http://www.thelocal.de:80/society/20090514-19281.html
Lost Metropolis film scenes headed back to Germany
Published: 14 May 09 14:30 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20090514-19281.html
Lost scenes from German-Austrian director Fritz Lang's legendary 1927 silent film "Metropolis" discovered in Argentina last year will be sent to Wiesbaden for restoration, officials from the two countries announced this week.
At a meeting in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, Argentina’s culture minister Hernán Lombardi said the country would hand the some 9,000 metres of film over to the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Institute. The German film preservation experts have agreed to finance the restoration and transfer it to a digital medium.
The institute, which owns the rights to the groundbreaking science fiction film, said it is optimistic that the badly damaged 82-year-old film can be restored after an initial test attempt in February.
"We will use the most modern means available to restore this masterpiece together with our partners for a film festival and cinema audience, as well as for television and DVD," institute leader Helmut Poßmann said in a statement.
In July 2008, Paula Félix-Didier, head of film museum Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires, discovered an uncut version of the 1927 science fiction film when she looked into reports that a tape in the archive was unusually long. She travelled to Berlin with a copy of the film and met with experts who say they are certain it is the missing original-length version of Lang's masterpiece that reveals key plot scenes and an expansion of minor roles, weekly Die Zeit, reported at the time.
In 1927, Fritz Lang presented the film in Berlin after producing it in the city's Babelsberg Studios. At that time it was the most expensive film ever produced in Germany, but it was not well received by its German audience. A radically shorter version was subsequently edited in the US, after which historians believed the original version to have been lost.
According to Die Zeit's reconstruction of events, Buenos Aires film distributor Adolfo Z. Wilson brought a copy of the original version to Argentina in 1928. Film critic Peña Rodríguez later attained the film, which he sold in the 1960's to Argentina's national art fund. In 1992 copy then went to the Museo del Cine - where discoverer Félix-Didier took leadership in January 2008.
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The Local: Lost Metropolis film scenes headed back to German
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Onlinesilentfilm
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radiotelefonia
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Wow, that's the update I've been waiting for. Thanks man! I can't wait until, at long last, the complete (well, except for around 5 minutes) version of METROPOLIS will be available for viewing. I went to see the current restoration in a Portland theatre on its run years ago, and was blown away. I dearly hope another U.S. theatrical run will be made for the upcoming restoration.
Thirty or forty years ago, METROPOLIS was regularly screened at just about every science fiction convention.... in a multi-generational print that was muddy, blotchy and hacked up like.... well, missing imemnse numbers of scenes. So when the new Transit print came through town to play at, among other venues, the Film Forum, I went to see it and was blown away as I have been by few other films .... although to me, Lang's M will always remain his greatest work. So if the new print ever comes through, I will see it again with great pleasure.
Despite all the bitching and moaning, this is a great time for lovers of classic cinema.
Bob
Despite all the bitching and moaning, this is a great time for lovers of classic cinema.
Bob
The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.
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gordonovitch
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Or ditched altogether. I'm very fond of that score, and I'm curious if the parts arranged for the original length still exist, or whether what we hear on the last Metropolis incarnation were parts for a shortened print. Or did they cut down a "complete" score to fit the truncated film? In any event, they would probably have to re-record the score; I hope they go to the trouble and the expense.FrankFay wrote:Aside from fitting the new footage into the old (and hopefully cleaning it up somewhat) the Huppertz score will have to be re-reconstructed.
Gordon Thomas
According to what I understand from seeing the documentary on the disc there is no surviving complete orchestral score, but a complete piano score with cues and some orchestrated material survives. The documentary showed how the cues were valuable for reconstructing the film as they quoted parts of titles, including those from the missing footage.
If I am completely wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.
If I am completely wrong I'm sure someone will correct me.
Eric Stott
There are many who think it should be re-recorded anyway, as apparently the guy who's got the rights to the score won't let anyone conduct it but him, and he supposedly made a cock-up of the performance, though it sounded just dandy to my classically untrained ears (though I can play piano and singgordonovitch wrote:Or ditched altogether. I'm very fond of that score, and I'm curious if the parts arranged for the original length still exist, or whether what we hear on the last Metropolis incarnation were parts for a shortened print. Or did they cut down a "complete" score to fit the truncated film? In any event, they would probably have to re-record the score; I hope they go to the trouble and the expense.FrankFay wrote:Aside from fitting the new footage into the old (and hopefully cleaning it up somewhat) the Huppertz score will have to be re-reconstructed.
Gordon Thomas
).