This is October 31st. By my clock, as I commence this work, the day is only three hours old. This is, of course, the date of Halloween. For some reason, here in the dead of night, I am reminded of this same time thirty-eight years ago. In 1988 Halloween fell on a Sunday. The particular events that come to mind occurred on a Saturday night rolled into a Sunday morning, which was like today, the morning of Halloween.
At the then tender age of twenty-six, I had only recently moved into a townhouse on the extreme northern edges of Columbus, Ohio. This was at the dawn of an urban sprawl, which has since erased that entire landscape. The other side of the road in those years was still cornfield; the complex was still under construction. It was quite fortunate at the time that I was the only resident in the block. On the night in question, I was to play host to a small house party that did not even begin until 3:00 AM. Halloween morning.
There was a small society of us night people, bar and restaurant workers with no place to go after closing time. I do not pretend that this little club was not replicated many times over, all across the western world. This was already a long-standing custom for people employed in these fields and, though I'm no longer a participant, I'm quite certain that it is a phenomenon that survives today. Every night, after closing time, the party would move somewhere. Not always in the same place and often there were several choices available for the same night. The one common theme throughout was that these gatherings revolved around and included what I refer to as the "drink culture". And then there was our little troupe.
To be completely honest, one could not say that none of us drank (except for one), but we were not drinkers. Our drug of choice was weed. Sometimes more potent and equally illicit substances, but mostly the green. I had a circle of about a half dozen people who, for varying reasons, were of like mind. We didn't mind including a few beers in the mix, sometimes, but we just did not find any enjoyment being in the company of drunks.
I had known ahead of time that I would be hosting that night, I just didn't know how many guests. It ended up being a party of four; myself, Celeste Wilde, a man named Clark and his friend, Sal the gravedigger. There were a couple of things that I had planned to share that night. There was a musical selection already cued for the old Pioneer rack system, a 200-watt monster with giant box speakers set up on stands. And there was a film that I had picked out from the local video store: the 1926 silent classic, Fritz Lang's Metropolis. On VHS, of course. It was the 1984 reconstruction, featuring a Giorgio Moroder soundtrack.
Now, at age twenty-six, I was the "elder statesman" of this group. Most of the young people in the business at this time were part of what I would call the "Guns and Roses" crowd, being in sore need of a more positive musical influence. With no other residents in the block there was no reason not to play King Crimson's Lark's Tongues in Aspic on max volume at 3:30AM. So, that is precisely what we did. These were King Crimson virgins, and I was proud to pop that cherry.
If you are at all familiar with the album, then you are aware of the vast sonic landscape explored therein. If you are, by some misfortune, not familiar with this work, I highly recommend that you give it a listen. Where better than King Crimson's own site:
If you like this, obtain a copy in some physical media while you still can.
For my novice audience that night, the first three tracks (about 24 minutes) were greeted with some skepticism. They endured David Cross' exposition on the electric violin, some of them understandably drawing comparisons to the band Kansas. They were puzzled by the avant garde rhythmic explorations of the set's percussionist, Jamie Muir. Then we got to the meat of it!
The final three tracks, Easy Money-The Talking Drum-LTIA pt.II, still feature the signatures of Cross and Muir, while bringing to bear the full talents of the band's core lineup of the time: Robert Fripp on lead, John Wetton on bass and the incomparable Bill Bruford on the kit. I got to watch that final twenty-two minutes of pure sonic burn, from Bruford and Muir's duel through Easy Money, to John Wetton's ending bass drop rattling the windowpanes.
That little crew was blown away. Of course, the volume level helped. And being very stoned greatly enhanced the experience. Looking at it from today's perspective, I'm proud to say that the experience did result in at least one life-long King Crimson convert. Batting over .300 isn't bad.
Lark's Tongues in Aspic was just the warmup act. After a short break to give our ears a rest.... yes, that was loud AF. I went through that now forgotten art of rigging up the television set and the VCR onto a rolling cart, which had been designed for the very purpose. A big, clunky, cords trailing cabinet; a solid shelf for the chief components each, 35" (?) color Zenith above; single head VHS player/VCR of indeterminate manufacture below. All of that to watch a movie. Yeah, it's okay. I miss them too. Today they want you to get all your shit off your phone. And you can, as many now do. I'm just saying... it wasn't that bad, you know? It's not like we were primitives! In the rest of this narrative, you will learn what four stoners with very limited technology can accomplish. All because of an accident. A lost legend of the analogue age.
We are now easily into the territory of 4:30AM, Halloween morning. Everyone has had a chance to stretch their legs, go to the bathroom, grab a snack, or re-dose. Maybe all of the above. It was still dark outside. There was still some music playing on the stereo, at a considerably reduced volume. I can't remember now what was playing or who had put the music on. I was busy getting the film cued up. I had the picture up on screen, still didn't have the audio, so the stereo continued to play. Then something very odd happened. It seemed that whatever was playing, while not perfectly synchronized, matched pretty well with the opening frames of the film. This captured everybody's attention, so much so that when I did get the audio feed corrected, it only took a couple of minutes of Moroder's synth heavy soundtrack before everyone agreed, "Hell! Leave the music on!"
What was an eighty-three minute feature, became a stop, rewind, stop, play marathon, as one suggestion after another was thrown up. This certainly wasn't what I had planned, but as everyone was getting into this idea, I just kept running with it. This went on until well after sunrise, until Clark and gravedigger Sal headed for home. For Celeste and I, it didn't end there. For the next month or so we continued to work at this, a little bit at a time, actually compiling an alternate soundtrack on a Memorex cassette. All manually. Stop and go on the film with one set of hands at the VCR; record and stop, or fade and stop on the dual cassette deck with the other. This tape actually survived numerous moves over the years. I located it again about ten years ago but am sorry to say that it has since been lost.
There are several other reconstructions of this film available now. I know that there have been a number of these posted on YouTube and I'm pretty sure most of them are still up. If you are not familiar with the film and are interested, then certainly do some search of your own. Since our soundtrack was calibrated to the Moroder version, we have posted a link below:
Metropolis (1927) [1984 Giorgio Moroder Version] [1080p] - YouTube
After having watched the film again, I find that I am able to reconstruct much of that alternate soundtrack from memory. It was by no means perfect but given the limited tools and materials to work with at the time, I was quite proud of what we had accomplished. Ultimately, no one else gave a shit, so here we are.
We managed to synch up Pink Floyd's One of these days to the opening scene. That worked rather well. The song played through the shift change scene and the intro to the worker's city below ground. We had to employ a fade there, at the intro to the "paradise" of the world above.
For that next scene we were able to use Brian Eno's Saint Tom. That worked very well, with a fade at the next graphic, prior to the film's protagonist, Freder, entering the underworld in pursuit of Maria. Freder's descent through those doors cued The Devil's Triangle from King Crimson's In the Wake of Poseidon. This creepy and ominous set worked well enough, though not so well as the others. The tone of it worked quite well, particularly at the Moloch hallucination. It played through the factory, the explosion and the march of the wounded that followed. It was necessary to employ another fade at the ending of that scene.
I can recall that we had encountered an issue of timing there, and we had experimented with several bits as filler in between. My recollection fails me here as to what exactly we had settled on. Other memorable parts were the use of Pink Floyd's Sisyphus for the film's introduction of Rotwang, the "mad scientist"; Led Zeppelin's Black Mountain Side for the dance of the seven deadly sins, and later into the film When the Levee Breaks, for the flood scene in the worker's city.
There were parts where we were able to use portions of Peter Gabriel's Games Without Frontiers and The Cocteau Twins' Grail Overfloweth, but timing issues required that these were awkwardly chopped up. The results would have been better if we'd had the use of the sound recording and editing technologies of today. Which brings us to today, one hundred years after the film's release.
Over the last few years, I have been mindful of the approaching anniversary. I kept thinking, "Surely someone will conjure some centennial rebirth of this film?" It hasn't happened and I've heard nothing about any projects in the works. I think I know the reason why. The overarching theme of this story is the need for balance between the heart and mind. But there are other themes depicted in this story which, for the class of people running the big studios, would stray dangerously close over the target.
Lang's vision of this futuristic mega-city was not so far off of the mark. The depictions of this great metropolis, teeming with bullet trains and flying machines, was quite fantastic for it's day. While the technical portrayals do not hold up to the current day, the themes remain relevant. Lang's presentation of human nature, and more importantly the nature of societies, is accurate in any age.
First of all, this film was not created in a total vacuum. It is based upon the 1925 novel of the same name by Thea von Harbou. Lang and Harbou collaborated on the screenplay. This is amid the fractious and unstable Weimar Republic Germany. I think that it is fair to say that today's "western democracies" are likewise in a fractious and unstable state. The intrigues and manipulations employed by the masters in the film were familiar territory for the political climate of that shaky republic. These are familiar to today's climate as well.
The masters of this dystopia are embodied in the single person of Joh Frederson, the father of the film's chief protagonist, Freder. One of the great criticisms of the film in it's day was the seemingly overt and overly facile depiction of communist themes. The "red scare" in the Germany of the time was valid, so the critics were not entirely wrong. Joh Frederson was cast in the mold of the bourgeoisie oppressor, so I can understand that framing, but I think that is missing the mark. One must digest this character in the full context of the film.
Look at Joh Frederson, "der Meister". He resides within a tower that is a shadow cast from antiquity: the Tower of Babel. The Castle Keep of the feudal age had it's Lord, typically a man tempered in battle, who offered the castle in protection for his people; albeit the offer was conditional upon the people's labor. But that is not what the Tower of Babel was, and neither is the great fortress of Metropolis. These are not great defensive battlements to withstand a hostile invader. They are monuments to the might of Man! A manifestation of the visions of the anointed, as Dr. Sowell might say. Joh Frederson is the master of his city, his people and destiny itself. Such men, whether they be of a capitalist or communist flavor, have the same thing in common. They don't allow mere peons get in the way of their grand visions.
We still have these people today, so blinded by the halo of their own brilliance that they are blind to the trail of carnage their visions leave in their wake. They regularly inhabit those segments of society from which they have the platform to lecture us all. It's all for your own good. They dismiss any questions. They needn't explain themselves. It's not like the plebes could understand anyway. And... they are insulated, in a tower far above it all. Like Joh Frederson.
Joh Frederson had a secret partner, a scientist no less. Rotwang, the mad scientist, who built a robot. A robot he was only too happy to show off (and ultimately hire out) to the master. Considered in modern terms, Rotwang is every soulless tool that is engaged in weapons research. Gain of function research. Mass surveillance and AI data farms. Pick your poison, there are many. And just like in the film, you not only need be concerned about how the masters will employ these things, but also any ulterior motives that their creators may have.
The robot is cloaked with the image of the girl from the worker's realm, Maria. Maria is the heroine character of this story, the infatuation of young Freder. The robot bearing her likeness is set loose amid the workers, by the design of the Master to sow dissension in their ranks. The robot succeeds in this, and more, because Rotwang's design was to sow enough chaos to bring Metropolis down entirely. This was to settle an old score, a long past rivalry with Frederson for the affections of the same woman.
While Robot Maria is stirring up riots in the worker's city and creating scandal at Yoshiwara's house of ill repute, Rotwang holds the real Maria captive in his dungeon laboratory. This leads to the one scene that I believe holds the greatest relevance to today. Finally confronted with the monstrosity of what he has unleashed, Rotwang admits this to his captive:
"I have lost control of the robot and the inevitable consequences frighten me."
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