We Shall Build a Tower That Will Reach to the Stars!

In 1927, Austrian filmmaker Fritz Lang premiered his latest masterpiece to a modest reception in Berlin: Metropolis it was titled, so-named for the futuristic citystate where its story takes place. The black-and-white silent film describes a society split into two vastly disparate castes: the privileged Thinkers, who dwell in the lofty upper levels of the skyscrapered urban cityscape, and the oppressed Workers, who wallow in an underground dystopic squalor.

Borne of the waning German Expressionism movement, the working-class exploitation in the post-Industrial Revolution years, and Lang's own shell-shock from having fought in World War I, Metropolis was criticized by many for encouraging the rise of Fascism. In 1933, Hitler's confidante Joseph Goebbels himself attempted to persuade Lang to produce propaganda films for the Nazi regime. Lang, who despised the Nazi philosophy, escaped to America instead.

But apart from any social commentary, Metropolis is a dazzling science-fiction masterpiece with special effects aeons ahead of its time. Its influence can be found in all manners of modern pop culture, including movies such as The Matrix, Blade Runner, and (honest) SpongeBob SquarePants, Madonna music videos, and Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Not surprisingly, Lang has often been compared with early George Lucas - after Star Wars and American Graffiti but before the crush of the Hollywood machine.

You can see it on the big screen when it plays at the Alamo Drafthouse this Friday, accompanied with a live score by DJ NickNack, local turntablist extraordinaire and CEO of Crowd Control Records. We can't wait to hear the crazy soundtrack he creates to complement the visual spectacle.

Metropolis
Alamo Drafthouse Downtown
Friday, May 27
Showings at 7:00pm and 9:45pm