Metropolis Redux
The climactic Battle of Metropolis in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel was an acute moment of trauma within and without the film. Audiences and critics reacted negatively to the extended sequences of the destruction of Metropolis. In particular, the decision by Snyder and cinematographer Amir Mokri to code the sequence in 9/11 imagery, a cultural sore spot for the American public. In the film, a major metropolitan city is attacked by a terrorist alien intent on whipping out their way of life. At first this destruction is set to the rhythmic humming and smashing of the kryptonian World Engine, as it causes buildings and debris to rise and fall like clockwork. Daily Planet head, Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) and a co-worker try to save some of their fellow reporters from the wreckage and find themselves covered in white soot. Imagery that directly evokes the soot covered visage of New York first responders at Ground Zero. The destruction of the World Engine is eventually stopped, not by Superman, but by the US army. Destruction does not stop the conflict, only move it to its next stage as villain General Zod takes on Superman personally.
Echoing Siegfried Kracauer’s assertion that cinema acts as a “mirror” for society, cultural critic Todd Vanderwerff argues that the prominence of superhero movies as the dominant genre domestically (and abroad) these past 15 years is their ability to filmically rewrite the events of that day. Unlike reality, the films superheroes with their extraordinary abilities can save everyone and all that is lost is property, “tragedy reimagined as cartoon” [1]. With these movies audiences, can ritualize that trauma (with their consistent release dates, and genre template) in order to deal with it. With its interconnected series of feature films, a cinematic universe, Marvel Studios has created something of a broad linear tract for America’s reaction to 9/11 and the growing concerns about measures taken to safe guard the home front in its wake. The climax of The Avengers (2012) involved the titular super team coming together and saving New York from an alien invasion. Director Joss Whedon made a point of showing the films colorful heroes working with responders and doing their best to save civilians. It was after this film that subsequent Marvel films began to question the culpability and effect these heroes and destruction they brought on the world around them, climaxing recently in Captain America: Civil War (2016).
The Battle of Metropolis is operatic in its mise en scene. Han Zimmer’s propulsive and blaring score act in concert with the punches and hits shown on screen. Metropolis is shown in many wide long shots giving viewers sense of scale as Superman and General Zod bounce across the cities buildings. In this grandiosity and god’s eye point of view, the human element is obfuscated. Buildings topple in the background as the camera intimately focuses on Superman and Zod’s physical struggle. The sequence touches on the human element briefly at times, cutting to Perry White trying to save Jenny and other bystanders, but they are small and anonymous against the crumbling cityscape. In this anonymity audiences begin to wonder about who and how many are in the falling buildings. A jarring moment of realization for a sequence crafted for audiences to if not identify with Superman’s struggle against Zod, lose themselves in the spectacle of the modern CGI driven blockbuster. This realization recasts not just Zod but Superman as destroyers. The construction of this climatic battle represents a break in generic tradition. Director Zack Snyder does not cue audiences to the scarcity (or not) of the populace or show his well-known multi-media hero trying to minimize the damage he and his foe are causing as past renditions have. Superman does not stop 9/11, he is made complicit with it and frustrating to audiences is the ambivalent tone accompanying him.
It is this negative, divisive, reaction the films climax elicited from audiences that would form the basis for Snyder’s follow up, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. After a more personal trauma, the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, was recreated in its credit sequence, the film would restage the Battle of Metropolis. This redux is more conventional and gives the films now seen victims an avenger, a Dark Knight, in the form of an older grizzled Bruce Wayne. If Man of Steel’s climax did not emphasize the human element enough, the opening to Batman v Superman is singularly focused on it, with Bruce Wayne as a grounding device. He is the star and point of view with the sequence built around his actions on the day “mankind is introduced to the Superman”. Wayne deftly maneuvers a car through the chaotic streets of the city, before charging into more danger in order to save employees of his company, a surrogate family. His actions are in sync with composers Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL’s score, all the filmic elements connoting that he has the symbolic “phallus” and the man who will save us from the alien threat. In restaging the sequence form another point of view, Snyder rewrites or at least recontextualizes the events of Man of Steel into something more generically mainstream.
A Media Gallery showing the two different takes on the same sequence as well as attempts to fully splice them together can be found HERE.
[1] Todd VanDerWerff, "Superhero Movies Have Become an Endless Attempt to Rewrite 9/11", Vox, (Sept. 2016), online, Sept. 2016, http://www.vox.com/2015/5/19/8577803/avengers-age-of-ultron-review-politics
