Quote:
Originally Posted by RickyMaveety
That is beautiful!! Did you do the graphic yourself???
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No, it's a still photo from Fritz Lang's classic film
Metropolis. The building in the background is the megascraper headquarters of Joh Frederson, the "master of metropolis". The film is the first SF masterpiece I can think of (though works like "Frau Im Mond" preceeded it.) Lang was reportedly inspired by a visit to New York City in the 1920's. Lang's wife, Thea Von Harbou, wrote a novelization. Lang left Germany in the '30's because he couldn't take the Nazis. His wife could, and remained behind doing propaganda for them.
The film is a dystopian vision of the future. The rich live above ground in splendor. The city is kept functioning by workers who live below ground, tending the machinery that handles waste and supplies water and power. Frederson's mad researcher Rotvang has developed a prototype of a robot who can replace the workers entirely, and modeled it after Maria, a worker's daughter who holds religious services for her worker brethren. Frederson's son Eric encounters Maria leading a once a year trip by worker's children to the surface and is smitten.
I've gotten something different from the book each time I've read it. It's not the socialist tract that might be expected. Joh Frederson, for example, is not exactly an evil capitalist oppressor. Rather, he's sealed himself off from all feelings after the death in childbirth of his beloved wife Hel. He loves his son Eric in a detached sort of manner, but wishes to become as much like a machine as he can, and demands similar functioning from his employees. Machines function flawlessly. They don't feel. They don't hurt. He lacks the empathy that would let him understand the plight of those who keep his city alive. He lives in a world of numbers from the various stock exchanges of the world.
The book version is available on MR
here and
here in Sony LRF versions. It's also available at
Manybooks and at
Munseys in a variety of other formats.
I have a Mobi version I'm playing with incorporating art done for an illustrated edition published by Donning in 1988 by comics artist Mike Kaluta, who put his images on line
here. Mike's art deco style is a gorgeous fit for the book.
The film never got shown as originally intended, though various cut versions are around, and portions of it were apparently lost. Disco artist Giorgio Moroder did a restored version a while substituting still and place cards for lost footage, and added a rock soundtrack. I wish he hadn't: Moroder is a good synthesiser player, and could have done a nice, moody, all synth soundtrack that would have fit better than the then popular vocal tracks he chose.
There was a news item a while back that some film historians located some reels of missing footage in a small film museum in Argentina. Preliminary investigation and restoration is underway, and some time in 2009 we should she a largely complete version of the film for the first time.
I can't wait. Metropolis has been one of my all time favorite films since I first saw it. And I always did love visions of buildings so tall that small planes would fly through the canyons of the streets.
"The mediator between the brain and hands must be the heart."
______
Dennis