The Two Faces of Metropolis

In Metropolis, Fritz Lang creates a futuristic dystopian society in which the upper class “heads” and working class “hands” are completely divided. The working class citizens are confined to working and living in an underground world, a city beneath the city. The underground city is characterized by poverty, oppression, and slave-labor conditions. The underground workers are the hands that blindly carry out duties with machine-like precision. Meanwhile, the head of the system, chaired by Joh Fredersen, blindly governs the body of Metropolis with no concern for human dignity. The wealthy live in the open-air city above ground, which is portrayed as being highly functional but harboring internal conflict. In Metropolis, themes of class struggle and oppression are enforced through the use of imagery, scene composition and camerawork. However, the most poignant mode through which Lang communicates can be found in the city itself-- Metropolis is depicted as a two-tiered body representing two classes of people who independently function as different parts of the system.

At ground level, the city of Metropolis is illustrated as a modern, high-tech, bustling urban center which is oblivious to the horrors below. Lang’s concept for Metropolis, inspired by his visit to New York City , is eerily similar to some modern cities. High-rise office buildings pierce the skyline while elevated bridges are at full capacity with vehicles. Planes dot the sky and circle around buildings, including the Tower of Babel. Like the people, the city at first appears to be polished, efficient, and successful. Underneath the shiny exterior, the head of Metropolis is characterized by corruption, greed, and poor planning.

The brain of Metropolis is contained in the most dominant structure in the city, the Tower of Babel. Functioning as a head on a body, this grandiose structure is dome-shaped and adorned with spikes protruding high around its axis. Many city scenes have the sinister Tower of Babel looming in the background thus making it the focal point. On the top floor of the Tower of Babel lies Joh Fredersen’s office, which is the cranial compartment for the brain of Metropolis. When the office is introduced, the scene shows Fredersen pacing back and forth in front of a large panoramic-view window. The camera is in a fixed position while Fredersen walks the length of the window without adjusting his fixed stare. He does not hesitate or even glance outside the window. Assuming these panoramic windows are the “eyes” of the system overlooking the entire city, Fredersen is too focused on calculations to accurately evaluate the state of Metropolis. Hidden from view are the hands of the system, which are buried deeply in the earth. While pleading with his father, the protagonist Freder uses body language to urge his father to look outside, but