Product Description: It is the future & humans are divided into two groups: the thinkers who make plans (but dont know how anything works) & the workers who achieve goals (but dont have the vision). One man from the thinkers dares visit the underground where the workers toil & is astonished by what he sees.. Studio: Kino International Release Date: 11/09/2004 Run time: 124 minutes
Amazon.com essential video: Fritz Lang's Metropolis belongs to legend as much as to cinema. It's a milestone of sci-fi and German expressionism. Yet the story makes minimal sense, and the "theme" belongs in a fortune cookie; to experience the film's pagan power, you have to see the movie. But for decades we couldn't, not really--not with so many versions, all incomplete, often in public-domain prints like smudged photocopies. This Murnau Foundation restoration changes all that. Some shots, scenes, and subplots may be lost forever, but intertitles indicate how they fit into the original continuity and the characters' individual trajectories. Most crucially, the images are crisp, vibrant, and three-dimensional instead of murky and flattened. The composite sequences (the Tower of Babel, a sea of lusting eyes) have been restored to their hallucinatory ferocity. And there's one moment when you can see a bead of sweat roll down a man's cheek--in medium long-shot. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Classic sci-fi at its best
Who would have guessed that a silent film from nearly a hundred years ago would still be one of the most poignant science fiction films ever created? Proving that story is more important than CGI, Metropolis ... Read More
Rating: - superb on all levels
Magnificent restoration, and a tremendously atmospheric score - couldn't recommend it any more than I do
Rating: - Inspirational film making
So ahead of it's time and not comparable to anything before or since. Did a lot to show people the power of cinema in it's infancy, and to me it still looks incredible some 90+ years later.
Rating: - WAIT! No Longer the Most Complete Version!
Kino's Restored Authorized Edition of Metropolis is undoubtedly the most superb restoration of a film ever executed. However, as of July 1st, 2008, this is no longer the most complete version of the film available. ... Read More
Rating: - On Metropolis
Fritz Lang created a utopia in which he did not believe. He ended his masterpiece film with a message which he thought hopeless in real society. Over thirty years after the film's completion, he stated in an interview ... Read More
- Classic sci-fi at its best 
- superb on all levels