This volume explores the cultural phenomenon of Metropolis, its different versions, its changing meanings, and its role as a database of the twentieth century.
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About the Author
Thomas Elsaesser is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Amsterdam. Among his publications are New German Cinema (1989), Early Cinema: Space Frame Narrative (1990), A Second Life (1996) and Fassbinder's Germany (1996).
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Exemplary study of elusive film masterpiece.,
This review is from: Metropolis (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)
The BFI Classics series features book-length monographs on films preserved in the British Film Institute archive. Although a wide range of figures, from TV presenters and novelists to screenwriters to journalists have contributed, the most satisfying books so far have been those by film theorists, intimate with films' cultural and critical contexts, and able to situate the classic film more satisfactorily.Thomas Elsaesser is one of the most important film theorists of the last three decades, specialising in early and German cinema. His study of Fritz Lang's controversial masterpiece 'Metropolis' is exemplary, covering the production history, the films' many sources, the extraordinary Weimar culture from which it emerged, the original (largely negative) critical reception, the subsequent(even more negative) ideological interpretations that followed World War Two, and the film's current status as a post-modern classic of the city. Elsaesser's clarity is all the more gratifying in that 'Metropolis', more than any other film, has been entangled in so many conflicting debates that the film itself tends to get lost; and exists in so many different cut versions that an 'original', director's version doesn't even exist. As fact gives way to theory in the second half, the study is a bit harder going, but Elsaesser is to be congratulated for showing how Giorgio Moroder, with his notorious 80s revamping of the film, 'revealed' it as much as he distorted it.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Classic Through Time,
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This review is from: Metropolis (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)
This was a terrific book. The author had a whale of a challenge on his hands, since, as he points out, Metropolis has been cut and recut many times since it premiered in Jan. 1927. In the book, he explains the difference between the different versions and also traces how critical response to the film has changed over the years. Finally, he also points out the many movies and videos that have "borrowed" from Metropolis since the 1980s.
The result, to me, was to show Metropolis as not a stuffed classic but a film that is always changing, always spinning off new interpretations, and generating imitators.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Explores an important work...,
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This review is from: Metropolis (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)
Metropolis is a work that seems to renew and remake itself every few years. First, it came out in different versions and different meanings. Is it a story about love lost or about science gone mad? It is fantasy or science fiction? Is it against the Nazis or for them? Was it made as a piece of art or to make money? Thomas Elsaesser explores one of the most amazing movies ever made. Yet also one that can't be pinned down. The meanings change with time and with those who view it. What does it mean to you?
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Several self-serving myths, put about by Fritz Lang and his company, the Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), hang over Metropolis. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Fritz Lang, Die Nibelungen, Joh Fredersen, Weimar Germany, Murnau Stiftung, Thea von Harbou, Tower of Babel, Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Erich Kettelhut, Siegfried's Death, New Wave, Second World War New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Several self-serving myths, put about by Fritz Lang and his company, the Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), hang over Metropolis. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Fritz Lang, Die Nibelungen, Joh Fredersen, Weimar Germany, Murnau Stiftung, Thea von Harbou, Tower of Babel, Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Erich Kettelhut, Siegfried's Death, New Wave, Second World War New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 34
books:
See all 34 books this book cites
- Singin' in the Rain (BFI Film Classics) by Peter Wollen in Back Matter
- Bonnie and Clyde (Faber Classic Screenplay) by David Newman in Back Matter
- The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays by Siegfried Kracauer in Back Matter
- Queen Christina (BFI Film Classics) by Marcia Landy in Back Matter
- Brief Encounter (BFI Film Classics) by Richard Dyer in Back Matter
See all 34 books this book cites
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