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Product description

Product Description

Directed by Fritz Lang, this acclaimed vision of a 21st century city is widely held to be one of the greatest films of the silent era. In the year 2000, industrialist John Frederson rules over a giant city where the workers exist only as an underclass. They call for rebellion, but their leader Maria urges them to wait for a mediator. When Frederson kidnaps Maria and replaces her with a robot replica, the workers are incited to revolt. Many different versions of Lang's masterpiece have been distributed over the years; this one clocks in at 118 minutes and features the original Gottfried Huppertz musical score.

Amazon.co.uk Review

If you think you know Fritz Lang's Metropolis backwards, this special edition will come as a revelation. Shortly after its premiere, the expensive epic--originally well over two hours--was pulled from distribution and re-edited against Lang's wishes, and this truncated, simplified form is what we have known ever since 1926. Though not quite as fully restored as the strapline claims, this 118-minute version is the closest we are likely to get to Lang's original vision, complete with tactful linking titles to fill in the scenes that are irretrievably missing. Not only does this version add many scenes unseen for decades, but it restores their order in the original version.

Until now, Metropolis has usually been rated as a spectacular but simplistic science fiction film, but this version reveals that the futuristic setting is not so much prophetic as mythical, with elements of 1920s architecture, industry, design and politics mingled with the mediaeval and the Biblical to produce images of striking strangeness: a futuristic robot burned at the stake, a steel-handed mad scientist who is also a 15th Century alchemist, the trudging workers of a vast factory plodding into the jaws of a machine that is also the ancient God Moloch. Gustav Frohlich's performance as the hero who represents the heart is still wildly overdone, but Rudolf Klein-Rogge's engineer Rotwang, Alfred Abel's Master of Metropolis and, especially, Brigitte Helm in the dual role of saintly saviour and metal femme fatale are astonishing. By restoring a great deal of story delving into the mixed motivations of the characters, the wild plot now makes more sense, and we can see that it is as much a twisted family drama as epic of repression, revolution and reconciliation. A masterpiece, and an essential purchase.

On the DVD: Metropolis has been saddled with all manner of scores over the years, ranging from jazz through electronica to prog-rock, but here it is sensibly accompanied by the orchestral music Gottfried Huppertz wrote for it in the first place. An enormous amount of work has been done with damaged or incomplete elements to spruce the image up digitally, and so even the scenes that were in the film all along shine with a wealth of new detail and afford a far greater appreciation for the brilliance of art direction, special effects and Helm's clockwork sexbomb.

A commentary written but not delivered by historian Ennio Patalas covers the symbolism of the film and annotates its images, but the production information is left to a measured but unchallenging 45-minute documentary on the second disc (little is made of the astounding parallel between the screen story in which Klein-Rogge's character tries to destroy the city because the Master stole his wife and the fact that Lang married the actor's wife Thea von Harbou, authoress of the Metropolis novel and screenplay!). There are galleries of production photographs and sketches; biographies of all the principals; and an illustrated lecture on the restoration process which uses before and after clips to reveal just how huge a task has been accomplished in this important work. --Kim Newman

Product details

Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 4:3 - 1.33:1
Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.03 x 13.76 x 1.48 cm; 83.16 g
Director ‏ : ‎ Fritz Lang
Media Format ‏ : ‎ PAL
Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 58 minutes
Actors ‏ : ‎ Alfred Abel, Brigitte Helm, Gustav Frolich, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Rasp
Studio ‏ : ‎ Eureka
Producers ‏ : ‎ Erich Pommer
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00007JGIW
Writers ‏ : ‎ Fritz Lang, Thea Von Harbou
Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 2

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archanoid

Reliving my childhood.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 February 2024

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Reliving my childhood, I am not as old as the film but it still holds its own today, great.

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Denis Joe

Cinema as Symphony

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2011

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One of the most important events of film history has been realised with the editing together of Lang's masterpiece.

It was the first time that I had seen Metropolis in 30 odd years, and seeing it today illustrates, to me, how much it reflects the confusion of modernity; making it a work that also taps into our own times.

One of the works that it brought to mind was Mahler's 3rd symphony, with its quote from Nietzsche's `Also sprach Zarathustra' (`O man! Take notice'). Like Mahler, Lang introduces us to the ethereal as well as the mundane. Even Huppert's score echoes Mahler (as much as the music of new romanticism did at the time, composers such as Zemlinsky, for example).

Enough words have been said about the style of the film, and the impact that it has had on later filmmakers ( It is suggested that Stanley Kubrick based Dr Stranlove - the character played by Peter Sellers - on Rotwang, but I wonder if he may have also had Lang in mind; when one sees the interview with Lang on this disc, the comparison is quite stunning).

Though I don't want to dwell on Lang's biography too much there has always been this image of Lang as some sort of progressive, whilst his wife (of the time), Thea von Harbou, who wrote the novel and screenplay for Metropolis, is portrayed as some Nazi-loving bitch who stayed behind when Lang `escaped' to the USA. Jonathan Rosenbaum, writing in the accompanying booklet, compounds the image by referring to Metropolis' `[naïve]' socialist notions' [p.11] and though the compromising of capitalist and workers interest fits in with the reforming socialist ideals of Social Democracy, much of the film seems to be a product of the ideology of the rising Nazi party.

In hindsight we can see the clips where the workers go to and come off their shifts as the later images of Jews being herded into concentration camps (even the dream-like image of workers being thrown into the furnace/mouth of Moloch, reinforces that). But there are other aspects of the film that makes it understandable as to why Hitler loved Metropolis and could say of Lang: "Here is a man who can give us great Nazi films!" Rotwang can be seen as the cause of all the problems of the city and although he does not appear as a caricature Jew, we do see a star (though not the Star of David, exactly) on his door, suggesting the Jewish conspiracy theory, so loved by anti-Semitics. Added to that Rotwang can easily be seen as a Rabbi Lowe figure who, using one of the Nazi's theories of the Jewish Bolsheviks, creates an evil Maria, who later stirs up trouble amongst the workers (and it is wondered if Lang and von Harbou had the murdered revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg, as the model for the `evil' Maria).

But if anything, it is the elitist fear of `the mob' that dominates the second half of the film. The workers are portrayed as mindless `idiots' for allowing themselves to be swayed by the `evil' Maria, and, as if to reinforce the contempt for `the mob' taking revolutionary action the music during the scenes of the workers destroying the machines is a twisted `La Marseillaise'.

The story itself is, to put it mildly, garbage, but the ending (seen as being one of the worst conclusions to a film) seems to me to be the only one available. It works as a compromise between the totalitarian ideals of Nietzsche inspired Nazism and a liberal democracy where `we are all in this together'.

To reject Lang's German films on the basis that they were applauded by Hitler and Goebbels and, to some extent, acted as Nazi propaganda, would be wrong. Art calls on whatever is available at the time and this was the climate of Germany during the period when Lang was making this film.

I think that this film (though I prefer `M') is one of the greatest films ever. It matters little about the politics (except for analytical purposes)for an appreciation of the work as a whole. Like Wagner's Ring Cycle, Metropolis did not bring about the rise of the Nazis, the Nazis exploited those things that, ideologically, the could relate to in those works.

Metropolis not only reflects the confusion of Modernity (a confusion much abound these days as well) it portrayed that confusion in the most far-seeing manner that the time allowed.

It became the benchmark for other films (mainly, but not solely, science fiction _ there is a scene where the water pours through a crack in the ground, which made me think of the bleeding walls in Kubrick's `The Shining') and even the recently found scenes, that are scratched and of poor quality, still seem amazing.

But for me, I find that the film is the height of modern aesthetics. Whilst life for the workers is brutal, the architecture of the city, that dominates the film, is simply beautiful.

This film has suffered the worst butchering of any work of art I can think of. Not only having so much cut out from it but also having to be put through the indignity at the hands of Mororder in 1984. It is indeed a great pleasure that we have been given this version today. The film world and audience should be forever grateful to those that found and worked on this restoration and then released it.

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sheila wraights.a.wraight

A Forgotten Gem By Fritz Lang and Forgotten Master !!!!!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 May 2017

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Im am so glad that I could finally add my favourite film to my dvd collection as I had seen it on televison when it first came to light in 2010 when it premiered, and have waited a long time to get this but it was always out of stock or to expensive but I recived it as a birthday gift, and watched it that day I will say one thing this 1927 SC-FI masterpiece is no for the faint hearted this is because it is a 3 hour silent black and white marathon but, if you persevere you will be rewarding with a interesting plot about a damaged Class system and rich and poor divide and how Jon Fredersen thinks all the workers are dispensable and enegy to power the city above, there is also a love story and a rebellion or two and at least one case of mistaken identity all to a powerful driving and everchaning score, makes for a thrilling rollercoaster ride of a film that you can't help but love and wish it will never end, because you will really feel for the chracters even though they don't say a word, this just goes to show how much of a master of his craft Fritz Land was and strong Thea Von Harbous screenplay is it really is a forgotten gem by a long forgotten master im glad its preserved for generations to come. I also would reccomend the Novel By Thea Von Harbou and Joe Brooks and Dusty Hughes Musical version that you can get a recording of it is a wonderful adaption with a powerhouse of a cast both of these a even more seriously underated then the film.

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Amazon Customer

Classic Sci-Fi

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 August 2023

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Fritz Lang's cult classic Sci-Fi film.
It is in a single case, with two DVD discs.
A great film at a great price

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Film Buff

A Superb Visual Feast or a Broken-backed Mess?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 July 2013

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It is both ironic and unfortunate that Fritz Lang is best remembered for one of his worst films. When he had finished Metropolis in 1926 he declared himself dis-satisfied with the result as it flopped on initial release and was cut to bits by Paramount for its American distribution. When it was re-released in Germany, the American cut was used until its ban by Josef Goebbels. All old prints were thought to have been returned to Ufa and destroyed. Metropolis as Lang had originally meant it to be was lost for 80 years. How fortunate we are then at the finding of an almost complete print in Buenos Aires in 2008 and the resulting glorious Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung restoration found on this release of the film by Masters of Cinema. The inserted extra material amounts to some 30 minutes of footage which does change the film quite significantly. We see much more of 'The Thin Man' (Fritz Rasp) as he follows Worker 1181 (Erwin Biswanger) back to Freder's apartment via the risque Yoshiwara District while Freder (Gustav Frohlich) takes over his job at the clock machine cum crucifix. More importantly we see a monument built to Freder's mother, Hel by Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) and key scenes between Rotwang and Freder's father, Joh (Alfred Abel) where it is revealed that both had been in love with Hel before her death during childbirth. Freder's lack of (and consequent search for) a mother and this bad father/good father dialectic enhances the importance of the scene where Freder goes crazy after catching his father with his love Maria (Brigitte Helm) in that it encourages a more overt Freudian Oedipal reading of the whole film. The extra footage puts Maria firmly in the center of the narrative as the virgin/whore mother figure who drives Freder and ultimately causes the destruction of the city. Apart from odd frames (admirably pointed out by momentary black-outs in the MoC print) only two short scenes are still missing. The first concerns Freder's encounter with a religious sect in the cathedral and a lecture by the monk Desertus (also played by Fritz Rasp). We later see the character inter-cut into Freder's hallucination following his witnessing of his father being with Maria and can guess at the sinister nature of the earlier missing sermon. The second scene is more important in that it shows how Maria escapes Rotwang's house and the last meeting between Joh and Rotwang which must be important for the trajectory of the text. Maybe these scenes will turn up some day. For the moment we should feel grateful for what we have. The picture quality is little short of astounding. Even the recovered material is not as bad as some have said. Clearly a lot of care and attention has been lavished onto the restoration. I especially appreciate the re-recording of the original Gottfried Huppertz score which drives the narrative forward with tremendous swagger. The accompanying booklet is a decent job featuring an interesting article by Jonathan Rosenbaum and notes by Luis Bunuel, Karen Naundorf, Fritz Lang himself and Martin Koerber on the restoration. The only complaint I have concerns the commentary by Rosenbaum and David Kalat which pointlessly regurgitates a lot of the information given in the accompanying documentary as well as the booklet. The best things they give are quotes from other critics, especially from Tom Gunning's excellent appreciation of the film contained in his book Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity. These are things we can read for ourselves. I would rather have a commentary given by someone who has something fresh to bring to the table. Having read most things about the film myself, I found what Rosenbaum and Kalat have to say, frankly, redundant. The restoration doesn't exactly reveal Metropolis to be a masterpiece. It is still dramatically ill-conceived and at base level confused beyond all redemption. But this MoC release still demands to be seen. Metropolis is an important film (Ufa's Heaven's Gate if you like) which if nothing else, is a wonderful spectacle to watch, even if Fritz Lang himself would have preferred to be remembered more for Die Nibelungen and Spione.

The legendary reputation of Metropolis rests almost totally on the way it looks - its fabulous mise-en-scene. As Tony Rayns has pointed out, rarely if ever has a director worked so closely with his cinematographers (Karl Freund and Gunther Rittau), production designers (Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut and Karl Vollbrecht) and even his sculptor (Walter Schultze-Mittendorf) to produce such stunning visual and spatial effects. From the opening machine visuals behind the credits, through the designs of the city buildings intersected by trains and cars (predicting the look of downtown Tokyo by almost a century), the colossal designs of Joh's office and Freder's apartment, the stadium where the elite run for fun overlooked by Albert Speer-like statues, the garden of earthly delights where the rich frolic with their nymphs, the descent into Nibelheim where the workers man the machines, through the visualization of the Moloch machine which chews up errant workers like some death camp torture chamber, the depiction of the parable of the Tower of Babel with the hordes rushing up the steps in a grand sweeping motion of architectural grandeur, the Gothic claustrophobia of Rotwang's strange out-of-place home housing a scientific laboratory mixing up Black Magick with Frankenstein regeneration, the design of the robot Maria, the famous transformation scene where machine turns into false Maria, the designs of the nightclub scenes where false Maria turns the men wild, and then finally to the actual breaking up and destruction of the city itself which sees explosions, floods, fires, superbly choreographed crowd sequences, the spectacular immolation of false Maria, and a cathedral-top finish which has poor Brigitte Helm doing all her stunts herself, hanging from a bell chain and then running along a 200 meter high roof top! The visual designs and the sheer breath-taking bravura of the direction here reaches heights which have rarely been equaled since. It's an extraordinary testament to this film's technological achievements that 80 years later top movie directors like Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, Tim Burton, James Cameron and others still take their inspiration from the 1926 'Metropolis look'.

If only this splendid visual virtuosity could have been married to a coherent script worthy of it's support. Here, alas, is where the film falls apart. The sheer success of the visuals really expose the inadequacies of Thea von Harbou and Lang's silly and extremely pretentious melange of everything from Karl Marx to Siegmund Freud and from occult Black Magick through to Biblical sermonizing. I think at base Tom Gunning is right to see Metropolis as "the allegory of the future as the triumph of the machine". Lang paints the picture of a city divided in two. Above ground you have the idle rich who, having planned and had their city built, relax and play. Below ground you have the machines which run the city and which are manned by the working class who are seen as nothing more than extensions of the machines they run. Note the way they march to work, their rhythmic motions at their respective machines, the easy way they are molded into obeying whatever they are told by the powers that be. Indeed it is in the dehumanizing of the workers and the use of the false Maria (a robot) that Harbou/Lang most successfully illustrate their point that in the city in 2026 the machines will take over. Lang/Harbou see this situation as a fundamental injustice and posit a resistance movement (aka, the early Christians in Jerusalem or in Rome) fueled by Maria who is painted as a John the Baptist figure (or is it Theodora?) who, through the allegory of the Tower of Babel voices the moral of the film screamed out at the beginning and then reiterated with such crass naivety at the conclusion - "The mediator between head and hands must be the heart". The film is basically the story of how the heart (Freder) brings together the head (his father and chief architect of Metropolis, Joh) with the hands (the factory foreman Grot) to circumvent the power of the machines. Except that the only figure correctly represented in this triumvirate is Joh. Yes, he is the city's inventor and the 'head' responsible. But what about his son Freder? What has he done to qualify as the heart? Apart from having the hots for Maria, showing a modicum of sympathy for Josaphat (Theodor Loos) when Joh fires him, spending perhaps half a day at work on the factory floor and having a series of fainting fits he has really done nothing in the film. He is a very poor Messiah figure, having barely suffered at all for the masses Harbou and Lang expect us to believe him to feel empathy for. His desire is not to make Metropolis a fairer place for all - all he wants is to get into Maria's knickers. And who exactly is Grot? We first see him in Joh's office giving information about the factory floor. Then we see him manning the heart machine. He refuses to let the Luddite mob into the room until Joh gives him a direct order. He opens the door and gets carried away by the general euphoria to the point where he assumes leadership (!!) of the mob especially when everyone is worried about the kids who Maria and Freder have hidden in the cathedral. Grot is basically Joh's toady, a spy who informs on the workers for his own good. Are we really to take this union between Joh and his toady by Joh's ineffectual son seriously? Whatever happens it's a win-win for Joh who (it is obvious) will continue on in charge of the city. Despite his hair turning white, the power of the machines hasn't been circumvented at all. If the machines have been temporarily destroyed then it will only be a matter of time before they are fixed and the situation reverts back to usual - dreams for social change remain very much pie in the sky. Where is the sense in this silly, cartoon-like ending? 'That's all folks!' indeed.

The main problem with Metropolis is that the bald simplicity of the main moral (head, hands, heart, etc) contradicts the film's basic allegorical nature. Allegories are designed to be read in any number of different ways. Within the over-arching machine-triumph allegory Harbou/Lang throw in references to a number of big intellectual ideas which unfortunately are never really worked through. As Tom Gunning admits, it is impossible to come up with one allegorical interpretation which explains away everything in the film whilst staying with the film's all too obvious moral. For example, it is tempting to see the split of the city as a classic Freudian division between consciousness and unconsciousness. Freder lives a carefree ego-driven hedonistic life above in the garden of earthly delights, but his conscience is pricked when Maria pays a visit with a group of kids from the factory floor. This is where the character of Hel becomes important, for it is her absence which has sent Freder on a search for a mother figure and which has halted his psycho-sexual development to the point where he can't distinguish between mother-love and erotic love. Maria is the virgin/mother figure who tips Freder into a dive down into his own unconscious sexual libidinal desires - his id as symbolized by the factory underworld. He intuits the inequalities of city life with the suffering of the workers supporting the rich life style of the elite and realizes (albeit opaquely) that he has to over-throw the power of his father to get this virgin/mother for himself - the righting of a wrong perpetuated on society is simply a by-product of his erotic desire. This Oedipal conundrum is made explicit as I have said above in the scene where he flips having seen his father intimately involved with Maria. This amounts to a 'primal scene' which awakens Freder's castration anxiety and kick starts his super-ego. As impressive as this is visually (the imaging here is extraordinarily avant-garde even by today's standards right down to the scratching of the film negative itself), it doesn't really make much sense in the text where everything heads to complete destruction as per the 'furioso' marking for the final part of the film and the destruction of good father Joh (the other half of the Oedipal equation) remains elusive. Despite all the extraordinary phallic imagery (pistons pumping, steam blasting, machines exploding, water gushing, fires raging, liquids spurting, Freder rushing to save Maria on a monument which looks like a giant mother's teat - actually a copy of a monument erected to the memory of the 1920 Kapp-Luttwitz Putsch -, and Freder's climactic ascent up the phallic cathedral spire to do battle with bad father Rotwang), the destruction of the city has less to do with Oedipal workings out of Freder's psyche (his super-ego assuaging feelings of guilt) than it has to do with a return to the kind of 'sensation film' that had been popular in Germany since the first world war and which high-brows had disparaged as being too populist.

Then we could attempt a political reading of the film with the decadent Bourgeoisie above ground lording it over the Proletariat below. We must remember German society was very unstable in 1926 with economic hardship, hyper-inflation and political instability a routine part of everyday life for contemporary audiences up until recently. The final third of the film may appear to show off this economic unrest with workers throwing off their chains and uniting for a better future. No doubt this would have triggered memories in audiences about the recent 1923 Munich Putsch and the 1920 Kapp-Luttwitz Putsch, not to mention Freder and Maria gathering the workers around a monument commemorating that event and looking for all the world like Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht who were murdered by the far right during the 1919 Spartacist revolt. No doubt Goebbels noticed these 'communist' connections and had Metropolis banned as a consequence. Actually though, the rebel workers don't have their own leaders. They are being led by good father Joh through the figure of the false Maria. He wants to agitate the workers to fight so that they can be put down. This is not made clear in the film - actually, why does Joh want his city destroyed? He only becomes concerned about the destruction when his son's life is endangered. When the mob realize they have been tricked by false Maria and rush to immolate her, their rioting is marked by a distinct lack of leadership. The only viable leader-figure would appear to be Joh's toady, Grot, hardly a good representative of the oppressed classes! In any case, a successful socio-political reading of the film would have to rest on our 'hero', Freder doing two things. First, discovering his conscience sympathizing with Josaphat - this is something strengthened by the new footage in which we see a new scene between the two where Freder's sympathy for Josaphat is clearly emphasized. Second, Freder has to spend time at the machines on the factory floor. However, he disappears for a long stretch of the film towards the end and when he does appear with Josaphat in the catacombs to tell the rebel workers that false Maria is not the real Maria he is simply brushed aside. He does succeed in helping Maria free the women and children from the flooded chamber, but in every other respect he fails completely as a political leader. Indeed it is not clear he even tries to be one in the first place. As in the Freudian reading of the film, at the end, Freder simply doesn't want to get around the power of his father.

Then there is Metropolis as an allegory of the future as a dialectic between modern science and Gothic medieval occultism (old science). This is an angle which Lang was originally going to feature more strongly. Metropolis is a palimpsest, the modern part of the city built by Joh on top of the old Gothic remains associated with Rotwang. This means that occult medieval science together with modern science were jointly responsible for the city's creation. It's made clear that Rotwang's house is older than the city erected around it, and in order to counter the threat posed by Maria Joh goes to Rotwang as only he knows what the map carried by rebel workers means. Rotwang tells him the map is of the old catacombs that lie beneath the city which are (significantly) accessed through the basement of Rotwang's house. Both go down to witness Maria's Tower of Babel sermon, and it is through Joh's command to Rotwang to create an artificial Maria that he can regain control over the workers. False Maria (re Metropolis itself) is thus the creation of a union between medieval Black Magick and new scientific technology - note Lang's careful mise-en-scene depicted in Rotwang's laboratory which blends the two sciences together into a seamless whole. It's also an amalgamation of two desires - Joh's desire to command the masses through a puppet and Rotwang's desire to recreate his beloved Hel in the image of Maria. The motivations run backwards as well as forwards. As the narrative progresses we discover all the Gothic Expressionistic imagery is associated with Rotwang's world. It's unfortunate that (like so much else in the film) things fall apart in the final third. Lang originally wanted the statues of Death and the Seven Deadly Sins to come out of the cathedral and wreak havoc on the city. This was toned down (by von Harbou?) to keeping them coming alive only in the cathedral, though there is one brief passage where the Seven Deadly Sins are envisioned (in Freder's delirium?) as holding up false Maria as she does her erotic dance in the nightclub. Not showing the figures more prominently in the apocalyptic final stages severely weakens this allegorical interpretation which seems to be continued only in the music (the repeated use of the medieval Dies Irie death chant) combined with the Totentanz (the Dance of Death) of the masses. A satisfying closing-out of this apocalyptic scenario demands a complete change in the order of things which Lang/Harbou refuse to give us. Instead we have some dopey conclusion about head, hands and heart which changes nothing.

Most obviously of all would appear to be some kind of biblical allegorical interpretation although this is hardly coherent. The biblical allusions which Harbou/Lang throw in are numerous - the Tower of Babel sequence, Freder on the crucifix of the clock machine, Freder the Messiah, the early Christians in the catacombs, the Book of Revelations imagery associated with the final apocalypse, the use of biblical-sounding names (Joh, Josaphat, Maria), the use of a Gothic cathedral where Freder hears a sermon and which serves as the location for the film's final scene, Maria as virgin mother/Maria as whore. Women in the film are either virgins or whores, in the case of Maria they are both! The trouble is again these images get confused. Is Maria Jesus's (Freder's) mother or is she John the Baptist simply predicting the arrival of the mediator (Freder/the Messiah)? If religious imagery is attached to Freder, Maria and 'the masses' why is Joh not shown as some evil Herod? His behavior is decidedly gentleman-like throughout. The worst thing he does is fire Josaphat from his office. Moreover, Lang's spectacular mise-en-scene makes the city look so impressive that one wonders if Lang isn't on Joh's side after all. Alfred Abel is allowed to give Joh a dignity which exists a million miles away from some ancient Roman despot. Contrast this with the condescending attitude Lang takes towards the workers. Supposedly victims waiting for some mediator/Messiah to come and deliver them, they are pictured as mere simpletons gullibly swallowing up every word both Marias say. Lang's condescension to crowds is also a feature of his later pictures, especially M and Fury.

Throwing in allusions to intellectual heavy-weights and alluding to grand ideas might lead us to believe we are watching something significant. Actually, when technique is divorced from coherent substance the result is a pretentious mess. One possible defense of the film may well lie in accepting this confusing melange of allegorical interpretations as being closer to reality than featuring any one fixed interpretation or explanation. This is where the debate about Metropolis and post-modernism begins. The various strands of the modernist movement all sought to make sense of the world around them, assuming there is some kind of underlying order to everything. Post-modernism starts off with the assumption that there is no underlying order at all. Acceptance of confusion and the fact that the world is simply too complicated to be explained away by any one master-theory is probably the one thing most people agree on when trying to define post-modernism. Metropolis's prominent place in key post-modern texts like Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow and Philip Glass's opera Einstein on the Beach would appear to confirm its reaching towards post-modernism, along with use of its imagery by pop artists like Madonna, Pink Floyd and the like. But this is a reading of the film very much after the event. I feel it's unlikely that Lang consciously strove to move beyond the modernism of the day (most obviously shown by Expressionistic touches in the imagery associated with Rotwang and in much of the over-wrought acting), though the clash between Expressionism and the Neue Sachlichkeit (the new objectivity) would provide fascinating influences on style in his last German films, especially Spione and M. It is interesting that Spione (his next film after Metropolis) seems to continue the post-modern connection with it's depiction of Haghi's abstract criminal power over reality. Watching Spione after reading Pynchon's V (works separated by over 40 years!) is a deeply instructive experience as both seem to be breathing the same paranoid air. Post-modernism aside, whatever we make of the various possible allegorical interpretations in Metropolis, everything still has to come back to the film's absurdly simplistic moral which will always remain indigestible. This is what finally sinks the film. And yet, Metropolis looks so damned wonderful! Perhaps the best defense of the film's quality starts and finishes right there!

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CitizenChampion

Not so Fast, Not so Fast

Reviewed in the United States on 10 September 2023

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The motion picture "Metropolis" is something of an imaginative attempt to as it were to tell the future. Expressed here are some rather unfuturistic stumbling blocks as to this reported future. It has been reported that before this silent film was ever made Fritz Lang and his Wife Thea von Harbou visited New York City, New York. The general impression as expressed by Fritz Lang himself was that New York City was the very City of the future. The buildings, bridges, and Tunnels, were industries that would not be denied and it made an impression on Fritz Lang that not only impressed Fritz Lang but much of the European Continent. The rise of Radio and television was born here in the very heart of New York City with the creation of Rockefeller Center and even Radio City Music Hall. This was such an impression that when we look at Metropolis we are looking at the impression that the ever-growing New York City landscape created in the heart and mind of Fritz Lang. I can recall when reading the first impression that this newly evolved world of Electricity created, Inventor Nicola Tesla made some disparaging comments on the city's almost unmanageable landscape with a true sense of disorganized carelessness and very nearly underwriting one very near disaster after another. With wires and more wires strung up here and there like some trapeze, Nicola Tesla having learned and truly possessed the very neat and well-organized thinking of an educated engineer was taught a rude lesson in his walk as it were through this life. Nicola Tesla has contributed to the welfare of the life of this world, his name and signature are on it. It is not a mistake to suggest that the life of the world went forth from those very early days when there was a confluence of Money, Influence, Opportunity, and more, It is not so simple to suggest that there was no particular area of life that was not influenced by the ever-growing, ever-increasing influence that the likes of the then future city, New York City created in the hearts and minds of a world of citizens. That is how it created the motion picture, "Metropolis". Metropolis is in fact New York City. Metropolis as a motion picture is in fact a silent motion picture. There are problems as it concerns the captions as both character and characterization are out of synchronization. It is not so simple to follow all that the picture attempts to convey however there is some rather involved even beautiful music which I have listened to with increased interest."Metropolis", that is the motion picture possesses the hard to manage as well as the carelessness that so hallmarked the evolution of the City of the Future. I'am not so impressed with this landscape as there are bi-planes that are sharing open space with highways and walkways This all seems a bit foolish, that is there represents neither thought nor care in fact there is no real sense of a future only of a foolishly careless resolve. This silent motion picture may in fact be just that having possessed a slapdash quality in its creation, however, keep in mind that this motion picture really ran up a tab and would rival many very expensive films of these very days. It was not only a very expensive film to make as there were many upon many extras employed as a result. The attempt to use the Holy Bible while all the while denying in a manner of speaking the rightful place that the Holy Bible requires provides for the underwriting of a blasphemous relation to the "Living Word" as well to the world that we live in. "The section in scripture as it concerns Nimrod and the Tower of Babel deserves to be taught as Nimrod was an evil and wicked ruler whom God "confounded". There are interpretive attempts made by this silent film to as it were comment if you will upon the word of God without rendering a life representative of a "Living Word".It should be reminded to the audience that the Holy Bible is truthfully recognized as "Living" and that scripture is in fact the word of God. There is no literature that can make such a claim as would be "The Holy Bible". There is in this film an attempt to circumvent the prophecy as foretold in Revelation, which is considered the last book in the Holy Bible The Book is appropriately titled The Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle John. The film in a very liberal fashion draws a relation between a character portrayed as the "Whore of Babylon" in the book of "Revelation" with a young woman who is identified as "Maria".There is a mob-like mentality that ultimately leads to an action taken by a mob whose fears are taken advantage of with children being harmed. There is in actuality a burning at the stake which this mob-like behavior has entered into with the devil being unearthed as it were. The film is useful perhaps not all that surprising however I got the distinct impression that this interesting Silent Motion Picture is something of an emotion and once through it might be awhile till you watch it again.There is to be certain much more and much more because There is much to know better and better.

2 people found this helpful

Amazon Kunde

Ein Meisterwerk!

Reviewed in Germany on 25 January 2024

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Für Liebhaber alter Filme ...
Ein sehr berühmter, berührender Stummfilm von Lang und Murnau von 1927 - entgegen der Beschreibung sogar mit deutschen Zwischentiteln.
Ich freue mich über diesen Kauf.

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freddiefreejazz

fritz lang et la mégapole maudite...

Reviewed in France on 8 February 2023

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Cette édition chez Potemkine ( Metropolis ) date de décembre 2022. Boîtier steelbox de toute beauté (bien vu le relief !) contenant deux Blu-ray (Le Film et les documentaires). Travail éditorial de premier plan, donc. Heureusement, j'ai pu me procurer l'objet d'occasion (et ce en excellent état) pour moins de 25 euros (quand ailleurs les prix affichés commencent à grimper à partir de 60 balles, une vraie spéculation sur les sites...). Idem pour le Nosferatu de F.W. Murnau édité au même moment. Metropolis est bien sûr un film incontournable de Fritz Lang, tout comme Citizen Kane est un film majeur d'Orson Welles. Mieux : du cinéma mondial. Jusqu'à présent, j'ai dû le voir quatre ou cinq fois. Une à deux fois tous les dix ans (1). On indiquera d'autres éditions : Metropolis chez MK2 en 2012. Mais attention aux autres éditions sans sous-titres français ( Metropolis ), Amazon France les mélangeant toutes... Voici donc à nouveau l'intégralité des bobines, après que celles-ci furent retrouvées en Argentine en 2008. Lang se moquait un peu de savoir que son film avait été amputé (sic), comme il le fit remarquer au cours d'un entretien. L’œuvre ne lui appartenait plus. De toute façon, il trouvait Metropolis bien trop long : les 2h30 initiales (ici) au lieu des 90 minutes projetées en salle aux États-Unis en 1927. La Paramount avait opéré un véritable saucissonnage (supprimant la logique du récit). Maintenant, sur le film en lui-même, que dire qui n'a déjà été dit et redit ? Que le Cœur doit être le médiateur entre la main (la force ouvrière) et le cerveau (les scientifiques, les penseurs, le patronat) ? Que c'est à la fois une Utopie et une Dystopie ? Metropolis fait en tout cas partie de ces œuvres qu'il faut avoir vu au moins une fois dans sa vie.

Metropolis est quand même un film intrigant. Et même ambigu par certains côtés. Visionnaire et prophétique ? On peut le dire ainsi puisque Fritz Lang, en discutant de l'importance de la Technique (voir à ce sujet les ouvrages de Platon, Hans Habermas, Martin Heidegger ou mieux : Jacques Ellul) entrevoit ce qui se passera au cours du XXème siècle : les camps de concentration (la scène au cours de laquelle sont jetés des milliers d'hommes et de femmes en guise de sacrifice dans la gueule en feu d'un Moloch effrayant), Tchernobyl (l'accident qui provoque une énorme explosion, puis les conséquences désastreuses pour l'environnement), le Nazisme et sa Gestapo (l'espion à la physionomie patibulaire qui surveille Freder, le personnage principal, sorte de Naïf mais aussi de Christ, sorte de Prince Mychkine, le personnage principal dans L' i d i o t de Dostoïevski...). En effet, le Fils veut prendre la place d'un ouvrier et ne pas rester dans sa Tour d'Ivoire. Cela nous rappellera le travail de Simone Weil (voir son ouvrage Réflexions sur les causes de la Liberté et de L'oppression sociale ). Lang prévoit aussi le Transhumanisme et la robotisation (les apparences de plus en plus humaines des robots). Encore quelque temps et on ne pourra distinguer l'être humain de l'être machine, lance un personnage dans le film de Lang (sic). Bien sûr, les cinéphiles ont déjà vu Blade Runner (Ridley Scott) et Le Cinquième Élément (Luc Besson) qui tout deux puisent leur inspiration dans Metropolis. On pourrait même évoquer Ex-Machina , très bon film d'Alex Garland (ce film est vraiment le plus proche du film de Lang). Les références bibliques sont très éloquentes aussi. Un peu trop peut-être. Ainsi est évoqué l'épisode de Babel.

La question du travail est également abordée... Maintenant, est-ce un vrai coup de cœur ? Le succès du film est sans doute comparable à celui de James Cameron ( Avatar projeté en salle en 2009). Je suis presque gêné de balancer ces quelques références. C'est seulement pour dire, toutefois, que Metropolis est le premier film d'anticipation, dans l'Histoire du Cinéma. Cela, vous vous en doutez bien. Ou mieux : vous le savez déjà.

_______________________________

(1) Cela dit, si vous avez les éditions précédentes (post-2008), inutile de se rabattre sur celle-ci.

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stanly61

Splendida rivisitazione

Reviewed in Italy on 29 June 2022

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Riprodotto a colori e musicato da un grande musicista un film di alto valore e spessore cinematografico sulla repressione e alienazione operaia e la conseguente rivolta per un mondo migliore dove amore e lavoro trionfano e camminano insieme

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Anthony Mercader

A wonderful achievement in film

Reviewed in Australia on 7 November 2023

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What a wonderful film. The picture quality is quite good, the additional footage inserted into the film is quite poor in quality but it is easily forgiven when you understand how they achieved the “lost footage” and the original state of that film.
As a huge movie fan, I could see that many of our modern day film makers have been influenced by this outstanding piece of cinema. The costuming and sets are way ahead of their time.
If you love cinema then this is an essential film to make a part of your collection.

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Metropolis -- Two Disc Special Edition [DVD]

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Format	PAL
Contributor	Alfred Abel, Heinrich George, Gustav Frolich, Margaretta Lanner, Theodore Loos, Walter Kohle, Erich Pommer, Thea Von Harbou, Olaf Storm, Georg John, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Lang, Brigitte Helm, Fritz Rasp, Hanns Leo Reich, Heinrich Gotho See more
Runtime	1 hour and 58 minutes