Second paragraph of third chapter of novel:
| Menschen, gierig nach dem Gewinn von Sekunden, stürzten zu ihm herein und, Stockwerke höher, tiefer wieder hinaus. Keiner achtete seiner. Der eine, die andere erkannte ihn wohl. Aber noch deutete niemand die Tropfen an seinen Schläfen anders als gleiche Gier nach dem Gewinn von Sekunden. Gut, er wollte warten, bis man es besser wußte, bis man ihn packte und aus der Zelle stieß: Was nimmst du uns den Platz weg, Lump, der du Zeit hast? Krieche die Treppen hinunter oder die Feuerleitern … | Persons, greedy to gain a few seconds, stumbled in with him, and stories higher, or lower, out again. Nobody paid the least attention to him. One or two certainly recognised him. But, as yet, nobody interpreted the drops on his temples as being anything but a similar greed for the gain of a few seconds. All right – he would wait until they knew better, until they took him and threw him out of the cell: What are you taking up space for, you fool, if you’ve got so much time? Crawl down the stairs, or the fire escape… |
Every year since 2020 I’ve done a round-up blog post detailing what science fiction has been set in the year to come. There is surprisingly little for 2026. Literally the only sf novel that I have found which is entirely set in that year is Metropolis, published in 1925 by Thea von Harbou. Even there, I didn’t find anything in the text of the book that explicitly references the year; but people have been writing that it is set in 2026 since soon after publication, so I am guessing that the original blurb may have said so.
The film and book have the same plot, which is not surprising as von Harbou wrote them both. A future heavily industrialised city depends on the labour of the underclass. Freder, the son and heir of the city’s founder Joh, falls in love with Maria, a women from the depths; meanwhile Rotwang, the city’s chief inventor, creates a robot version of Maria which incites the workers to rebellion. After near-disaster, the robot is destroyed and Freder reconciles his father with the workers.
I may have been unlucky with the translation, but I found the novel rather clunky and not at all subtle; of course it’s firmly rooted in the political ferment of the Weimar Republic, and it’s about von Harbou’s hope that social upheaval could be contained by a grand bargain between workers and rulers, provided that they avoid the snares of populism. This was not of course what actually happened in Germany, and the workers don’t actually seem to get much out of the grand bargain; the rulers are still the rulers at the end of the book. Earnest but not super well executed. You can get it here.
The film has the same plot, but the plot is not the point: under Fritz Lang’s direction, it’s a cinematic masterpiece, even if the version we have is stitched together from the surviving theatrical release and off-cuts found in Argentina. The activation of the robot Maria is the iconic scene, but almost all of it looks brilliant – the vast machinery, the city-scape, the crowd scenes of the workers, the fleeing children, the erotic frenzy of the posh chaps at the night club, the climactic battle on the roof top. The sophistication of the special effects sets a standard that was rarely equalled for decades after. And Birgitte Helm is unforgettable as the two Marias.
I watched it on my iPad in three chunks – during my recent trip to Montenegro – but I would happily pay to see it on a big screen, and I am inclined to seek out some more of von Harbou and Lang’s collaborations.
