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Lost Footage of "Metropolis" Found
ram.loss writes "According to a Reuters article, a long version of Metropolis has been found at a cinema museum in Argentina, by a newly appointed archivist. The reels have been authenticated by the Murnau foundation at Germany. 'Although estimates of its original length vary depending on the speed at which it is shown, Possmann said "Metropolis" was conceived as a film lasting just over 2-1/2 hours. Around 20 to 25 minutes of footage that fleshes out secondary characters and sheds light on the plot would be added to the film pending restoration, he added. But around 5 minutes of the original were probably still missing, he said.'"
Given how painfully bad the characterizations in the extant footage are, I can't imagine more minutes of "fleshing out secondary characters" would make it any better. The movie is amazing for its cinematographic innovations, not for its plot or characters. If the restored footage only offers the latter, it will be primarily of academic interest (and I say that as an academic).
Metropolis has action, it is what I would consider the original speculative fiction flick. The original action flick would, I think, be Zorro. Both have plots are driven by sequential credibly related events. Character are stylized, but that is what happens in a yarn. This is kind of different from movies that just degenerate into sequences of special effects driven by some arbitrary plot device. This, in my mind, is really p0rn. Again, not bad, but not film. For instance, I saw the preview to Journey to the Center of the Earth. It seemed to be this kind of random movie. Eye candy.
I am glad the found an original cut of Metropolis, and hope they release it on DVD at some point in the near future. Hopefully it will show up for rental. Highly recommended. For those who can't wait, the current release is on DVD.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Ah yes, Fritz Lang's Metropolis - the banned Director's Cut!
Ever heard of Eveready Harton?
You have been warned, it links to YouTube and the cartoon is Extremely Unsuitable For Work, albeit a fascinating artifact of the same era.
The Roaring Twenties were weirder than we can suppose.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
No doubt Hitler liked Metropolis. It's a fantastic movie, but it's politics is harsh and I have a hard time watching the film for that reason.
Let's see, the workers tear down their own factory without thinking about the fact that the factory ensures that their own living quarters aren't flooded. Consequently, the workers' own innocent children are about to drown by the thousands. Only too late do the workers realise what they have done, and they are powerless to save them. The factory owners' son saves the children in the nick of time, and subsequently brings together the owner and the worker and reestablishes the status quo ante. Revolution has been safely averted, and the workers recognize their need for adult supervision.
I don't know of any film that is a more effective anti-socialist political statement than Metropolis. Strangely this seems to be lost on our day's audiences -- I have watched this film during a street a festival in a solidly arty/left-wing/indy-everything Canadian neighbourhood, and the audience was enthusiastic.
I bought the recently restored version which is far better quality than what was available before, and saw that one locally as well when they came to town to talk about the restoration-- but I'll no doubt be buying a new longer restored version as well when it comes out. Incredibly great movie, and the new restoration provided a far higher quality picture than I'd ever seen. There are so many memorable scenes in the movie it's hard to say what's my favorite, but what first comes to mind is robot-Maria's dance where the eyes are superimposed...
That said, the first time I saw it was at the old Fox Venice theater in the 1970s, and the soundtrack it had was a very interesting Jazz score that I really liked-- the beginning portion where the workers are entering the elevators like lemmings had this piano part that alternated between two low notes and was very stark-- matched the film perfectly I thought. Since then I've always been looking for a copy of it with that soundtrack, but to no avail-- I bought a couple of VHS copies when they were first available, and all were poor quality picture with either an ancient classical track or something else-- when the Giorgio Moroder version came out in the '80s, that's all you could find anywhere, so it really dashed my hopes of finding the obscure jazz version I first saw... Oh well, that's the breaks-- someone obviously spent some time on the version I first remember, but I guess I'll never know who now, and of course it wouldn't match the new lengths of the film since then anyhow...
The additional footage hasn't been seen by anyone in my lifetime, which is why this discovery is such a big deal.
Its possible that you saw one of the longer versions of the film, as it has had several major restorations over the years after new stock is found. Some of these attempt to pad out the missing scenes with still production photos.
Then there is the question of which intertitles were used. If they were in English, they aren't the original ones, and thus they might be on screen for a different amount of time (or there could be more or less of them than in German).
There is also the problem of the correct speed to play this film back at. While modern films are standardized at 24fps, films of this era were generally not intended to be played at that speed. Although the 'standard' silent speed is 16fps, this could actually vary between films. I've even seen some talk that Metropolis was designed to take advantage of hand cranking and thus was intended to have a variable frame rate at different parts.
Depending on what speed your projectionist used, the movie's runtime could vary wildly.