Metropolis Script
More than a quarter of the film
must be regarded as irretrievable lost.
Few other films have been so
systematically changed, mutilated,
corrupted as this one. Shots and titles
have been omitted and changed
However, of no other such mistreated film
do we know so well
what the film originally looked like.
Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou,
different-sex Siamese twins.
Just like their film.
The novel: Thea von Harbou’s film
behind the, under Fritz Lang’s film.
At this point, the music started
during the first screening…
The Metropolis theme.
A fanfare motif…
the orchestra follows…
a column of sound emerges.
Thea von Harbou’s message,
Lang didn’t believe in it.
He said: “I am fascinated by machines.”
Metropolis, the mother city,
city of mothers, mother of all cities.
The city, the film…
they too are machines.
Flywheels,
a crankshaft,
an eccentric disk,
A machine without Workers,
devoid of function,
pure movement…
rotating, thrusting…
a machine of desire. Round shapes
and jerking movements become one
