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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.
Actually, the anime was based on a manga by Osamu Tezuka, and that manga was inspired by F.L.'s Metropolis. Even twice removed for it's original inspiration, it still would have been appropriate to credit Fritz at the end of the Anime.
I scanned it in for my own site about a month ago.--scroll down a little, it's maybe the seventh book.
Text is public domain/not renewed, but Gutenberg didn't like the version I used (and doesn't like not renewed in general), so they wouldn't add it.
Interesting read--was written by Lang's girlfriend of the time, Thea von Harbou.
I own a copy of the version Netflix has. It is really bad - a very poor quality, highly abridged master was used.
Wait for this restoration to come out on DVD. Even the Moroder version is better than the current DVD.
Rotten Tomatoes, one of the two great meta-review sites, doesn't seem to "get" that this release is very different from all previous cuts of the film, especially the recut, tinted, rock-n-roll-soundtracked 1984 Moroder cut. Many of the reviews refer to the "out of place rock-n-roll soundtrack" and "terrible image quality". This is a real problem, because people will be choosing whether or not to see the film based on extremely inaccurate data.
I've emailed them about the problem (and offered to provide them with a list mapping reviews to releases), but they seem to be ignoring me. If we can get enough people to let them know that yes it is worth taking the time to be accurate about this, this release might actually get the respect and attendance it deserves. Please mail them and let them and (as politely as possible) inform them that this is important.
Thank you.
Exactly. As far as I'm concerned, 2001 is almost a silent film as it is. There are basically three expository passages of dialogue in the film (the briefing by Dr. Floyd, the televised BBC interview, and the final recorded message from Dr. Floyd to the crew), and the rest could be eliminated completely without too much editing.
Maybe in my spare time I'll do an artsy parody of 2001, re-editing the DVD as a silent film with just a musical soundtrack and some title cards for essential dialogue. Sounds like a fun little project.
You heard it here first.