SOURCE: "Metroplis Mother-City—'Mittler'—Hitler," in Camera Obscura, Nos. 11-15, Fall, 1986, pp. 137-63.

In the following essay, Dadoun discusses Lang's Metropolis in terms of its moral ideology and presents possible reasons why Hitler admired the film.

Metropolis is a German film made by Fritz Lang in 1926. It is commonly held to be a "classic" of cinema; some even call it a "masterpiece." Apart from the stylistic qualities that make it, for many viewers, one of the masterworks of expressionism, it is chiefly the film's moral, or ideology, that has been singled out for praise. The final sequence, a model of the "happy ending," depicts the emotional reconciliation of the employer with his workers, brought about by the employer's son, who, with the blessing of Maria, the pure young woman who is soon to become his wife, assumes the role of Mediator (Mittler in German). The film drew harsh...