Metropolis: Un film de Fritz Lang

Published by Centre National de la Photographie and Cinematheque Francaise, 1985, softcover, 143 pages, 28 cms x 26.2 cms, wear to covers , internally : very good, overall condition; very good. 

Although the text is in French the value of this book lies in the fine art photographic still prints, one per page, that have entered the visual lexicon. 

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou's 1925 novel of the same name It stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and Brigitte Helm. Erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studio for Universum Film A.G. (UFA). 

Metropolis is regarded as a pioneering science-fiction film, being among the first feature-length ones of that genre. Made in Germany during the Weimar period, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of the city master, and Maria, a saintly figure to the workers, to overcome the vast gulf separating the classes in their city and bring the workers together with Joh Fredersen, the city master. The film's message is encompassed in the final inter-title: "The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart".

Critics found it visually beautiful and powerful the film's art direction by Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, and Karl Vollbrecht draws influence from opera, Bauhaus, Cubist, and Futurist design, along with touches of the Gothic in the scenes in the catacombs, the cathedral and Rotwang's house  and lauded its complex special effects.

 "Metropolis is one of the great achievements of the silent era, a work so audacious in its vision and so angry in its message that it is, if anything, more powerful today than when it was made." Roger Ebert