The complete Metropolis

The original epic sci-fi classic art film, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, has not been seen in its original complete form since it opened in Berlin in 1927. It has taken 80 years to finally get it back to its original state.

Just in time for a blu-ray debut, a copy of the original cut of the classic film has miraculously been discovered in Buenos Aires by the curator of the Museo del Cine with an additional 25 minutes of lost footage, restoring this classic back to its original length and its original composition.

Back in January of 1927 when Metropolis first opened it was a two hour and thirty three minute epic film, but the US distributors thought that it was way too long and boring for an American audience, so before it was released in the US later that year, it was cut down to approximately 90 minutes (one hour and 30minutes), cutting the film by an hour in length. The film has never been seen in its original state since.

Over the years there have been many attempts to restore the film, as little bits and pieces of lost footage were found around the world and re-edited back into the film as best as could be determined, ( it was unknown how the original version was edited together), but the most recent version of the film still only ran 124 minutes.

The Argentine find, which was a 16mm duplicate of the original negative, is not only the longest version of the film yet found, with 25 minutes of extra footage, but also shows the film as it was originally edited together. Metropolis now runs a total of 147 minutes which is only 6 minutes shorter than its original release. This is probably the most complete version of the film modern audiences will ever see.

Unfortunately, due to the poor quality of the duplicate copy, much of the damage is still noticeable in the extra footage even after digital restoration techniques were used, so that the Argentine footage is easily noticeable compared to the rest of the film, which benefits from better source material.

The Story:

The hero’s journey begins as a privileged son of the ruler of a futuristic city stumbles upon another world hidden beneath the modern metropolis. As he investigates more closely and follows a beautiful girl into the bowels of the city, he discovers that this Under World beneath his feet is a world of slave labor. He witnesses the horrible conditions in which people are working around the clock servicing huge machines that run the city. Appalled by what he sees, he implores his father, the ruler of the city, to do something about it. When his plea is met with indifference, he decides to secretly take matters into his own hands. Back in the Lower City the son discovers that there is a movement among the frustrated workers to destroy the machines and kill the ruler of the city above. The son who has connections in the city above is eventually able to mediate reconciliation and equality between his father and the workers.

Metropolis is a cult classic of German expressionism, and dystopian future worlds that foreshadowed films like Blade Runner and The Matrix.

JP

Awards

The awards season is fast approaching yet again. I always look forward to it because with so many movies and books being released during a one year period (around 350 movies) and who knows how many books, and with so many different tastes (books and movies are very subjective) it’s not easy to know what you are going to like and what you won’t, especially with books. Sure you could read all the reviews but not many people do; there are just too many. We only see a small portion of the films that are released and only hear about and read an even smaller number of books. You would have to spend a lot of time browsing the book and video stores in order to find something you like.

Awards make the search a little easier for us every year, not because the winners are guaranteed to be great or suit our taste, no, but because the award nominees narrow down the field for us to look through. All the nominees for awards are going to be worth watching or reading regardless of whether they suit our particular taste. The winner is not important because the winner is rarely the film or book we would have chosen, but if you search through the nominees there is bound to be something of interest or to your taste.

Most of the time the film that I like the best does not win the Academy Award for best picture but it will inevitably win some awards for things that are important to me, like Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Editing, Art Direction and Directing.

Last year my favorite film lost to The Hurt Locker. Now while I liked The Hurt Locker and felt it was definitely a good film worth watching I did not think it was better than or as big of an achievement in film making as Avatar was. That award year was very similar to the award year of 1977 when the largest achievement in film making history Star Wars lost out to an ordinary low key, low budget Woody Allen comedy Annie Hall. While I like Annie Hall, it’s a fun film, it has definitely not had the impact and achieved the huge cult status among film goers and film makers and changed the film industry the way that Star Wars has.

There were other great films nominated last year like Up and Up in the Air which are also some of my favorites now. Up I would have seen anyway because I’m a fan of Pixar and Animation in general but Up in the Air I probably would not have noticed if not for the Award nominations it got. And it was a really cool film, far better than I expected.

2008 was one of the few years where my favorite film actually also won the Academy Award for best Picture. The other films were of course all very good but I probably would not have seen any of them if not for the nominations they got. But Slumdog Millionaire was definitely the stand out achievement that year and I was happy they won.
Slumdog was also the most awarded film I had ever seen, winning at every other award ceremony going, and not just for best Picture but also for Direction, Screenwriting, Cinematography, Music and Editing. This film just could not be stopped. It was a real Cinderella story.

Most other years though are not like that. Some years I don’t really like any of the nominated films. 2007 for example was the year the most critically acclaimed film, No Country for Old Men, actually won the Academy Award but most of the rest of us, regular film goers did not like that film. I think that most people preferred Juno but in that case the small budget comedy did not win over the bigger film.

The year that The Departed won the Academy Award I thought that Babel deserved it more, and it was definitely the better film and bigger achievement in film making. Babel is now one of my favorite films made by one of the best directors working today, Alejandro González Iñárritu. If not for the nomination it received, I may not have noticed it, at least not right away.

The Queen was the other big achievement that was also nominated in the same year. I was very pleasantly surprised at how good it was when I saw it for the first time. And that’s a film that I probably would not have bothered with had it not been for the best picture nomination.

Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima was another excellent film that was nominated in the same year.

There are some years that my favorite films are not even nominated but the nominees are always worth checking out. You’re bound to find a gem in there even if it doesn’t actually win the Award.

JP