Metropolis is a monumental work. On its release in 1925, after sixteen
months'
filming, it was Germany's most expensive feature film, a canvas for
director
Fritz Lang's increasingly extravagant ambitions. Lang, inspired by the
skyline of
New York, created a whole new vision of cities. One of the greatest
works of
science fiction, the film also tells human stories about love and
family.
Thomas Elsaesser explores the cultural phenomenon of Metropolis: its
different
versions (there is no definitive one), its changing meanings, and its
role as a
database of twentieth-century imagery and ideologies.
In his foreword to this special edition, published to celebrate the
20th
anniversary of the BFI Film Classics series, Elsaesser discusses the
impact of
the 27 minutes of 'lost' footage discovered in Buenos Aires in 2008,
and
incorporated in a restored edition, which premiered in 2010.