had already von Harbou and Fritz Lang belonged, and the considered the “overcoming of parties ” to be a appeal to the grand narrative of a coming Third prerequisite for the future empire in which the Reich to provide meaning was supposed to people would be united: “Instead of govern­ lend expression to this discomfort with a liberal, ment by party we offer the ideal of the THIRD democratic modern era.80 In that sense, the EMPIRE. It is an old German conception and a film's program can be described quite openly great one. It arose when our First Empire fell; as a combative and sacred dramatization of it was early quickened by the thought of a mil­ the political. From a national, conservative lennium; but its underlying thought has always

156 BABELSBERG/BABYLON been a future which should be not the end of all things but the dawn of a German Age in which the German People would for the first time ful­ fil their destiny on earth. ”84 The metaphors of the hands as symbol of the proletariat or that of the ruler as “human intermediary ” are also pre­ figured in the conservative author.85 Moreover, one must also mention the primacy of blood, which precedes all state forms of organization, in Moeller van den Bruck as well.86 Finally, one is also reminded of von Harbou’s strange for­ mulation that her novel is about an event that grows on the pillar of understanding.87

It has long since been known that Thea von Harbou became a member of the National So­ cialist Party of Germany in 1940 and had sym­ pathized with the new regime from the begin ­ at the end of the film, and continues with the 31. Final scene from ning. 88 But even her texts from the beginning suggestion of a Volksgemeinschaft, which nat­ Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, showing a handshake urally presumes the exclusion of the inventor of the previous century reflect her politically between the working nationalist attitude.89 We are indebted to Karin Rotwang. Evil has been overcome. The workers and ruling classes Bruns for a solid assessment of von Harbou’s and the ruling elite have been reconciled. The ideas, which need not be discussed at length final image is revealing. The masses are march ­ here. Yet a real notion of how the film Metro­ ing in step in front of the imposing church build­ polis could be seen from a political perspec­ ing. The handshake marks the beginning of a tive is illustrated by a diary entry by Joseph new era [Fig. 31]. The precise conditions of Goebbels on March 25, 1927, who saw the such a future, however, remain completely in film, still in its unabridged version, two months the dark. If in the end the inequality between after the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin: “With the rich and poor, above and below, has been elim­ Schweitzers at the cinema. Metropolis. Great inated, and the people of Metropolis are stand­ directing. Subject: insipid, sentimental go­ ing in front of the cathedral, it is not a victory ings-on around National Socialist ideas.”90 This for the Christian practice of religion. Rather, the remark about Metropolis might seem astonish ­ Volksgemeinschaft of the residents of Metro­ ing, since it attributes a clear political message polis has come to terms with itself. It and the to the film classic—and that is unfamiliar to us cathedral are one. The thousand-year Reich from the secondary literature. But it cannot be can begin in Metropolis. said of Goebbels that he had only a vague no­ tion of National Socialism. Translated from the German by Steven Lindberg

Exactly what Goebbels meant when he alleged This essay is dedicatedto my friend Achatz von that the film took up National Socialist lines Muller. I would like to take this opportunity to of thought has been sufficiently demonstrat ­ thank my colleagues Christoph Ziener and Lisa ed, in our view. It begins with the final apoc ­ Pribik, who helped me in many ways to produce alyptic struggle, includes the pseudosocialism this essay.

JURGEN MULLER 157 1 Thea von Harbou, Metropolis NY: Camden House, 2000). (Berlin: Propylaen, 2014), 131-51. (Berlin: Scherl, 1926), 7. 6 In the novel, this becomes 16 Martin Koerber, “Erneute Notizen 2 Thea von Harbou originally especially clear at the end when zur Uberlieferung von Metropolis, ” in intended to have her novel Joh visits his mother and tells her Deutsche Kinemathek, Fritz Langs Metropolis, which was produced about the dramatic events that Metropolis (see note 9), 49-63, esp. in parallel with the screen play, have occurred. His story makes 50. The various runtimes of the film published by Ullstein. It was, however, his transformation clear. When he are: 153 min | 210 min (premiere rejected; Andre Kagelmann suspects reports how the persistent waiting of cut) | 93 min (re-release) | 114 this was because certain plot threads the workers forced him to react, he min (1927 cut) | 123 min (2002 were regarded as unliterary and too agrees to be their leader. That they Murnau Foundation 75th anniversary cinematic. The novel was published need a spiritual leader, and not just restored) | 119 min (DVD edition) in 1926 by Scherl and was serialized, a company manager, is made clear (2002 Murnau Foundation 75th in abridged form, in Das illustrierte by the following words: “If we had aniversary restored) | 80 min (Giorgio Blatt. See Andre Kagelmann, Der been living a thousand years earlier, Moroder) | 145 min (2010 restored). Krieg und die Frau: Thea von Harbous I should, perhaps, set out on the high 17 See Anke Wilkening, “Das Ende Erzahlwerk zum Ersten Weltkrieg road, with pilgrim’s staff and cockle eines Mythos?," in ibid., 65-75. (Kassel: Media Net, 2009), 56-57. hat. ” Harbou, Metropolis (see note ,8 Harbou, Metropolis (see note 1), 3 Harbou, Metropolis (see note 1), 1), 272-73; Harbou, Metropolis (see 37; Harbou, Metropolis (see note 7; Thea von Harbou, Metropolis note 3), 249. 3), 31. (London: Readers Library 7 Famously, this idea is already ,9 Without wishing to go into greater Publications, [1927]), 13. In the decisive in H. G. Wells's Time detail here, it should be mentioned English edition of Thea van Harbou’s Machine of 1895. that the novel, the screenplay, and Metropolis, “hand" is translated 8 Wolfgang Braungart, “Apokalypse the film differ considerably, though as “muscle." In the German, the und Utopie," in Gerhard R. Kaiser, ed., the motifs are identical. This would motto of the film would translate as: Poesie der Apokalypse (Wurzburg: require a studyof its own. “The mediator between brain and Konigshausen & Neumann, 1991), 20 One even gets the impression that hand must be the heart." We are 63-102, esp. 91. the film embarrassed the Viennese using hand in this text as it more 9 See Bernhard Eisenschitz, “Wege director. As late as the 1960s, he accurately captures the intention of und Umwege zu Metropolis," in remarked to Peter Bogdanovich: “I the original. Deutsche Kinemathek: Museum fur had the feeling that Metropolis was 4 The metaphor of the heart had Film und Fernsehen, ed., Fritz Langs patched together. [...] The main many meanings at the time and Metropolis (Munich: Belleville, 2010), thesis was Mrs. von Harbou's, but I was widespread. Nevertheless, 13-33, esp. 24-27. am at least 50 percent responsible I mention two influential texts: 10 On this, see Siegfried Kracauer, because I did it. [...] I didn't like First, Stefan George’s poem From Caligari to Hitler: A the picture—thought it was silly “Goethes letzte Nacht in Italien" Psychological History of the German and stupid." Fritz Lang, in Peter (Goethe ’s last night in Italy), which Film (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It includes a line that refers to the Press, 1947). (New York: Knopf, 1997), 170-234, “mittler" (mediator) and “blut" 11 Tom Gunning, The Films of Fritz esp. 178. (blood). Second, one also thinks of Lang: Allegoriesof Vision and 21 Just as spectacular as the designs Ernst Jiinger, Das abenteuerliche Modernity (London: British Film of the enormous architecture for Herz (Berlin: Frundsberg, 1929); Institute, 2000), 52-83, esp. 71. the film were the special effects of translated by Russell A. Berman 12 Thomas Elsaesser, Metropolis Eugen Schufftan, who developed as The Adventurous Heart (Candor, (London: British Film Institute, 2000). a special procedure for projecting NY: Telos, 2012). See Norbert ,3 Deutsche Kinemathek, Fritz Langs scenes and objects into the model Staub, Wagnis ohne Welt: Ernst Metropolis (see note 9). architecture. Thus scenes could Jungers Schrift "Das abenteuerliche 14 See Eva Horn, “Die doppelte take place in the models and leave a Herz" und ihr Kontext (Wurzburg: Maria: Weibliche Fuhrerschaft realistic impression. Konigshausen & Neumann, 2000). in Fritz Langs Metropolis," in: 22 On this, see Jurgen Mullerand 5 See the introduction to this Stefan Krammer and Marion Jorn Hetebriigge, “‘Metropolis' als informative anthology, including Loffler, eds., Staat in Unordnung? Menetekel der Moderne," in Winfried numerous sources: Michael Minden Geschlechterperspektiven auf Nerdinger, ed., Architektur wie sie and Holger Bachmann, eds., Fritz Deutschland und Osterreich im Buche steht: Fiktive Bauten und Lang ’s “Metropolis ": Cinematic zwischen den Weltkriegen (Vienna: Stadte in der Literatur, exh. cat., Visions of Technology and Fear; Transcript, 2011), 25-46. Architekturmuseum der Technischen Studies in German Literature, 15 Norbert Grob, Fritz Lang: u lch bin Universitat. Munich (Munich: Pustet, Linguistics, and Culture(Rochester, ein Augenmensch"; Die Biographie 2006), 187-99.

158 BABELSBERG/BABYLON 23 Arthur Brehmer, ed., Die Welt in and Filmmuseum Potsdam, Fritz 41 Schonemann and Filmmuseum lOOJahren (Hildesheim: Olms, 2010; Lang: Filmbilder, Vorbilder, Reihe Potsdam, Fritz Lang (see note 30), reprint of Berlin: Verlagsanstalt Deutsche Vergangenheit 66, exh. 54. Buntdruck, 1910). cat., Filmmuseum, Potsdam (Berlin: 42 Ibid., 53. 24 Hudson Maxim, “Das lOOOjahrige Hentrich, 1992), 96. 43 Ibid., 78-79. Reich der Maschinen," in ibid., 31 Harbou, Metropolis (see note 1), 44 Georg Bollenbeck, Eine 5-24, esp. 23; this is a translation 20; Harbou, Metropolis (see note Geschichte der Kulturkritik: Von J. J. of Hudson Maxim, “Man's Machine- 3), 23. Rousseau bis G. Anders (Munich: C. Made Millennium," Cosmopolitan 32 See Gunning, The Films of Fritz H. Beck, 2007). Magazine 45, no. 6 (November Lang (see note 11), 56-57. 45 Schonemann also referred to 1908); 569-76, esp. 573. 33 See ibid., 61. Brueghel, albeit to the version in 25 Moses King, King ’s Views of New 34 On the use of the subjective Vienna, not the one in Rotterdam. York, 1911-1912 (New York: King, camera, see Edward Branigan, Point See Schonemann and Filmmuseum 1911); cf. the illustration in Moses of View in the Cinema: A Theory of Potsdam, Fritz Lang (see note 30), King, King's Views of New York, Narration and Subjectivity in Classical 90-91. 1896-1915, and Brooklyn, 1905: An Film (New York: Mouton, 1984). 46 Gunning discovered this quotation; Extraordinary Photographic Survey See also Jan Marie Peters, “The see Gunning, The Films of Fritz Lang (New York; Arno, 1980), chapters on Subjective Camera: Optical Effects, (see note 11), 58. 1903, 1905, and 1911. Meaning, and Emotional Impact," 47 Berliner lllustrirte Zeitung, 34, no 26 Gunning, The Films of Fritz Lang in Frank Furtwangler et al., eds., 38 (September 20, 1925), title page. (see note 11), 34. Zwischen-Bilanz: Eine Festschrift fur His great popularity in Germany is 27 Dietrich Neumann, “Vorboten Joachim Paech zum 60. Geburtstag demonstrated by the many printings und Folgen von Metropolis : Film (Constance: Universitat Konstanz, of his autobiography: Henry Ford, und Architektur auf der Suche nach Fachbereich Literaturwissenschaft, Mein Leben und Werk, ed. V. Curt der modernen Stadt," in idem, ed., 2001). and MargueriteThesing (Leipzig: Filmarchitektur: Von Metropolis bis 35 See Eisenschitz, “Wege und List, 1923), a translation of idem, Blade Runner, exh. cat., Deutsches Umwege zu Metropolis ” (see note My Life and Work (Garden City, N.Y., Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt 9), 26. Doubleday, Page, 1923). (Munich: Prestel, 1996), 33-38. 36 See Jurgen Muller, “Film 48 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 28 Bernhard Eisenschitz points out als Kunst: Anmerkungen zur “On German Architecture," (1772), that Metropolis had already been Filmpoetik Friedrich Wilhelm in John Gage, ed. and trans., Goethe announced in the journal Licht-Bild- Murnaus,” in Brigitte Salmen, on Art (Berkeley: Univ. of California Buhne in June 1924. Fritz Lang ed., Murnau (Friedrich Wilhelm) Press, 1980), 103-12, esp. 109-11. and Thea von Harbou completed in Murnau (Oberbayern): Der 49 See Thomas Mann, Grosse the screenplay during a private trip Stummfilmregisseur der 1920er Kommentierte Frankfurter A usgabe: together. But Lang did not travel Jahre, exh. cat. (Murnau: Werke, Briefe, Tagebiicher, ed. to the United States until October. Schlossmuseum, 2003), 81-95. Heinrich Detering in collaboration Nevertheless, later he corroborated 37 Fritz Lang, “Arbeitsgemeinschaft with the ETH Zurich vol. 13.2, the legend that his stay in New im Film," Der Kinematograph, no. Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen York had given him the idea for the 887 (February 17, 1924), Reprinted (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2009); film. See Eisenschitz, “Wege und in Rolf Aurich, Werkstatt Film: translated by Walter D. Morris as Umwege zu Metropolis" (see note Selbstverstandnis und Visionen Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man 9), 15-16. von Filmleuten der zwanziger Jahre (New York: Ungar, 1983). 29 Fritz Lang, “Was ich in Amerika (Munich: Text + Kritik, 1998), 15-19. 60 Kracauer wrote: “One film was sah: Neuyork, Los Angeles," Film- 38 Lang complained in passing, in more explicit than all others: Kurier (Berlin) 6, no. 292, (December reference to the film work of the METROPOLIS. In it, the paralyzed 11, 1924): unpaginated. The text sworn Nibelungen troupe, of the collective mind seemed to be talking is also reprinted in Fred Gehler unity of the Germans, and so it is with unusual clarity in its sleep. This and Ullrich Kasten, Fritz Lang: Die hardly surprising that every shot is more than a metaphor: owing to a Stimmevon Metropolis (Berlin: represented a “condensed hard day." fortunate combination of receptivity Henschel-Verlag, 1990), 207ff. See Lang, “Arbeitsgemeinschaft im and confusion, Lang's scriptwriter, 30 Heide Schonemann has already Film" (see note 37), 18. Thea von Harbou, was not only pointed to parallels between 39 Paul Ickes, “Kritik der Leinwand: sensitive to all undercurrents of the Piranesi's Carceri d'invenzione and 'Metropolis, ” Die Filmwoche, January time, but indiscriminately passed Lang's visual language, though she 19, 1927, 60-61, esp. 60. on whatever happened to haunt her did not make a specific connection to 40 Thomas Elsaesser, Metropolis (see imagination. METROPOLIS was Metropolis. See Heide Schonemann note 12), 17. rich in subterranean content that,

JURGEN MULLER 159 like contraband, had crossed the (San Francisco: Straight Arrow, occurred in the last decade before borders of consciousness without 1975). the war under the influence of Social being questioned." See Kracuaer, 59 Revelation 20:1-6. Darwinism, eugenics, and theories From Caligari to Hitler (see note 10), 60 Anton Kaes: “Cinema and of racial hygiene. To the extent that 162-63. Modernity" On Fritz Lang's belonging to the “German people" 51 Already in the screenplay, ‘Metropolis, ’” in Reinhold Grimm was no longer defined primarily by which is preserved at the Berliner and Jost Hermand, eds., High and cultural features but instead by the Kinemathek, there is a specific Low Cultures: German Attempts pseudobiological notion of a ‘blood instruction for the character ’s pose: at Mediation (Madison: Univ. of community,' the concept of ‘race’ “Single shot: The slender man seen Wisconsin Press, 1994), 19-44, esp. replaced the concept of the people." from Freder’s viewpoint; he has gone 32-33. See ibid., p. 101. around: ‘Hold still, idiot!’ He raises 61 Harbou, Metropolis (see note 1), 65 1 am referring here to the first his right hand in an angry gesture, 92; Harbou, Metropolis (see note chapter of Karin Bruns, Kinomythen, but turns away again like that and 3), 86. 1920-1945: Die Filmentwurfe der in the process transforms into the 62 Stephen and Ethel Longstreet, Thea von Harbou (Stuttgart: Metzler, preaching monk from Scene 158 Yoshiwara: City of the Senses (New 1995), in which she worked out at the footboard of the bed. ” Thea York: McKay, 1970). A contemporary the extensive national and racist von Harbou, “Drehbuch Metropolis," reception of Yoshiwara can be patterns of thinking and writing in Berlin, undated. 548 pp., 406 found, among other places, in von Harbou’s early phase. Bruns “images." Handwritten note on page Tresmin-Tremolieres, Yoshiwara: summed up: “In the configuration 1: “This manuscript is dedicated DieLiebesstadt derJapaner, trans. of actors in the novels of the World to Erich Pommer. Handwritten Bruno Sklarek, vol. 4 of Iwan Bloch, War I era, blood as an indicator of addition: “for Herrn Huppertz." ed., Sexualpsychologische Bibliothek which race one belonged to was a SDK-12268 (S), p. 320. This fact (Berlin: Marcus, [ca. 1910]); see central element of characterization. points to the particular relevance Tresmin-Tremolieres, La cite d'amour [...] Such stereotypical views and attributed to the cinematic image au Japon: Courtisanes du Yoshiwara narratives schemes of volkisch and and makes it plausible that it was (Paris, 1905). racist provenance primarily exploit based on Michelangelo. Moreover, 63 See Horst Bredekamp, Thomas categories of physiognomy and the reference back to Scene 158 Hobbes, Der Leviathan: Das Urbild character typology that assume (the sermon in the cathedral) proves des deutschen Staates und seine a correlation between (racially that both scenes are about the same Gegenbilder, 1651-2001 (Berlin: determined) physical appearance motif of the posture. Akademie, 2012). See also Klaus and psychological and ethical 52 Revelation 17:4. Bergdolt, "Mikrokosmos und features.” See ibid., 10. 53 Revelation 17:16. Makrokosmos: Der menschliche 66 Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, 54 Revelation 20:3. Korper als staatstheoretisches Das dritte Reich, Quellentexte 55 Revelation 21:2. Modell," in Otto Depenheuer, zur konservativen Revolution: Die 56 In their essay "Metropolis: ed., Staat und Schonheit: Jungkonservativen 1 (Toppenstedt: Jahrzehnte voraus- Jahrtausende Moglichkeiten und Perspektiven einer Berg, 2006; reprint of Berlin: zuruck," Wolfgang Jacobsen and Staatskalokagathie (Wiesbaden: VS, Ring-Verlag, 1923); translated and Werner Sudendorf claim that Erich Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften, condensed by E. O. Lorimer as Kettelhut modeled the Gothic church 2005). Germany's Third Empire (London: on the Cologne Cathedral. That 64 On the thematic complex of Allen & Unwin, 1934). For an is incorrect: it is merely a Gothic the body and “biologizing" in introduction, see Hans-Joachim pastiche that does not refer to any the context of nationalism, see Schwierskott, Arthur Moeller van existing cathedral. Cf. Wolfgang Peter Walkenhorst, Nation, Volk, den Bruck und der revolutionare Jacobsen and Werner Sudendorf, Rasse: Radikaler Nationalismus Nationalismus in der Weimarer eds., Metropolis: Ein filmisches im Deutschen Kaiserreich, Republik (Gottingen: Musterschmidt, Laboratorium der modernen 1890-1914, Kritische Studien 1962). See also Andre Schluter, Architektur (Stuttgart: Menges, zur Geschichtswissenschaft Moeller van den Bruck: Leben und 2000), 8-39, esp. 22. 176 (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck Werk (Cologne: Bohlau, 2010), 57 Revelation 17:1-18. & Ruprecht, 2007), 80-149. and, most recently, Volker Weiss, 58 Significantly, the term "New Walkenhorst wrote: “This gradual Moderne Antimoderne: Arthur Babylon" emerged in the 1920s as shift of the semantic focus away Moeller van den Bruck und der almost synonymous with dissolute from cultural criteria toward the idea Wandel des Konservativismus Hollywood, which at the time was of a community of shared origin (Paderborn: Schoningh, 2012). shaken by numerous scandals. See was the expression of a growing 67 See, with additional references Kenneth Anger, Hollywood Babylon biologizing of political thought that to the literature, Claus-Ekkehard

160 BABELSBERG/BABYLON Barsch, Die politische Religion (New York: New York Univ. Press, Reich (see note 66), 114; Moeller des Nationalsozialismus, 2nd ed. 2005). van den Bruck, Germany's Third (Munich: Fink, 2002), 53-59. 78 Klaus Vondung, “Der Preis des Empire (see note 66), 125. 68 Moeller van den Bruck, Das Paradieses" (see note 76), 35. 86 “But only he may prophesy who dritte Reich (see note 66), 244-61; 79 See Klaus Schreiner, “Wann becomes to those who are blessed Moeller van den Bruck, Germany's kommt der Retter Deutschlands?: and who are physically and mentally Third Empire (see note 66), 242-64. Formen und Funktionen von at one with the growth of things that 69 See Jost Hermand, Der alte Traum politischem Messianismus in der want to become, with the human vom neuen Reich: Volkische Utopien Weimarer Republik,” Saeculum 49 beings in which that happens, with und Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt (1998): 107-160. the Volk from which and for which it am Main: Athenaum, 1988). 80 Like Carl Schmitt ’s Politische happens. Marx was not such a one. 70 See Claudia Kemper, “Wer soli Theologie, which had been published He was a Jew, a stranger in Europe Moeller van den Bruck sein? Die just a few years earlier, Metropolis who nevertheless dared to meddled kulturgeschichtliche Untrennbarkeit was a settling of accounts with the in the affairs of the European von Biografie und Rezeption," Archiv basic social order of the Weimar peoples. It was as if he wanted to fur Kulturgeschichte^ (2009): Republic. acquire a belated right to hospitality 381-407. 81 Moeller van den Bruck was not from them by helping them out of 71 A selection of his writings alone as a prophet of future realms. their miseries and showing them may be found in Weiss, Moderne One need only think of Julius a way out." See Moeller van den Antimoderne (see note 66), 483-88. Langbehn ’s Rembrandt als Erzieher; Bruck, Das dritteReich (see note 72 On this, see Schwierskott, Arthur in which he speaks of a secret 66), 28; Moeller van den Bruck, Moeller van den Bruck und der emperor. See Julius Langbehn, Germany's Third Empire (see note revolutionare Nationalismus in der Rembrandt als Erzieher (Leipzig: C. 66), 43 (translation modified). Weimarer Republik (see note 66), L. Hirschfeld, 1922). 87 “The thought of the Third Empire— 103-16. 82 Yet all of these sketches would to which we must cling as our last 73 See also Arthur Moeller van den have been inconceivable without and highest philosophy —can only Bruck,Jedes Volk hat seinen eigenen Friedrich Nietzsche. Famously, in his bear fruit if it is translated into Sozialismus , Schriften an die Nation book Die Geburt der Tragodie aus concrete reality. It must quit the 39 (Oldenburg: Stalling, 1931). This dem Geiste der Musik (translated as world of dreams and step into the title is already found as a phrase in The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit political world.” Moeller van den the chapter "Sozialistisch" in Das of Music), the philosopher assigned Bruck, Germany's Third Empire (see dritte Reich: see Moeller van den to art an immense task. Its Dionysian note 66), 14. Bruck, Das dritte Reich (see note energy that creates communitywas 88 Andre Kagelmann called von 66), 24; Moeller van den Bruck, supposed to counter the reflective Harbou a “National Socialist Germany's Third Empire (see note violence of modernity. He felt it was sympathizer. ” His discussions in 66), 38: “Each People has its own necessary to think back on German general tend to be too apologetic. Socialism." culture. See Friedrich Nietzsche, See Kagelmann, Der Krieg und die 74 Moeller van den Bruck, Das dritte Samtliche Werke: Kritische Frau (see note 2), 20-33, esp. 27. Reich (see note 66), 260; Moeller Studienausgabe in 15 Banden, ed. 89 Bruns, Kinomythen (see note 65). van den Bruck, Germany's Third Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, 90 Joseph Goebbels, entry for Empire (see note 66), 263. vol. 1, Die Geburt der Tragodie March 25, 1927, in Elke Frohlich, 75 Moeller van den Bruck, Das dritte aus dem Geist der Musik, 2nd ed. ed., on behalf of the Institut fur Reich (see note 66), 261; Moeller (Berlin: De Gruter, 1980), 9-156, Zeitgeschichte and with the support van den Bruck, Germany's Third esp. 149-50; translated by Walter of the Federal Archival Service of Empire (see note 66), 264. Kaufmann as “The Birth of Tragedy," Russia, Die Tagebucher von Joseph 76 Klaus Vondung, “Der Preis des in The Basic Writings of Nietzsche, Goebbels, part I, Aufzeichnungen, Paradieses: Gewalt in Apokalypse ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann 1923-1941, vol. 1/11, Dezember und Utopie,” in Reto Sorg and Stefan (New York: from the Spirit of Music 1925-Mai 1928 (Munich: K. G. Bodo Wurffel, eds., Utopie und (New York, Vintage, 1967), 15-144, Saur, 2005), 201. Although the Apokalypse in der Moderne (Munich: esp. 138-39. diaries of Goebbels have been Fink, 2010), 33-46. 83 Harbou, Metropolis (see note 1), 7; studied thoroughly, this remark has 77 On the apocalyptic crisis of Harbou, Metropolis (see note 3), 13. yet to attract any attention in the the Weimar Republic and the 84 Moeller van den Bruck, Das dritte literatureon Metropolis. This is a eschatological atmosphere that Reich (see note 66), 2; Moeller van grave omission given the explosive went along with it, see David Redles, den Bruck, Germany's Third Empire potential of its content. Hitler's Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic (see note 66), 13. Belief and the Search for Salvation 85 Moeller van den Bruck, Das dritte

JURGEN MULLER 161