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Lost Footage of "Metropolis" Found 134

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the working-as-intended-now dept.
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.'"
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Lost Footage of "Metropolis" Found More

Lost Footage of "Metropolis" Found

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  • I have nothing insightful to add but (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cptnapalm ( 120276 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @03:15PM (#24061513)

    Metropolis is an excellent movie and now there will be more of it for me to see. This is pretty damn cool.

  • Good lord (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 04, 2008 @03:15PM (#24061517)
    Now I can sit and be bored even longer at my artsy friend's house.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by imipak ( 254310 )
      Go watch Robinson in Space [imdb.com] and discover the mystic land that lies beyond the Ocean of Boredom.
  • And, coincidentally, it had been digitally remastered, with a new soundtrack.

  • Screencaps (Score:5, Informative)

    by Chris Pimlott ( 16212 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @03:24PM (#24061595)

    German newspaper Die Zeit has an article online with a gallery of images from the recovered print [www.zeit.de].

    • Very scratchy, but someone on the IMDB forums suggested that it's possible to clean them up. That the scratches are just in the film coating, not in the image itself.

      Thank you very much for this link, btw.

    • As far as I understand there are a few missing scenes. What however is true is that it was always very difficult to understand the plot.

      More informations means also better quality.

      Has anyone build a Metropolis scenario for an ego shooter?

  • Metropolis was distributed with a piano score (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @03:24PM (#24061599) Homepage Journal
    As was the practice with many silent films: a live pianist would play the music during the film.

    The first time I saw it, in a theatre, that piano score was on the soundtrack, and it added a great deal to the whole film. It was very clear that the music was carefully composed to work with Fritz Lang's vision.

    Later, a colorized version came out with a modern Heavy Metal score. I didn't care for it at all. It's not that I dislike Heavy Metal, but that the music chosen really didn't work for the film.

    I read somewhere that Adolf Hitler was really into Metropolis, and that he held it up as an example that all filmmakers should strive for. Food for thought.

    • Re:Metropolis was distributed with a piano score (Score:4, Insightful)

      by msuarezalvarez ( 667058 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @03:31PM (#24061649)

      I read somewhere that Adolf Hitler was really into Metropolis, and that he held it up as an example that all filmmakers should strive for. Food for thought.

      What kind of thought? The kind that goes evaluates X along the line of ÂY had a good/bad opinion of it, and Y is good/bad?, therefore X is good/bad? for various possible choices of the several alternatives?

    • Hitler wore khakis. (Score:5, Funny)

      by johnny cashed ( 590023 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @03:39PM (#24061713) Homepage
      Food for thought...

    • Re:Metropolis was distributed with a piano score (Score:4, Informative)

      by Peter H.S. ( 38077 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @03:53PM (#24061819) Homepage

      I read somewhere that Adolf Hitler was really into Metropolis, and that he held it up as an example that all filmmakers should strive for. Food for thought.

      I really don't think so. Fritz Lang was Jewish, his films were banned when Hitler came to power in 1933, and Fritz Lang himself emigrated from Germany allready in 1934. There was a rumor that Goebbels gave Fritz Lang the option of making film for the regime. Whether this were true or not is uncertain, but the offer was extremely unrealistic in any case; He would have ended up in a KZ camp sooner or later.

      --
      Regards

      • The author of the film T. Harbou was right wing. The twenties are difficult and Berlin was a melting pot of modernism.

      • Fritz Lang was Catholic, though he had some Jewish blood. Hitler claimed that Jewish ancestry was the same as being a Jew, but he wasn't beyond making exceptions for people that were useful to him. If Lang had agreed to make propaganda films, it's likely his ancestry would've been overlooked.

        • Fritz Lang was Catholic, though he had some Jewish blood. Hitler claimed that Jewish ancestry was the same as being a Jew, but he wasn't beyond making exceptions for people that were useful to him. If Lang had agreed to make propaganda films, it's likely his ancestry would've been overlooked.

          First of all, I really do think that the OP is wrong about Hitler liking Metropolis. It is so out of character for Hitler, and it is likely that the OP confuses Hitler with Goebbels. While the Goebbels story is probably untrue, it is not completely out of character that a more intellectual nazi like Goebbels could appreciate Metropolis. A little googling seems to confirm my suspicion. The only Hitler-Lang connection I can find is the allegation that Hitler liked Langs filmatization of the "Die Niebelungen"

    • Re:Metropolis was distributed with a piano score (Score:5, Informative)

      by iluvcapra ( 782887 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @04:02PM (#24061879)

      As was the practice with many silent films: a live pianist would play the music during the film.

      This is partially true, but most modern scholarship on the subject suggests that all but the smallest houses had at least a four-piece ensemble. Large city houses would have entire orchestras, and even hire actors to read the intertitles in character from behind the screen. Metropolis had an entire orchestral score composed, which can be heard on most available DVDs nowadays, and the sheet music sent to most venues would either be the full score or a reduction.

      Later, a colorized version came out with a modern Heavy Metal score. I didn't care for it at all. It's not that I dislike Heavy Metal, but that the music chosen really didn't work for the film.

      This is the Giorgio Moroder [imdb.com] version, alternately ignored and despised; some of the "lost footage" from the original version was present in this cut however, not in its actual form but mocked up with illustrations from the pre-production that were animated on a rostrum camera. Particularly jarring in this version are the extended stadium-rock-inspired lyrics, in English no less.

      I read somewhere that Adolf Hitler was really into Metropolis, and that he held it up as an example that all filmmakers should strive for. Food for thought.

      Hitler and Goebbels personally sought out Lang to ask him to make films for the government, essentially to take the job eventually given the Leni Riefenstahl. Lang caught the first boat out of the country; he could see that it'd be impossible to work outside of the government in the years to come. But his wife, Thea von Harbou, who wrote the original novel of Metropolis, had Nazi sympathies and stayed in Germany to work for the regime.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GWBasic ( 900357 )

        This is the Giorgio Moroder version

        Working link: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002380/ [imdb.com]. (The original link is only for paying members of IMDB.)

      • Re:Metropolis was distributed with a piano score (Score:4, Informative)

        by westlake ( 615356 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @07:56PM (#24063245)
        Hitler and Goebbels personally sought out Lang to ask him to make films for the government, essentially to take the job eventually given the Leni Riefenstahl. Lang caught the first boat out of the country; he could see that it'd be impossible to work outside of the government in the years to come

        Fritz Lang's credits - simply as a director - are amazing.

        Here you'll find the archetypes of Science Fiction - The Spy Thriller - The Technicolor Western - Film Noir

        1927 Metropolis
        1928 The Spy
        1929 Rocket to the Moon
        1931 M
        1941 Western Union
        1941 Man Hunt
        1952 Rancho Notorius
        1953 The Big Heat
        1956 While The City Sleeps

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by JoeCommodore ( 567479 )

      I really liked the Moroder edit, and it was very Pop 80's Rock, not heavy metal, unless you think Queen, Adam Ant, Bonnie Tyler, Cycle V, etc. are heavy metal bands.

      It used subtitles instead of having the dialog cards pop up and was amd much more watchable. The music did well to set the tone.

      I'll keep my VHS copy as I doubt I'll ever see a DVD of that edit.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      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

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by quitte ( 1098453 )

      I read somewhere that Adolf Hitler was really into Metropolis, and that he held it up as an example that all filmmakers should strive for. Food for thought.

      That's not food for thought, it just makes you and now me loose the argument by Godwin's law.

      Just because Hitler did/liked/said/wrote something doesn't automatically attach a moral value to that something.

      Hitler ate food. makes you think, doesn't it?

    • Hitler was also a vegetarian and wanted to outlaw smoking. Food for thought.

      • Hitler wasn't a vegetarian because of ethics about killing animals or the ecological effects of grain-fed meat - he was a vegetarian because he had trouble digesting meat and it gave him gas. He'd make exceptions if he was in the mood for dead flesh.

        Hitler was also an unsuccessful painter, so if you haven't filled your Godwin's Law quota for the day, do you know who else was an unsuccessful painter?....

    • I read somewhere that Adolf Hitler was really into Metropolis, and that he held it up as an example that all filmmakers should strive for. Food for thought.

      And he offered a job to Lang as head of film production for all Germany, at which point Lang bought a ticket to France and then Hollywood. Just because a creep likes a film doesn't mean the guy who made the film is a creep.

    • I took a class on Fritz Lang when I went to University, and if I remember correctly it was Joseph Gerbils who was Fritz Lang's big fan. There are many 'untrue' stories about Lang and the Nazi party circulating though so who knows what is true. One untrue story is that Gerbils offered Lang a high ranking job in the Nazi party, but he turned it down and fled without any of his fortune during the night to France. In truth he lived in Germany for five months after this meeting was said to happen, and brought

    • I read somewhere that Adolf Hitler was really into Metropolis, and that he held it up as an example that all filmmakers should strive for. Food for thought.

      I read somewhere that Joseph Stalin thought sunrises were beautiful. Food for thought.

  • Argh. I want to see this now, but according to the article:

    Due to the poor condition of the film stock, it was too early to say how long restoration would take, Possmann said.

    "It's taken several years with similar films," he added.

    I guess there are some things you can't just download. Not for awhile anyway.

    • discovered the canisters containing them earlier this year and brought a DVD of the contents to Germany for analysis.

      Apperently they made a dvd of the movie to send to germany for analysis, I suspect that was just a copy of the movie onto the dvd that could show up on the internet. The Restored version will have all the deterioration removed and discoloration(if there is any) as well as some artifacts.

      I'm hoping they release a dvd of the un restored copy, or at least it doesn't take 7 years to clean it up.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by ximenes ( 10 )

        Kino has already stated that they intend to include this footage on their new DVD/BluRay release of the movie in 2009. However, its not totally clear yet if it will be incorporated into the film or as a supplement.

    • Just so you know apparently it will be out next year http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents [thedigitalbits.com] but I hope it will be spilled on the net soon.

    • It's going to take a lot of cleanup. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Animats ( 122034 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @04:32PM (#24062101) Homepage

      There are a few stills on line. The film is badly streaked. It's going to take a lot of cleanup.

      Worse, when you run bad old film through modern video compression, the results are awful, as vast amounts of the bandwidth are sucked up following the artifacts.

  • 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 is, to my mind, like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Mon Oncle, they were primarily visual films. As critics have often pointed out, the latter are, for all intents and purposes, silent films, so I think they fit well with Metropolis.

      I don't think anyone should watch Metropolis looking for a plot line. It's not a story in that sense. It's an impressive visual accomplishment, one of the first great special effects films. It's also important because it has so inhabited the imaginations later generatio

    • Which version have you seen? The film was completely rewritten when it premiered in the US, with a simplistic capital vs labor plot and 90 minute run time, which is what many DVDs are based upon. The two hour version on the Kino disc is much more complex and has better characterization.

  • Metropolis is really good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @04:13PM (#24061957) Homepage Journal
    I really wish the silent film shown more. It really forced the creative team to utilize what is special about film, i.e. the images, rather than make a movie that is radio with images. Nothing wrong with the later, I actually prefer good dialoque to pretty picture, but have great respect for movies that have both good writing and good cinematography. Action does not hurt either.

    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.

    • For instance, I saw the preview to Journey to the Center of the Earth. It seemed to be this kind of random movie.

      To be fair, that's a lot like how the original Verne book plays out, too.

  • A little clarification would be good. IMDB shows lots of different runtimes [imdb.com], depending on the release. I watched the German version a few years ago, and I'm pretty sure it was longer than 2 1/2 hours (I even slept a bit through it, even though I loved the movie). IMDB says that version is 210 minutes long. So is it just because of playing speed, or are there differences between the versions? Has anyone else watched any of the versions referenced in IMDB?

    • Re:So exactly how long is it? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ximenes ( 10 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @06:29PM (#24062833)

      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.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by nfk ( 570056 )
        The intertitles were in German, but now that you mention it, I seem to recall some bits with still photos.

      • Yes, but it speed was also not fixed when the film was shown. Which makes it very interesting. what is the "original" speed? How to present it right.

        The missing stuff is like a tutenchamun discovery. I hope they will rebuild the original cinema where the film was shown first.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by canavan ( 14778 )
        The film length for those old movies is usually not given in hours or seconds, but meters. The original 1927 release or metropolis was 4198m, the short version 3241m, and the restored version from 2001 that's usually found on DVDs was 3341m.

        Since DVDs outside the US and Japan run at 25fps instead of 24fps, there's still another source of difference in running time.
  • This is excellent! Any chance to see more of Walter Ruttmann's excellent cinematography is greatly appreciated.

    For those that haven't, check out "Berlin: Die Symphonie der Großstadt" It's public domain and widely available in pieces on YouTube. (though obviously at shitty YouTube quality). It's an amazing movie for its time, incredible shots in it.
  • If there's a viable Superman and Lois Lane joke with this Metropolis? Naaaaa.

  • Can we donwload? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by leomekenkamp ( 566309 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @05:41PM (#24062539)

    It is a bit sad that this is one of the only few movies we can freely share that can give us insight of how society has been looked at from the past and that may even have formed our society. I mean, is the money that goes to all the copyright holders (who had relatively little to do in the creative process of the film, and creativity is important in arts) in a lot of other films really so important that we should not be able to freely share films our parents saw so many years ago?

    Why are 30 year old films still protected by copyright? Is there any reason to think that if one company did not make enough money of one single work in 30 years in this fast-pace global market, things will look different after those 30 years? IMHO, no. Great films like Langs Metropolis should, after a time a lot shorter than 70 years, be more freely shared throughout civilization, for the benefit of all, and not for the 2% extra revenue for a few companies.

    I downloaded Metropolis from the Pirate Bay. It was a version that was made to be as close to the original as possible, even with markers where it was cut because else the story would be "to difficult" for the viewers. I wish a lot more films would be legally obtainable that way.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by John Hasler ( 414242 )

      A major function of insanely long copyrights is to prevent material from entering the public domain soon enough to compete with newly-released stuff. If the Dr. No movie was in the public domain where it belongs you might download and watch it instead of spending $20 on the latest piece of crap.

      • Keep in mind, though, that the companies that release public domain films rarely have access to the original negatives, which are necessary for high quality transfers, and often have to rely on scratched up 16mm copies. So even if Dr. No were in the public domain, the official MGM release would be preferable to any other.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by ximenes ( 10 )

      Metropolis was in the public domain, but became copyrighted again in 1998.

      However, keep in mind that even if the original film itself were in the public domain today, acquiring a copy of this would be quite difficult. The restored versions are covered under separate copyright, as is the music. Since this particular film has had a lot of (positive) restoration work performed, the value of having its original pre-restoration version in the public domain is pretty minor.

      • Much, perhaps all, of the restoration work may not be covered by copyright in the US.

      • Isn't it covered by German German laws that were not prolonged? I guess you will also find some declaration that invalidated german copyright with the beginning of the WWII.

        In my opinion restoration is a public benefit activity. what is it worth if the film is not made available for free afterwards.

  • Sign me up for YASE (yet another special edition) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kazoo the Clown ( 644526 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @06:03PM (#24062693)
    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...

    • My wife and I love that jazz soundtrack as well. We have a copy with that soundtrack on VHS but the print is far from remastered......

  • From the AP wire.

    Soon after its initial release at the height of Germany's Weimar Republic, distributors cut Lang's three-and-a-half-hour masterpiece into the shorter version since viewed by millions worldwide.

    But a private collector carried an original version to Argentina in 1928, where it has stayed, Felix-Didier said.

    The fact that there was once a longer version is legend among film buffs.

  • Irony (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ranger ( 1783 ) on Friday July 04, 2008 @11:16PM (#24064015) Homepage
    Interesting that something German was found hiding in Argentina.

  • Over 80 years!

    Will be interesting to see if it's as good as I remember it ;-)

  • Sorry but it isn't that great.

  • Get copyright extended to such ridiculous lenghts, that once a movie is out of copyright, the only way to see it again is a restored version, which is then covered by copyright again?

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