The Complete Metropolis

1927/ 2010 - UFA - Germany
Directed By Fritz Lang

One of the holy grails of filmdom, the practically mythic director’s cut of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis was long thought lost.

Guess what they found when going through a warehouse in Argentina (of all places) in 2008? A copy of the of the negative of the original cut.

The print wasn’t stored properly and was in very bad shape. A bit of the unseen-since-1927 footage was forever lost (only a few shots) but 25 minutes hadn’t been seen since its debut in Germany. It was a major find! Using the found print as a reference, scholars were able to restore the (formerly heavily truncated)  film and add its missing pieces with it’s original editing intact. The ‘new’ footage is heavily scratched and is not in the proper aspect ratio with the rest of the film, but you could compare it with some very important music of the 1920’s (like Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five’s and Hot Seven’s recordings) it’s not in the best of shape, but the historical importance far outweighs its desired fidelity.

The newly added footage is in bad shape, noticeably different from the rest of the film, but expands the scope of the film and is necessary to help flesh out everything. The film is now almost 3 hours in length and a bit long for a modern audiences to take a silent film, but essential. The missing scenes make this classic film even better.

I found the film at times confusing when I originally saw the heavily edited version for mass consumption many years ago. Kino Films found more several minutes of unseen footage back in 2002 and the film made a little more sense, but still some confusion existed. This confusion simply did not exist in the ‘new’ version.  Everything needed was there.

The new print features a newly recorded version of the original musical score, which fit the film’s action perfectly. You can hear the orchestra turning the pages of the score and members even coughing. This perfectly replicates a band playing the music live in the theater.

Getting to see this epic on the big screen was a major treat and I look forward to it’s DVD/BluRay release later in the year. If you can’t see it in its limited theatrical release, definitely seek it out when it’s released in the home market later in 2010! It’s like seeing this masterpiece for the first time again.