{"product_id":"destiny-express-9781644285534","title":"Destiny Express","description":"\u003cb\u003eHailed by Thomas Pynchon as \"daringly imagined and darkly romantic--a moral thriller,\" \u003ci\u003eDestiny Express\u003c\/i\u003e captures both the glamour and the terror of an era, dramatizing the perilous moment when art, politics, and destiny converged on the tracks out of Berlin.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBerlin, the last day of February, 1933. The Reichstag lies in smoldering ruins, a new world about to spring from its ashes. And now for German filmmakers the choices are stark: stay and collaborate with a government that believes in cinema's power to shape reality, or leave everything behind. \u003ci\u003eDestiny Express\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, husband and wife, director and screenwriter--together, they made some of the greatest films of all time: \u003ci\u003eM, Metropolis, Doctor Mabuse.\u003c\/i\u003e As each day is torn from the calendar they watch as one by one Bertolt Brecht, Max Ophuls, Billy Wilder, take the next train out. \u003ci\u003eDestiny Express \u003c\/i\u003efollows Lang, von Harbou, and a host of real and fictional others--novelist-turned-minister-of-culture Joseph Goebbels, American café Surrealist Sam Harrison, Mercedes racing champ Otto Merz, film star Rudolf Klein-Rogge, a pair of not-so-secret police--as their paths converge, intertwine, and separate across the grid of Berlin, from the artificial daylight of the UFA soundstage to the artificial night of Berlin's most exclusive and decadent nightclubs. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Harsh lights, long shadows: the perfect setting for a deeply researched, deftly imagined tale, as one character puts it, of \"crime, gambling, cocaine, jazz, stock exchange maneuvers, smuggling, hypnosis, counterfeiting, violence, Expressionism.\" \u003ci\u003eDestiny Express\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of a marriage at the end of its passion, at the edge of history--all at the end of an era when film was to mean more than it ever would again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Rare Bird Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/19\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781644285534\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 192","brand":"Howard A. Rodman","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52379422949557,"sku":"9781644285534","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_a3821b53-1935-41e2-b925-b40c73ee3321.jpg?v=1774372818","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/destiny-express-9781644285534","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}