Has anyone seen the new digital restoration of Metropolis?

Cafe Society
1

…and if so, how was it?

I just found out about this a few days ago and so I’ve been doing a bit of checking on the web. If the boasting on their site is to be believed, this may be the most complete version of Metropolis we will ever get to see. They found footage that was not even included in the 1995 Filmmuseum Munich restoration, and obtained rights to use the original score and recorded it with a 65 piece orchestra. Then a complete digital conversion, restoration, and new 35mm prints.

According to the schedule, it should have already opened in New York City and Huntington. There probably aren’t very many prints, so it may have left already, too. It’s coming to Boston in about a month, and I’m definitely going to see it. (It’s at the Brattle Theater, which has a rather small screen. I would have prefered the Coolidge Corner.) I’ve seen it twice already; the Moroder version with the sound turned down and live accompaniment. I know there are a few Metropolis fans on the boards, so I thought I’d see if any of you could tell me what you thought of it.

[sub]For those scratching their heads, Metropolis was one of the earliest (1927) and most influential science fiction films ever made. Everything from Frankenstein to Blade Runner can trace the way it looks directly back to Metropolis. But in the last 75 years it’s been spliced more than Michael Jackson’s nose, and there is much debate about the merits of the different versions. The link I posted has information on North American showings only.[/sub]

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I eagerly await this. I have the usual crappy version on DVD (for $7 what can you expect). I also have a copy of the Moroder re-master.

3

I’m gonna be looking for this. I expect it’ll show up somewhere in the DC area.

4

Th’ damn thing isn’t coming within 1000 miles of where I live and the it looks great.

I hate everyone.

Fenris

5

Control your hate! The DVD will be out some time in 2003. If you don’t have a DVD player, then hate! :smiley:

6

I don’t wanna wait.

I want it NOW!

Hate hate hate.

Fenris

7

I’ll be going Thursday evening.

The run at the Film Forum in Greenwich Village has been extended through August 15, so if the rest of the country is waiting to get this one print, too bad, you’ll just have to wait a while longer until we blase New Yorkers are finished with it.

8

I’m sensing some hostility here, folks.

Don’t be too upset, Fenris, it’s not showing anywhere near Savannah, Georgia either. Mr. B.S. is gonna have to wait or travel, the same as you are.

It does seem to be an awfully limited run. There are some good revival theaters in Seattle (or there were when I lived there) and the closest it’s going to be is San Francisco. ultrafilter, it is going to be in D.C., at the AFI National Film Theater. But you better make your plans quickly, it opens this Friday.

For a project this extravagent, I’m a little surprised I didn’t hear anything about it all sooner. If anyone runs across any articles or reviews, would you post a link here, please.

9

Damn, there’s no way I’m gonna be able to make it this weekend. Guess I better find out how long it’s running, and if I can convince any of my Philistine friends to go see it.

10

I love that movie.

I am gonna do my damndest to see it.

11

Damn! I gotta see this!

I love my copy of the restored The Lost World, which restores the 1925 movie to 95% of its original length. It is just so far superior to the versions I’d seen before (including the Eastman House restoration with stills filling in the missing scenes).

I used to have only the usualy U.S. version on video, and when friends would ask to see it I’d steer them away. When I got the Moroder version on tape, I eagerly showed them this and bits of the “standard” version, just to show them the difference – the quality in the Moroder version is so superior it’s not funny. But there’s still so much missing from the Moroder version that it’s like the Eastman cut of TLW. (The Moroder version runs 90 minutes, just like the “standard” cut. Sime sites claimn this is the result of adjusting the run speed, but if you compare the two versions scene by scene – I’ve done this – you can see that Moroder actually cut out material!) A restored version, like the restored TLW, would be infinitely better.

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IT’S COMING TO ANN ARBOR AND DETROIT! Awesome!

Of course, I’m not interested in the science-fiction aspect, I prefer to focus on the yummy German Expressionist set design. The plot is pretty sketchy in the current versions, because so much was cut out. I’m hoping this version will fill in some of the blanks.

I’ve always been interested in knowing what happened to everyone that made the film - cast, crew, extras - during the Nazi period. A bit of trivia I learned recently: Gustav Fröhlich, who plays Freder, was later married to the actress Lida Baarova, who became the mistress of Josef Goebbels. Crazy, huh?

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The Moroder version was the most recent one I’ve seen. Do you remember what was cut?

I know that it put a few things back in, most notably the “Yoshiwara” sequence (remember that poor fainting worker that Freder spells at the huge clock-thing, early in the film? Remember how Freder gives him his clothes and cash and instructs him to meet someone…somewhere? Remember how, in the standard version, he completely vanishes from the movie? Well, Moroder cobbled together some footage out of still production shots and restored the little story of how the worker almost immediately succumbs to temptation and dashes into what is essentially a red-light district sex club).

The Moroder edition also tucks in a production still of Rotwang’s altar to Hel, the beauteous maiden who ended up with the scientist’s rival, Joh Fredersen, the Master of Metropolis, and died giving birth to Freder. The standard version never explains why Rotwang is constantly giving Joh the hairy eyeball.

I’m gonna dig out my old Ace SF paperback of the Thea von Harbou novel and give it a read before Thursday, even though it’s the 1927 translation, which sucks to the heavens.

I also understand that the new restoration puts Joh Frederen’s sinister and nearly superhuman right-hand henchman back into the story. And refers to him as “The Thin Man,” thank god. The novel translates the designation of this personification of evil as…get this…“Slim.”

Isn’t it time somebody re-translated the novel? Oh, another cool thing I’m looking forward to about the New Metropolis…re-translated title cards with nifty new design!

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:frowning:

There isn’t one, single Canadian date on the schedule. Sheesh, you’d think they’d at least try to hit Toronto. Ike, in this thread, I linked to this site which contains a huge amount of info on the various verious released versions.

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“various verious” :smack: How the heck did I come up with that??

16

Oh, MAN!!

I am definitely gonna have to go see this. I saw the Moroder version on tape a decade or more ago, and if this thing has everything they could possibly get out of the source prints… drool

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It’s stuff that, at first glance, looks repetitious. A lot of The Big Boss (Freder?) waiting around while Rotwang dopes out that the paper found in the workman’s pocket is a map (He glances at his watch, and to my syrprise it’s a 12 hour watch, not a 10 hour one as in the factory). Lots more of people walking around, etc.

I assume that Moroder took this out while adding so much new material because he (or his backers) insisted that the film be kept short in order to be financially successful. But, as I learned watching the various versions of The Lost World, it always feels wrong when something’s been cut out.

18

Sort of.

I saw it at Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois back in April. It was a 95-minute print provided to the festival by Eastman House.

The cool thing about this presentation is that is was accompanied by a live score performed by the Alloy Orchestra. These guys are fabulous! It was the second time I’d seen them perform a score they had written for a classic silent film (last year they did Nosferatu).

Trouble was, according to the projectionists who had been brought in for the festival, in a perfect world the film should be shown at 20 frames per second. (Most projectors run at at 24 fps) No problem at the festival, because the first-rate projectors have variable speed. But Alloy had rehearsed over and over again while the film was running on a 24 fps projector and needed to perform live with the film running at that speed.

So I saw the restored print with a dynamite live score, rather than the original score, run just a smidge faster than would be ideal.

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If it was from Eastman, Labdad, then it’s not the same version as in the OP.

I have seen a portion of it. Two years ago at the BIF’s National Film Theatre in London, they had a Metropolis day with assorted scholars, two screenings of the film (the Moroder and the most recent restoration at the time), as well as the Munich Filmmuseum.

They brought a clip, about 3 minutes. It’s the scene in Rotwang’s lab where he reveals the robot to Joh (but not the activation scene). What struck me was the image quality of the film, which was quite extraordinary–in some senses, it was too good.

In the archival community, we have discussions about the extent to which a film that’s restored should best resemble what people from that time saw at the time. For example, silent comedies would use wires for various gags, with the understanding that the average projector would not be so bright as to usually reveal the wires. However, by cleaning and restoring the film elements, these wires are plainly evident. Is this authentic restoration, since we as an audience would be seeing things the original audience typically didn’t?

The Metropolis scene had a similar effect for me. I’ve seen the film dozens of times and I never had a problem immersing myself into the elaborate and wonderful production design. But this time, the image was so vivid and clear, that the lab very transparently felt like a set. Imagine seeing an old TV show from the 50s and you’ll get an idea of the impression it gave. The difference was both disconcerting and distracting. It was both beautiful technically but also alien dramatically. I had a hard time wondering what the complete restoration would be like. Since it’s coming to the Castro for a week-long run, I guess I’ll find out.

Another thing about the frame rate. When we saw the films twice, the second screening (non-Moroder) was at a slower frame rate (18 or 20). I found this to also have a different, rather negative impact on the film. When Freder is in the large workspace and sees all the workers at their stations, moving mechanically back & forth, the fast frame rate that the film is usually showed at actually helped reinforce the theme of mechanization. At the slower (“more correct”) frame rate, it didn’t quite work. Too many of the scenes seemed sluggish by comparison. The faster frame rate sends an electric charge through the film, which is in sync with Lang’s futuristic worldview as well as the expressionistic acting of the cast. But at the slower frame rate, it got a little, well, boring (and this is from someone who loves the film quite passionately).

Another thing–from the site, it doesn’t look like the film is tinted. I have some serious reservations about this as well (again, from a restorative perspective), especially since the tinting job in the Moroder is, IMHO, quite good and effective.

Also, from my memory of the two different screenings of Metropolis that day, I don’t remember any substantial differences, i.e. extra scenes, missing segments, etc., so I would have to attribute the disparity in running time largely to the frame rate.

One last thing, I’ve heard the Alloy Orchestra musical score and for my money, the score by The Clubfoot Orchestra (available on CD) is significantly better.

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Whoops, that should’ve said BFI (British Film Institute) and reps from the Munich Filmmuseum.

Goes to show what happens when you go on vacation :smack: