This exhibition will display the artistic richness and originality of the magic lantern and the evolution and variety of the iconography projected by the lantern since its origins (1659) until its gradual disappearance in the 1920s.

Program information:

The Magic Lantern and Painted Film: 400 Years of Cinema

Tremendous canyons of skyscrapers with airplanes and elevated railways, monotonous columns of workers in bleak clothes marching stoically in step, a robot encircled by radiating light rings-a cyborg-these images from Metropolis have engraved themselves into our collective memory.

The film comes to life as a result of its strong visual images and locations, which captivate us precisely because of their dichotomous nature: The paradisiacal City of the Sons and the dreary Workers' City with its enormous Machine Rooms; the futuristic Upper City with its vertiginous skyscrapers and the inventor Rotwang's small witch's cottage with its alchemistic laboratory; the archaic necropolis of the Catacombs and the majestic Gothic Cathedral. It is here that myth and the modern age clash.

Visually, Metropolis is certainly one of the most influential films in film history. This is owed to Fritz Lang's artistic vision, as well as to the abilities and inventiveness of his film team. The exhibition "The Complete Metropolis" unites all of the preserved original documents for the first time: the film script, the musical score, architecture and costume designs, trick paintings, props, and cinematographic equipment. Hundreds of working photos, which were taken during filming, demonstrate not only their strenuous efforts, but also the creativity of those who participated in the film.

However, the exhibition title "The Complete Metropolis" also makes reference to the film itself. Vigorously shortened soon after its premiere in 1927, a nearly complete version of the film was first rediscovered in Buenos Aires in 2008 and is now premiering for the first time in a restored version. The extensively compiled documents and the newly restored film images make its production process come alive, allowing a deeper understanding of this film that has already been proclaimed as part of the "world's cultural heritage."

Featured Works:

The exhibition includes excerpts of the film script, the musical score (condensed score), trick paintings, architectural and costume designs, props and cinematographic equipment predominantly from the archives of the Deutsche Kinemathek; it also includes 200 working photos as a large-scale slide projection (from the collections of the Cinémathèque française and the Deutsche Kinemathek); nearly 30 minutes of film material from Metropolis, divided by film setting locations; five media stations describing several of the film's special effects; and the films Die Reise nach Metropolis (Artem Demenok, 2010) and Metropolis Refound (Evangelina Loguerico, Diego Panich, Laura Tusi, and Sebastian Yablon, 2010)

Program information:

The Complete Metropolis

Discover the legendary universe of the studios and the film sets when movie production was still the work of artisans. Paris, Berlin, and Hollywood were the three major capitals for cinema and it wasn't unusual to have filmmakers travel from one country to the other to shoot, or even to emigrate. Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, Robert Siodmak, and more made that choice, sometimes stopping in Paris before going to Hollywood. From silent films to the talkies, these photographs show us the magic of filmmaking in process and what happens behind the screen. The technology evolved but the mystery of the film sets remained intact.

Featured Works:

69 films and 200 photographs  

Program information:  

On the Film Sets: Paris-Berlin-Hollywood, 1910-1939

Takeshi Kitano started as a stand-up comedian, became a politically incorrect TV personality, a film and a TV actor. He is also an intuitive and genius filmmaker who directed sober gangster films (Sonatine, Hana-bi), an adolescent romance (A Scene At the Sea), a comedy obsessed with sex (Getting Any?), a melodramatic tale (Dolls), a sword film (Zatôichi), self-mocking comedies (Kikujirô no natsu, Takeshis'). He is also a painter, novelist, editor, and singer. His double signature, "Beat Takeshi" for TV and comedy and "Takeshi Kitano" for film and serious creation, is not enough to organize his multiple identities. He is the only artist who pushes the limits of experimenting contraries so far and who puts so relentlessly his creation, his image, and his sanity on the line.

Featured Works:

Along with the exhibition "Beat Takeshi Kitano, Gosse de peintre" that the artist conceived for the Fondation Cartier, the Centre Pompidou will screen 40 feature films, films made for TV, and documents: the most complete retrospective to date on Kitano as a director and actor, in his presence.

Program information:

Takeshi Kitano, the iconoclast