Structures of Narrativity in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"

Abstract

This study will attempt a analysis of Fritz Lang's Metropolis using concepts developed by A.-G. Greimas, particularly those of his Elements d'une grammaire narrative (Paris: Le Seuil, in Du Sens). Greimas's system of analysis posits three fundamentally distinct levels in any text: a deep structure of meaning (similar to Levi-Strauss's notion in myth analysis but based on a dynamic model of generation rather than a static set of paradigms), an level (shifts generated by the model become actions performed by characters), and finally the level of inscription in which the is presented in whatever matter of expression chosen (in this case the filmic text as read). Rather than explain in detail Greimas's theory and then proceed to Lang, we will begin the analysis of Metropolis, introducing theoretical points as they become relevant. To this end we will begin with a preliminary reading of the film in Greimasian terms (primarily at the anthropomorphic level), then proceed to an attempt at formalization of the structure (the deep level), and finally place the text in other systems of discourse, the texts of culture and ideology (using mainly the level of the inscription). Metropolis begins with a segment (a self-contained bit of expression read as a separate unit) which appears totally expository-having, however, a definite function in the narrative. Greimas points out, after Propp, that all narratives must begin with a manque, a lack of some sort. In many of Perrault's fairy tales this is a lack of food; in the Russian folk-tales analyzed by Propp it is the kidnapping of the king's daughter. Lang's film begins with a depiction of the totally alienated condition of the workers, their lack of control or even contact with their own conditions of existence. This lack marks the workers as the film's first subject or hero (as a collective unit), although their function as actant, as performer of a set of operations, changes in the cour e of the film, as we will see. (The lack posited by Greimas is, of course, similar to the problem considered as the root of in .texts on the short story or on scriptwriting. Greimas's notion has the advantage, however, of being more concrete from the point of view of analysis and comparison, if not of storywriting. It is easier to compare the lack of two specific objects than to compare two problems defined in different terms, giving a greater power of critical generalization.) One of the other major devices of all is also introduced in this first segment, but in a non-operative manner: the film is divided into various spaces, making possible various transfers or disjunctions. The workers are seen d scending from the machine rooms to their homes, using the giant elevators which form part of one of the film's ruling oppositions, movement by machine/self-movement, one aspect of he central opposition Machine/Human in the film's structure of meaning. This notion of space is central to the most daring aspect of Greimas's theories of narrative, his definition of all events as some sort of real or attempted transfer of an object, accompanied by or implying a spatial discontinuity. By this criterion the first function in Metropolis occurs in the film's second autonomous segment. Maria, as subject, takes the group of children (the object of value) from the worker city to the pleasure garden on the upper level. She is forced to leave, and the unit of (and the segment) is ended by the failure of this attempted transfer. This unit, isolated though it seems, does not remain unconnected with the as a whole, by its creation of another hero, Freder, and its anticipation of the penultimate transfer of an