Alloy Orchestra's "Metropolis" at Mass MoCA (7/1/00)
By Seth Rogovoy

(NORTH ADAMS, Mass., July 2, 2000)
- Drive-in movies were never like this. Nearly 500 people packed the outdoor Cinema Courtyard at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art to watch and listen to the multi-media presentation of the 1926 Fritz Lang classic, “Metropolis,” with a live score composed and performed by the Alloy Orchestra. What the Alloy’s score lacked in subtlety and sophistication was more than made up for in the built-in drama and no small degree of spectacle, both of the cinematic and aural kind.

Performing to a restored print that still bears the credits of producer Giorgio Moroder -- including the now embarrassing list of ‘80s rock acts including Billy Squier, Loverboy and Pat Benatar, who sang on his reconstructed version of the film -- Alloy was as much the show as was Lang’s seminal science fiction epic, which was not always a good thing. The film portrays a bleak, futuristic city in which a capitalist oligarch named Frederson nearly singlehandedly rules over a subterranean city of would-be slaves. Lang’s vision of industrial terror includes grinding gears, pumping pistons, exploding sparks, and faceless thousands toiling in robot-like fashion, in repetitive, 10-hour shifts, punctuated only by the sound of a steam whistle marking the end of one and the beginning of the next.

When the film picks up the story, however, the workers are in the midst of planning a revolt. They meet in secret, underground catacombs where they are spurred toward civil disobedience by a Joan of Arc-like figure named Maria. One day, when Maria, who apparently is a teacher, stumbles accidentally into the paradisical stadium where the children of the ruling class frolic, she catches the eye of Frederson’s son, Freder. Freder becomes obsessed with Maria and, spurning his father and his birthright, with helping improve the plight of the workers.

Things get complicated when Frederson engages the services of the mad scientist Rotwang. He orders Rotwang to construct a replica of Maria - who somehow winds up fulfilling the mother-and-wife role for the three male leads in this blatantly Freudian, Oedipal drama - to enable him to gain total control over the workers.

Things get out of hand when the “false Maria” stirs the workers into a violent frenzy, resulting in the destruction first of their own homes and then of much of Frederson’s Metropolis.

The scenes in which Rotwang constructs the false Maria are precursors to hundreds of such scenes in subsequent movies. They are filled with spectacular special effects, such as they were at the time, that suggest that for all the technological advances available to contemporary filmmakers, nothing substitutes for the sort of radical vision and imagination of a Fritz Lang.

If only one could say the same for Alloy’s score. While this much-touted, so-called junk percussion trio performed spiritedly, its musical vision failed to rise to the level of Lang’s multi-textured creation. Alloy painted in broad strokes, with musical slapstick rather than wit, and with primary colors rather than subtle shades and hues. There is a fine line between supporting a film with interesting music and getting in the way of it, and at various times the trio threatened to overwhelm the action on the screen. One recurring theme, “Yoshiwara,” named after the film’s nightclub, was a very catchy bit of ’60s-ish noir-rock, but it was overplayed and didn’t really mesh with the action. Other elements, such as the martial drumbeats or surf-rock passages, also drew more attention to themselves than they should have.

The group’s much vaunted rack of junk, which includes strips of sheet metal, a bedpan, a gong, truck springs and bells among other found objects, was used imaginatively, but also tended to draw a listener’s eye away from the screen - another absolute no-no.

This endeavor - writing new scores to perform with classic silent films - has spawned a whole new vital genre, which Mass MoCA is in its second season of presenting. Last year’s efforts, including the BQE Project’s score for “The Gold Rush” and Phillip Johnston’s “The Unknown,” were far superior, and based on his recording, Gary Lucas’s score for “The Golem,” which will be performed at MoCA on July 15, also looks promising. What these more successful scores have in common is the manner in which they merge seamlessly with the film while at the same time making their own statement with wit and intelligence sadly lacking in Alloy’s work.

[This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on July 2, 2000. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2000. All rights reserved.]

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