Metropolis Reconstructed

Matt W writes "The New York Times (free as in beer reg, blah blah) has an article about a recent reconstruction of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. After being butchered by studios, Martin Koerber and Alpha-Omega have restored most of the scenes and score. Film Forum on Houston St. in NY City will be showing the film for two weeks." Collect all three! I don't think they're using Georgio Morodor for the soundtrack for this one.

Comments

A no-reg link to the article

[Verizon Guy]

Available here

Tom Hanks Does Metropolis

[cybrpnk2]

There was an early Tom Hanks / Meg Ryan film called Joe vs. the Volcano which has the opening 15 minutes doing a GREAT takeoff on Metropolis - not camp or tongue in cheek, but a serious emulation with modern filmmaking. The rest of the movie was so-so to OK. Worth checking out.

Re:Eh?

[cybrpnk2]

Metropolis is a silent German black-and-white film that is considered to be the first true Sci-fi film, done in the early 1920s. Some documentation and still photos are here. The part of Metropolis everybody remembers is that the bad guys make a robot to take the place of the heroine Maria and the scene where the robot is activated is FANTASTIC. A great special effect even by todays standards that blew away audiences in the 1920s.

Interview with Martin Koerber

[bonch]

As brought to you by FilmThreat, an interview with Martin Koerber about "Metropolis."

Metropolis Review

[PRickard]

One of my partners in crime at the MSBC (who doesn't have a /. account) asked me to post this:

Back in February I wrote a lengthy report on Metropolis for my college cinema class. The report was supposed to be about the themes of the film, but its history was so interesting I spent 2/3 of my time on that instead of the plot and events. An assignment for a 600 word paper turned into a 1700+ word essay that received an A+, not that I'm bragging or anything. I think it's an interesting read, whatever the grade was. The paper includes links to other sources and reviews more knowledgable than I. Check it out at www.msboycott.com/kmarks/metropolis.shtml .

There you have it.

Compare all three versions?

[redbeard_ak]

Here is a review that does that.
What is interesting to me about 'Metropolis' (besides a cool flick) is the history of the term 'robot'. The Russian word for 'worker' is 'robotnik.' Kinda puts a different slant on our (if you're lucky) 40 hour work week.

Back in Austin, I think I saw the silent version of Metropolis with a Kraftwerk soundtrack. I enjoyed it, but was kinda... medicated.
Here's what MonsterZine has to say:
"In 1920 Czech writer Karel Capek's play R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots coined the term "robot" (from the Czech robotnik, worker) for mechanical man. In the play emotionless artificial persons wipe out humanity, only to develop emotions of their own. In Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), a grandly mad scientist (Rudolph Klein-Rogge) creates an evil robot, then, through a spectacular display of electrical equipment, transforms the robot into the duplicate of a virtuous labor leader (Brigitte Helm)."

And here is what Kraftwerk has to say about it:
The Robots
We're charging our battery
And now we're full of energy
We are the robots

We're functioning automatik
And we are dancing mechanik
We are the robots

Ja tvoi sluga (=I'm your slave)
Ja tvoi Rabotnik robotnik (=I'm your worker)

We are programmed just to do
anything you want us to
we are the robots

We're functioning automatic
and we are dancing mechanic
we are the robots

Ja tvoi sluga (=I'm your slave)
Ja tvoi Rabotnik robotnik (=I'm your worker)

We are the robots