Thea von Harbou: Metropolis--First Impressions

Thea von Harbou
Metropolis
Silent with some text
Black-and-white


First Impressions

This is my first reading of the novel, although I have seen various versions of the film, which, in my estimation, is one of the all-time great films.  The most recent viewing was of the reconstructed two hour and twenty-eight minute film.  It's one of the few DVDs that I now own.   While it's been a few years since I last saw the film, I had a strange reaction when I began the novel. I immediately flashed back to the film, for the tone or atmosphere of the novel was very similar to the film, or so I thought.  This may be because von Harbou wrote the screenplay for the film.

Both the novel and the film struck me as being rather formal, almost theatrical.  It's been awhile, as I said, since I've seen the film, but looking back now, I think it was much closer to being a play filmed on stage rather than a film with its greater freedom and flexibility.  This may make sense for a film, but a novel?




The beginning of the novel: 

Chapter I

Now the rumbling of the great organ swelled to a roar, pressing, like a rising giant, against the vaulted ceiling, to burst through it.

Freder bent his head backwards, his wide-open, burning  eyes stared unseeingly upward.  His hands formed music from the chaos of the notes; struggling with the vibration of the sound and stirring him to his innermost depths.  

.  .  .  .  .

Above him, the vault of heaven in "lapis lazuli;"  hovering  therein, the twelve-fold mystery, the Signs of the Zodiac in gold.  Set higher above them, the seven crowned ones:  the planets.  High above all a silver-shining bevy of stars: the universe.


Wouldn't this be a great opening for a silent film?  It's perhaps a bit overblown by today's standards, but it works, or at least it worked for me. 

Overall, I found the novel strange.  As I began reading, I immediately flashed back to the film.  I've never before ever felt that the novel and the film were so perfectly matched in tone or ambiance or whatever.

It's dated, of course, but that just makes it seem more alien.  This is not my world, even though it's depiction of a society that consisted solely of bosses and workers could be seen as a socio-economic allegory of  today--the 1% who control everything versus the rest of us.  There are also various religious elements in the story, as well as a reference to a Japanese pleasure quarter in Edo (it really exists). 

The following are just first impressions and are presented only for discussion, revision, or even elimination and really need a serious rereading on my part. 



Is this the story of an Oedipal conflict between Father and Son?

How accurate a depiction is this of actual Marxist practice?   Marxists talk of class warfare between capitalists and the workers, represented in the novel by the bosses (the head) and the workers (the hands).   However, in the real world there is a middle class.  What happened to them?

Is this a type of Jekyll and Hyde novel featuring the virtuous, virginal Maria and her evil seductive android double--a virgin and whore dichotomy?  Other examples of the double would be Dostoyevsky's novella "The Double" and Poe's "William Wilson."


A reread sometime in the near future is a must. 

I will do a blog post on the film, eventually, but it will take awhile because I'm still floundering around about the novel,  as you can tell from my comments above.