# Metropolis

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 within the image of two clocks. One-hour and one-hour clock. Day shift and night shift, hours each, mark the Metropolis working day.

Two groups of Workers, uniformed, in rows of six, march in unison, the exhausted half as fast as the fresh.

The Workers' theme - a funeral march. The night shift enters a cage… the grate is raised, the cage sinks, and with it the camera.

A title picks up the movement. The title's movement is carried through to the movement of the picture.

The Workers: Now just a painted silhouette rising in the background, the design of the Underground Workers' City.

Elevators transport the Workers up and down between the machine halls and their living quarters. A new musical theme: The Theme of the City of the Workers.

The main square of the Workers' City. Simply a transit area for the Workers returning to their quarters. In the centre a gong, again a kind of alarm clock.

The downward scroll of the title is answered by a rising, equilateral triangle pointing skywards.

The Sports stadium, the contrast is stark between its openness under sweeping skies and the cramped City of the Workers - just as stark as the contrast between the liberated and carefree movements of the youths, dressed in white, and the dull lethargy of the darkly clothed Workers - and the self-determined horizontal movement versus the downward ride of the Workers in the lift.