Digging deeper into Metropolis (1927)

[randy_byers]

A number of people, including Glenn Erickson, have written about how the nearly-complete reconstruction of Metropolis leaves us with a major puzzle: Why does the Master of Metropolis, Joh Fredersen, cause his city to be destroyed? Gordon Thomas has now dug into this question in an article for Bright Lights Film Journal in which, amongst other things, he looks at what Thea von Harbou's novelization of her own screenplay says on the subject. It's very interesting stuff, and Thomas also does a good job of talking about how the film's simplistic didactic message derails its powerful synergy of "epic myth and pulp excess."

My only problem with the piece is Thomas' denigration of Blade Runner at the very end of the article, where he draws out Ridley Scott's debt to Lang's film. He is so intent on labeling Blade Runner an "entertainment commodity" that he seems to have missed the fact that it too was initially butchered by a studio that found it incomprehensible. Oh well.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I hate it when people feel obliged to bash one good thing in order to praise another good thing. Tolkien gets this from fans of less renowned great pre-genre fantasists (Peake, Eddison) all the time. I think they're jealous. Really, I tell them, there's nothing to be jealous of. Tolkien's fame is a curse.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

What's particularly egregious about Thomas' line of criticism is that the statement "while UFA and Paramount may have wanted an entertainment commodity, they got something else entirely" could be applied word for word to the producers' attitude toward Blade Runner, as amply testified to by themselves on the documentaries on the most recent DVD.