ts: "metropolis" vs. "m"

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the critical opinion on these films--forever shifting--is subject to all kinds of teleologies and fashions. call it noir vs. scifi maybe but it's more than that. "m" is famous for its ruthless efficiency/patterning but also its repleteness--its exploitation of every cinematic technique available (and a few new ones, mostly sound/image juxtaposition i.e. "elsie! elsie!"/balloon caught in the telephone lines/empty attic/etc.). "metropolis" is a more visionary film, more sprawling, more troublesome in its neat ending and its being just this side of kitsch. both movies are immensely show-offy in v. different ways.

i liked "m" better because "metropolis" was messy, too big, too silly. i've never had a strong taste for scifi even dystopian scifi. but i'm not so certain of my tastes anymore.

thoughts??

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 07:37 (twenty-two years ago)

m.
holds up better, gave birth to more.

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 3 July 2003 07:48 (twenty-two years ago)

anthony i'm curious to know what you mean by both statements! what did it give birth to? how does this make it better? what aspects of "metropolis" don't hold up well? how do you, personally, relate to both films?

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 07:50 (twenty-two years ago)

i find metropolis old fashioned and obvious, esp. in its sexual politics, and in many ways to safe.

m is filthy, nasty, dangerous and frightening, it gave birth to the sensational and aesthiczed violence and horror, as well as the whole innocent childs victim thing that is found in noir and noir knock offs. (hitchcock claimed it as primary infulence for one)

m also looks better.

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 3 July 2003 08:01 (twenty-two years ago)

although metropolis has been reinvented twice in the last 20 yrs, once with adam ant and one in anime. (and all of that minority report/ai urban dystopia nonesense can come from lang)

hmm maybe im wrong ?

― anthony easton (anthony), Thursday, 3 July 2003 08:06 (twenty-two years ago)

M is just cooler, but Metropolis is more important. In that way that merely saying the word "important" is enough.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 July 2003 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

hm, now you and anthony seem to be disagreeing. what makes "metropolis" important?

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:23 (twenty-two years ago)

The kids love it. Especially when showed with a live band.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

M is better acted.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Metropolis is more obviously referenced more often. It has a more palpable presence in cinema.
M is less well-known, less recognizable. Remember the comic of it from the late 80s/early 90s? That was wicked.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sorry to be so socratic about this, but I'm really curious to hear these opinions fleshed out.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:43 (twenty-two years ago)

If it hadn't been nearly 12 years since I've seen M (or read the comic) and about 5 since I last saw Metropolis, I'd be more than happy to do so, Amateurist. But I'm really just going with my gut here.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

what i like most about M is the sound. the odd silences that seem to abound in early sound film are always so strangely beautiful. i wish more movies were that quiet. you couldn't do that with a silent film.

i just rented metropolis today.

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 3 July 2003 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, i like sound films before producers discovered wall-to-wall soundtracks. the soundtracks were sparser and much more deliberate, often much more evocative. bresson carried that tradition into the '80s, bless him.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

i like Metropolis better because it's science fiction. the ending is perhaps a bit lame, but still.

I love the way the machines in Metropolis that people have to work on don't seem to serve any purpose.

M - yes, pretty good.

what's Dr Mabuse like?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 3 July 2003 20:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Seen both fims some time ago. I remember Peter Lorre gave a ver y strong impression as this psycho maniac. very good. while the people in metropolis were just more or less puppets (maybe youshould say robots?) in the play.

peter lorre was forever typecasted after that as a confused transpiring heavy criminal but enfin great actor nonetheless.

I like the haunting amotsphere of the city in m. it goes psycholiciaally deeper than the visual display of metropolis.

Dr. Mabuse is a bit of a mess as film.

― Erik, Thursday, 3 July 2003 20:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Dr Mabuse is gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. I saw it in one of the prints restored by the Munich Film Museum two years ago. There are so many astonishing scenes. It is only a mess compared to later Lang films. I adore it. I also adore "Die Mude Tod" ("Destiny"). Though I'd run out of breath naming all the great Fritz Lang films. It'd be easier to name the not-great ones, there are just a handful really.

Brigitte Helm is pretty memorable in "Metropolis" I'd say.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Metropolis is visually gorgeous, but weakened by its rather silly plot. M is less flashy but it's a much deeper film, I think. The way Lang and Lorre manage to arouse sympathy for the murderer in the "trial" scene is even more troubling than what Hitch does with Perkins in Psycho.

Oddly enough I was reading C. Crowe's Billy Wilder book the other day and Wilder sez he based the look of Double Indemnity on M. Two of my favorite films, but I never would have made the connection.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 4 July 2003 00:33 (twenty-two years ago)

two weeks pass...

― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 18:05 (twenty-two years ago)

four years pass...

Lost scenes from Metropolis found:

http://www.zeit.de/online/2008/27/metropolis-vorab-englisch

― Chess, Thursday, 3 July 2008 02:22 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.zeit.de/online/2008/27/bg-metropolis-en

stills

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Friday, 4 July 2008 19:28 (seventeen years ago)

one year passes...

so, newly restored version of Metropolis starts streaming in about 90 mins?

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100211/COMMENTARY/100219992

― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Friday, 12 February 2010 17:35 (fifteen years ago)

Dammit why do this on a Friday night?

― I'm afraid we're dealing with Garth Crooks (Noodle Vague), Friday, 12 February 2010 18:09 (fifteen years ago)

oh i seriously hope it's not like this the whole way through - a camera pointed at a screen playing the movie.

― ianmaxwell, Friday, 12 February 2010 19:51 (fifteen years ago)

― ianmaxwell, Friday, 12 February 2010 19:52 (fifteen years ago)

why can't they zoom in, even just a little?

― ianmaxwell, Friday, 12 February 2010 19:54 (fifteen years ago)

I guess we're not losing anything in America, then!

― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Friday, 12 February 2010 19:58 (fifteen years ago)

nope. the movie is taking up maybe 4% of my screen

― ianmaxwell, Friday, 12 February 2010 20:06 (fifteen years ago)

My mate in Switzerland is watching this tonight.

― Pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Friday, 12 February 2010 23:00 (fifteen years ago)

two months pass...

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2010/04/winks-like-sarah-palin-does-production-numbers-like-lady-gaga.html

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Friday, 23 April 2010 11:57 (fifteen years ago)

This thread is way too short. Thanks, Morbs.

M is just cooler, but Metropolis is more important. In that way that merely saying the word "important" is enough.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann)

This is interesting, because I'd say the exact opposite. Or at least I'd say that Metropolis is the first movie that's not only full of spectacle, but in a way also *about* spectacle, and "M" is just... well it's about a fantastically creepy little man who kills children. And somehow, IMO, it's the better film.

― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 23 April 2010 12:05 (fifteen years ago)

Maybe it's that bit in Metropolis where his job is to turn a clock that turns me off of it a little bit. "M" is full of metaphors, but none that clunky.

― Jack Human (kenan), Friday, 23 April 2010 12:07 (fifteen years ago)

i like 'metropolis' but i feel like chaplin handled a lot of the same material better in 'modern times.' not that i'm not totally stoked to see the complete version of the former.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 24 April 2010 19:31 (fifteen years ago)

A LOT of the same material?

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 24 April 2010 20:57 (fifteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

saw the new cut of metropolis last night. seems to drag out the problematic third act a bit.

still had a blast.

― original bgm, Friday, 21 May 2010 14:32 (fifteen years ago)

anyone else?

howbout the BluRay of M?

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 May 2010 00:57 (fifteen years ago)

Saw the restoration last night...the new footage filled in the plot blanks, but did it really add all that much? Aside from the Hel statue, I guess.

Also, the usual third of the Film Forum audience guffawed throughout. I'd like to feed them to Moloch.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 25 May 2010 14:16 (fifteen years ago)

agreed. was expecting the new footage to add up to more as well.

― original bgm, Tuesday, 25 May 2010 17:53 (fifteen years ago)

one year passes...

http://youtu.be/leAVS0OC6Ts

― (Chris Isaak Cover) (schlump), Thursday, 25 August 2011 22:04 (fourteen years ago)

i never knew this existed

― (Chris Isaak Cover) (schlump), Thursday, 25 August 2011 22:04 (fourteen years ago)

when it came out, was it awesome

― (Chris Isaak Cover) (schlump), Thursday, 25 August 2011 22:05 (fourteen years ago)

It got a hell of a lot of publicity, at least.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 25 August 2011 22:06 (fourteen years ago)

one year passes...

watched the restored version of metropolis, today. in some ways the film has more in common with a biblical epic than a science fiction film; most of the deco-futurist imagery fades away after the first 40 minutes or so. i was sorry to read in the accompanying dvd notes that Lang had toned down some of the more occult/horrific elements of the film, because the moments like that that remain are amongst the film's most powerful - the deadly sins coming to life, the whore of babylon's resurrection and ritual dancing (highly reminiscent of Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome), the pentagram painted next to robot maria's activation.

― Ward Fowler, Saturday, 16 February 2013 21:52 (twelve years ago)

three months pass...

http://io9.com/stunning-behind-the-scenes-photos-show-iconic-movies-in-512190237

― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 11 June 2013 20:45 (twelve years ago)

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