OT: Restored "Metropolis"
Thornhill
Thornhill
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/12/movies/12METR.html?8hpib
July 12, 2002
A Restored German Classic of Futuristic Angst
By A. O. SCOTT
n Jan. 10, 1927, Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," a wildly ambitious, hugely
expensive science fiction allegory of filial revolt, romantic love,
alienated labor and dehumanizing technology opened at the Ufa Palast
theater in Berlin. Lang's film, of course, went on to become one of
the touchstones of 20th-century cinema, exhaustively studied and
endlessly imitated, but apart from its brief theatrical run in Berlin
and Nuremberg 75 years ago, the movie as Lang made it has never really
been seen.
What happened to "Metropolis" is, in some ways, a familiar
movie-industry story of a studio's interference with an artist's work.
(Or, if you prefer to side with the studios, of a filmmaker's
profligate indifference to economic necessity and audience response.)
A few weeks after the premiere, Ufa, the studio that had produced the
film, pulled it from theaters and cut out 7 of the original 12 reels.
Paramount, the American distributor, went even further, engaging a
playwright, Channing Pollock, to compose English title cards and to
reshape the story to fit his own tastes. "I have given it my meaning,"
Pollock boasted. Lang was so appalled that he swore he would never go
to the United States, a vow he broke a few years later, when Hitler
proved to be a much graver threat to his art (to say nothing of his
life) than Hollywood could ever be.
Much of the grandeur and strangeness of "Metropolis" survived
Paramount's butchery and the further desecration perpetrated in 1984
by Giorgio Moroder, who added color tints to Karl Freund's eerie
Expressionist black-and-white cinematography and replaced Gottfried
Huppertz's lush, Wagnerian score with the music of pop stars like
Freddy Mercury and Bonnie Tyler.
Had Lang lived to see the age of the "director's cut" DVD, he might
have responded to those transgressions and reconstructed a definitive
"Metropolis." But now we have something nearly as good. Thanks to four
years of painstaking work by Martin Koerber, a German film
preservationist, and Alpha-Omega, a Munich company specializing in
digital restoration, there is now, at long last, a "Metropolis" with a
legitimate claim to being definitive.
Film Forum on Houston Street may lack the decadent Weimar glamour of
the Ufa Palast, but it does serve the best movie house popcorn in
Manhattan and, for the next two weeks, will be showing the latest
version of "Metropolis" in a spotless 35-millimeter print with a new
recording of Huppertz's score.
Much has been retrieved — more than 1,300 feet of film have been added
since the last rerelease, in 1987 — and the English titles have been
translated anew. There is also a second set of title cards, printed in
a plainer font, without multiple exclamation points, to indicate
scenes that are still missing. A subplot involving a character called
the Thin Man, a mysterious monk and visions inspired by the Book of
Revelation remains tantalizingly sketchy, but Lang's visual audacity
and thematic ambition are breathtakingly apparent, as is his
astonishing sense of scale, which enabled him to swoop from terrifying
sublimity to piercing, quiet intimacy with a single cut.
Pollock complained that, in Lang's version, "symbolism ran such riot
that people who saw it couldn't tell what the picture was all about."
He was not altogether wrong: Christianity, German romanticism,
modernism and Marxism stampede through the movie like the crowds of
angry workers and bourgeois revelers in the apocalyptic climax, but
the confusion that results ultimately resolves into hallucinatory,
visionary clarity. Only by pushing himself to the very edge of
coherence was Lang able to transcend the schematic moralizing that
keeps so much science fiction tethered, ultimately, to the mundane.
This is not to slight either the emotional impact or the political
resonance of Lang's fever-dream of the future. Quite the contrary:
"Metropolis" retains its power to overwhelm, trouble and move because
it is connected to the deep anxieties of modern life as if by a
high-voltage cable. The story of the scientist Rotwang (Rudolf
Klein-Rogge), a modern Pygmalion designing a female robot to replace
his lost love, stands between "Frankenstein" and "A.I." as an
expression of the defining modern preoccupation with machines that
blur the boundary between the human and the mechanical.
The early scene of workers trudging into the dark maw of their
underground factory has been copied to death (most recently in "Road
to Perdition"), but it remains unsurpassed as an image of how
mechanized work for another's profit can strip people of their
individuality. Later, as the mob of workers smashes the factory and
unleashes a flood of anarchy on the city, we see an equally chilling
image of the senseless destruction that revolt against exploitation
can produce.
In 1927, "Metropolis" was attacked by the German left as implicitly
fascistic, and by the right for its Communist tendencies. But one of
the curiosities of the film is that its aesthetic extremity serves a
mild and moderate ideology. The city, run by the suave industrialist
Joh Fredersen, is a drastically polarized place, with lush gardens and
soaring skyscrapers above ground and infernal slums below.
In the depths, a young woman, Maria (Brigitte Helm, the Kirsten Dunst
of the Weimar Republic), prophesies the coming of a messianic figure
called the Mediator, whose name sums up the temperate, reformist
message buried in the movie's sweep and bombast. The Mediator turns
out to be Freder Fredersen (Gustav Fröhlich), the boss's sensitive
son, whose infatuation with Maria leads him to a moral awakening.
His ultimate triumph is delayed by obstacles and digressions too
numerous and wonderful for mere prose, and the audience is distracted
from the film's moral by its elements of horror, mystery, burlesque
and romance. Far from a historical curio, "Metropolis" arrives,
three-quarters of a century late, like an artifact from the future. At
last we have the movie every would-be cinematic visionary has been
trying to make since 1927.
"Metropolis" opens today at the Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street,
South Village. Tickets: $9.75; $5 for members and 65+ weekdays before
5 p.m. Box office: (212) 727-8110.
Darth Nub
> This NYT page has a couple of extras along with the article.
>
> Thornhill
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/12/movies/12METR.html?8hpib
>
> July 12, 2002
> A Restored German Classic of Futuristic Angst
> By A. O. SCOTT
>
>
> n Jan. 10, 1927, Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," a wildly ambitious, hugely
> expensive science fiction allegory of filial revolt, romantic love,
> alienated labor and dehumanizing technology opened at the Ufa Palast
> theater in Berlin. Lang's film, of course, went on to become one of
> the touchstones of 20th-century cinema, exhaustively studied and
> endlessly imitated, but apart from its brief theatrical run in Berlin
> and Nuremberg 75 years ago, the movie as Lang made it has never really
> been seen.
>
Bit of a coincidence this popping up on the heels of the success of
the anime Metropolis.
Wonder what the music's like? The most widely available version here
in Australia has an utterly appalling score - Casio style electronic
crap. Even the Moroder version is preferable.
This version also claims to be the longest around, but looking at it,
loads of crowd shots are endlessly repeated & it even appears to be
running at 16fps.
Darth
Gorn Captain
seems. Musical tastes aside, it seemed to have more footage restored to it
than all the really horrible public domain versions with casiotone
soundtracks. And somebody is getting tinting confused with colorization.
Somebody must like Moroder version, since the laserdisc fetches high
prices on Ebay. ;)
John
The high prices are due to the footage that is not available anywhere else.
This new version will quickly replace the old LD version (except for those
that prefer the music.) There is a web site by the restorers, the URL I am
currently missing. Glenn Erickson has an excellent review of the restored film
as shown at the LA County Museum of Art at
http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s331metropolis.html.
There is also a question of the correct projection speed. The KINO DVD will be
done at 24fps, while the museums and ARTE (a European film channel) have been
showing it at 20fps. Glenn also has several articles on this subject.
John
will be playing in the USA. It also has a trailer for the film that is very
good. (Not sure of the projection speed on the trailer, but it looks correct,
whatever it is.)
http://www.kino.com/metropolis/showtimes.htmlIn article
According to the trailer, the score will be a new recording of the 1927
version.
John
Thornhill
Thanks for the locations, times and this site, John (the added
characters at the end of .html may be misleading).
It was no small ambition putting the site together. Wish they'd
brought the same skill to their copy editing, which is sometimes
remarkably embarassing (Egon "Shile"? "The Blue AngelL"? "strum und
drang"? The latter sounds like an insane lead guitar/ax-man who
garrotes his old band, with extreme prejudice).
Thornhill
John
cthor...@worldnet.att.net says...
>
>no...@none.com (John) wrote in message
news:<uhrY8.65153$xu5....@news1.central.cox.net>...
>> This is the link to the web page for Kino that tells where and when
Metropolis
>> will be playing in the USA. It also has a trailer for the film that is very
>> good. (Not sure of the projection speed on the trailer, but it looks
correct,
>> whatever it is.)
>>
>> http://www.kino.com/metropolis/showtimes.html
>>
>> version.
>>
>> John
>
>Thanks for the locations, times and this site, John (the added
>characters at the end of .html may be misleading).
>
>It was no small ambition putting the site together. Wish they'd
>brought the same skill to their copy editing, which is sometimes
>remarkably embarassing (Egon "Shile"? "The Blue AngelL"? "strum und
>drang"? The latter sounds like an insane lead guitar/ax-man who
>garrotes his old band, with extreme prejudice).
>
>Thornhill
Thornhill,
I didn't notice that I had copied too many characters. Thanks for pointing it
out. I am looking forward to this film and may have to head to Austin to see
it - though that's a long drive for a film (I live in Oklahoma City.) I hope
the DVD is as good as it can be, though I am still concerned about the
projection speed.
Glad you found it useful. Thank Glenn Erickson for the information - I got it
from his last article at dvdtalk.com.
The correct site for the info is:
http://www.kino.com/metropolis/showtimes.html
John
Darth Nub
I don't mind the Moroder version at all - colour tinting happened back
in the 20's, & as you mentioned, there is footage (apart from the
stills) that doesn't appear anywhere else. The sports stadium springs
to mind.
Moroder's actual score isn't bad either (much better than the one I
mentioned), I just don't like the pop songs.
The strangest thing about the Moroder version is the way it was cut,
or rather, re-written. Character motivations are completely different
from other cuts, such as Rotwang & John Fredersen having been in love
with the same woman, & the robot being an attempt at recreating her.
Supposedly they went back to the original scripts, but I'd be
interested to see how this new version interprets the film.
Darth