Streets lined with skyscrapers, only lit by flickering neon light, looking like canyons of concrete which even seem to touch the sky. The director Fritz Lang may have been fascinated by those images when he entered New York harbour and saw the city?s skyline on the occasion of the premier of his heroic epos Die Nibelungen. Three years later, on January 10th,1927 , Metropolis was shown for the first time in Berlin. Lang managed to unite his impressions with his wife?s screenplay in a spectacular way. But lets talk about the story first:

Metropolis is a city not too far in our future. Architects have implemented the most venturesome visions and built buildings that really seem to be sky high. But the breathtaking appearance of the city alone is illusive, as its social structure is solely built on a strict system of two classes: while the poor have to work like slaves in an underground city, the rich and famous live in the clover in the highest skyscrapers. In the centre of the city is the monumental tower of the business tycoon Joh. Fredersen (Alfred Abel), from where he pulls his strings. His counterpart is the girl Maria (Brigitte Helm), who preaches like a prophet in the workers city catacombs about love and peace and predicting the arrival of a unknown person who will be the «mediator between brain and hands», who will unite the rulers (the «brain») and the workers (the «hands»). Her words are petrol on the hatred and build up anger of the «ordinary people», which is a thorn in the side of Fredersen. As the virtually all mighty ruler over Metropolis he tries to incite a revolt, which he would then smash with brutal force, to strengthen his position. He orders Rotwang, a crazy but at the same time genius inventor, with the creation of a robot that looked like his counterpart, in order to manipulate the workers according to his will. The «new» Maria actually manages to incite the revolt: the revolt of the masses begins, vital machines are destroyed, incoming water is threatening to flood the underground city. But Federsen did not foresee that his son would fall in love with Maria and would join the side of the workers, to arise as the «mediator between the brain and the hands».

The reaction to Fritz Langs sinister vision of the future was split. The movie showed a wild mixture of science fiction and horror elements, spiced up with strong social criticism but primarily it showed a simple love story. Whilst some well meaning critics saw Metropolis as a masterpiece of cinematic history, others ripped it apart as the «dumbest movie ever» (H.G. Wells). Lang was even later accused of anticipating the social structure of the national socialists, with his detailed description of the leader and working classes. But nobody can blame him for the fact that the Nazis used the same vision of harmony between labour and capital for their agenda and that Hitler turned out to be a great admirer of Metropolis and even more so of Langs heroic epic The Nibelungen. The making of Metropolis was a risky venture for UFA (Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft). Instead of the planned 1 million Marks, in the two years of its making, with more than a million meters of film reel used and scenes which included up to 36.000 extras, the movie budget was in the end 5 times the original budget. For the first time a method of using translucent mirrors and models to give the illusion of a hectic city was used, which was invented by the cameraman Eugen Schüfftan. All the megalomania in front and behind the camera did not save Metropolis from becoming a financial disaster. The hope for success did not materialise in Germany or in America. The company was already weakened due to economic depression and after this flop was nearly bust.

Today nearly 80 years later, Metropolis has been acknowledged its important role in cinematic history. This classic is today, in its mutilated remains (20% of the movie material are missing) rated as the movie with biggest special effects in its time but also as the paradigm of monumental city scapes of «modern» American productions such as Blade Runner (1982) or The Fifth Element (1997). In 2001 Metropolis was included in the Memory of the World by the UNESCO, a program devoted to the documentary heritage of mankind, which includes Ludwig van Beethoven?s famous Ninth symphony as well as the early short movies by the Lumiere brothers.

It is hard to miss that the design of Mad Mags is based on scenes from Metropolis. The design should be regarded as a special tribute to the German actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who embodies the inscrutable inventor Rotwang.

Klein-Rogge was born on the 24th of November 1885 in Cologne and after studying the history of art, started a career in theatre, which took him all the way to Berlin. Here, through his wife Thea von Harbou, he meet the director Fritz Lang (whom she later married), which enabled him to star in ten consecutive movies, by the at that time still unknown Lang. Whilst Klein-Rogge played only a supporting role in Lang?s first success Der Müde Tod (1921), he was offered only a year later in the movie Dr. Mabuse der Spieler by Lang the lead role. A perfect choice, since Klein-Rogge embodies the super rogue, who wants to rule the world by using his hypnotic abilities. He also starred in the role of his life, in the sequel Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933) which was again directed by Fritz Lang.

Klein-Rogge starred as King Etzel in the two part movie version of the heroic saga Die Niebelungen, before he then again in Metropolis embodied insanity in the guise of a human. Similar to Dr. Frankenstein who worked in a dark and sinister laboratory on the construction of a artificial human, but differentiating in the fact that the Baron used dead human body parts and Klein-Rogges Rotwang was constructing the first cyborg in cinematic history: a robot with a human look! The fact that genius and insanity are not too far apart from each other, is impressively shown by Rotwang as he chasses the «real» Maria through the underground, pitch dark catacombs and tunnel systems only to then drag her into his laboratory. Rotwang is without a doubt one of the outstanding «mad scientists» of the silent film era. Klein-Rogge died on the 29th of May 1955 in Wetzelsdorf in Austria.

© Christian Lorenz