Metropolis [Paperback]

Fritz Lang (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1982 | ISBN-10: 0804463840 | ISBN-13: 978-0804463843

"Metropolis" explores the idea of a class of supercities in the past and present, and in the western and developing worlds. It analyses their characteristic problems of congestion, poverty, inequality and squalor, and contrasts these with their inherent glamour and attraction. Past civilizations have always expressed themselves in great cities, immense in their size, wealth and contribution to human progress. Ancient cities such as Babylon, Rome and Constantinople are prime examples. Today there are hundreds of giant cities representing the greatest achievements of different cultures, but as communications improve they have been drawn into a world economic system. Conequently, the supercities of today are poised between their uniqueness and their shared transactions. This book confines itself to discussing a handful of cities which the author sees as representing peaks of cultural achievement, and which were centres of creativity transmitting many of the values of civilization to succeeding generations.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Ungar Pub Co (April 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804463840
• ISBN-13: 978-0804463843
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,875,871 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, January 19, 2010

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Metropolis; (Classic film scripts) (Hardcover)

This book is part of the Classic and Modern Film Scripts series. The book contains three parts. The first is an analysis of the movie by Paul M. Jensen, and is a rather good look at the movie and the history of its release. The second is an article by Siegfried Kracauer entitled Industrialism and Totalitarianism, and looks at the story within the movie from a Marxist viewpoint. Thankfully, this tediously tiresome article is extremely short.

The bulk of the book is given over to a script of the movie, created by watching the movie and writing down what happens. It is enhanced with some quotations taken from the Metropolis novel written by Thea von Harbou.

Overall, I found the script to be OK, but not as good as I had hoped. First of all, being a script, the Thea von Harbou sections seem out of place, and really do nothing to turn the barebones script into a more well-rounded story. They are scattered hither and thither throughout, as if added as an after-thought.

And most damning, the script is based on the original, hacked-up release version of the movie that was available at the time. Since that time, various people (most notably Giorgio Moroder) have taken recently recovered scenes from other versions of the movie, making for a more complete version of the movie. This book does not reflect those additions, which is rather disappointing.

So, if you are a huge fan of Metropolis, and are looking for anything to buy connected with the movie, then you will like this book. (Especially the many black-and-white still pictures scattered throughout the script.) But otherwise, I do think that, like me, you will find this book disappointing. I just don't recommend this book.