Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)

[Tommaso]

Was the announce of a new restoration of Metropolis (and the blu-ray release) was made knowing all this?

No idea, really; I thought there was just talk about a new telecine to meet the Blu Ray standard, but I might be wrong about this. After Koerber's post, this discovery is indeed even better than one could reasonable expect. But it leaves a bittersweet taste, as it seems the projection speed problem will not be addressed. They seem to believe that 24 fps is correct, after all. And I simply can't agree with this.

[justeleblanc]

I hope they wait on the BR release. I'm willing to wait a few years. I'd much rather see a BR of Spies, Dr Mabuse, or Destiny for what it's worth. But who knows, maybe I'll like the director's cut of Metropolis more than I do the available cut.

Just out of curiousity, does anyone know the exact running time of the full length version when shown in proper fps?

[markhax]

Some excerpts from what Martin Koerber posted on the Association of Moving Images Archivists listserv:

Only one of the missing scenes (the monk in the cathedral) remains missing, because it happened to be at a reel end that got badly torn. The rest is there.

The scene comes at the beginning of Part II, the Zwischenspiel or Intermezzo. On the critical edition DVD there is 57 seconds of black leader between the scenes of Freder entering the cathedral and then looking at the sculptures of the Seven Deadly Sins. According to the screenplay the missing footage shows two scenes, a monk with a fanatical facial expression in the cathedral pulpit, citing a passage in the Book of Revelation predicting the Apocalypse, and reading the passage that begins: "I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns..... " The monk then reads the passage about the woman robed in purple and scarlet and points to the words "the great Babylon", then the scene shifts briefly to showing the machine that will become the bad Maria sitting enthroned in Rotwang's laboratory. He turns to her and says: "You will destroy Joh Fredersen--him and his city and his son." I assume that this latter scene exists in the Buenos Aires print.

[markhax]

Can anyone confirm if the BA print has any footage from the missing scene(s) at Yoshiwara? The first one, as I recall involves Josaphat, just before (or after?) Freder goes underground to discover Maria.

If you read the Martin Koerber remarks posted above by J. Wilson, he says that the scene in the cathedral with the monk is the only one missing. So I assume everything else is there.

[HerrSchreck]

Carrying smelling salts around now so I can be revived when GREED & AMBERSONS are uncovered.

[Schkura]

I hope they wait on the BR release. I'm willing to wait a few years. I'd much rather see a BR of Spies, Dr Mabuse, or Destiny for what it's worth. But who knows, maybe I'll like the director's cut of Metropolis more than I do the available cut.

Kino confirms newly-discovered material will be part of BD release.

[aox]

Carrying smelling salts around now so I can be revived when GREED & AMBERSONS are uncovered.

Ambersons maybe, but good luck with Greed.

[Tommaso]

Ambersons maybe, but good luck with Greed.

Did anyone say "Four Devils" here?

[Saturnome]

Four Devils what? What is this? I used some film from some canister called that do to straps on a halloween costume. But it went into dust, how boring.

[Nadsat]

Four Devils what? What is this?

Check out this thread

[J Wilson]

Here's Paula Felix-Didier on the AMIA list about the find:

I can tell you a little bit more about how I suspected that the print I had was more than the usual American version.
I'm the Director of the Museo del Cine de Buenos Aires, and I'm also a film historian, and a graduate from the NYU moving image preservation program. It was indeed a great moment when we pulled out the print we held in the archive and we could see a few images we've never seen before. This 16mm dupe neg was sitting in the Museum vault since 1992. When I was appointed director of the museum this past January, I immediately went to check the reels because I had -ticking in my mind- a story that Fernando Pena, (historian, film collector, curator and more, who also happens to be my ex-husband) told me a few years ago: a projectionist told him that he would never forget the stupid Metropolis print that made him hold it with his finger throughout the 2 hour screening. Of course, the 2 hour thing tipped him off. So we really couldn't wait to get hold of that print and make sure. It was only a matter of finding the cans and pulling out the reels and watch them against the light to realize that at least some of the missing scenes were there. I immediately made a transfer to dvcam and we screened it one morning to finally confirm that it was all there (I know, Martin, I know... the priest reading the Bible is still missing, but we can't really complain, can we?)
Understandably, at first nobody believed me. This had happened before. People thinking they had what it turned out to be yet another butchered version. So only after I showed it to Martin Koerber, Enno Patalas, Reiner Rotha and the Murnau Stiftung people, and they were able to see it with their own eyes, the news could be confirmed.
There is more to this story but I won't bore you with the details..
I also want to make very clear that I haven't shown the complete film to anybody but the aformentioned people and I'm not planning on doing so since the Murnau Stiftung holds the rights for the film. The press got only a few seconds and some frame captures.

[Roger_Thornhill]

Four Devils what? What is this?

Check out this thread

I admit, I fell for it.

This one, however, doesn't appear to be a hoax! I was recently reading Bogdanovich's interview book with classical Hollywood directors and I was rather surprised to read Lang say he doesn't like 'Metropolis' at all. Well, maybe it's not that surprising considering many great director's dislike their more popular works.

[miless]

He also didn't like the whole message of the film, which was written by his (then) wife (who, apparently, became a big Nazi supporter). From what I remember reading, he didn't like the films message because it was so obvious and cheesy (paraphrasing, of course).

[Tommaso]

I admit, I fell for it.

This one, however, doesn't appear to be a hoax! .

Thank god it isn't! But it just doesn't happen all too often that something like this occurs, and so I still have very little hope for a complete "Amberson", let alone "Greed" or indeed "Four Devils" to show up anywhere (I also fell for that hoax, and wouldn't have believed the "Metropolis" news if I hadn't read it on the FWMS site).

However, the collaboration between film institutes and the search for these treasures seem to have increased a lot in recent years. One of the reasons why FWMS are doing another "Nibelungen" resto currently is that they were able to recover materials/scenes that they simply didn't had in the 90s when the first resto was made. But admittedly, compared to the "Metropolis" find these additions are probably far less significant in the end.

[broadwayrock]

Aintitcool.com has some more images of the found footage:

[HerrSchreck]

David.. I think its safe to say that this is some freakyass Yoshiwara footage above.

[Zobalob]

I know that Kino have said that the footage will be in their next years' release (hopefully restored, in sequence and not as extras), will there be time for the resto to happen before their release?
I also wonder if Eureka, given this announcement, have any thoughts about a new issue, especially given that their current release is superior to the Kino.

[colinr0380]

Sounds like wishful thinking on Kino's part for now - something like that would sound as if it would need extensive restoration and maybe a theatrical tour or two before a release.

I like the shot of the club flyers blowing into Josaphat's car and tempting him from his purpose that was in the video on the AICN site, and Joh Frederson visiting Rotwang's statue of his wife - of which either scene by themselves would be significant additions to the film.

Nevertheless, news of the year about the find - am I right in inferring that the only reason this was 'lost' was just down to bureaucratic ignorance and it took a change of management to even allow a search of the archives?

[Antoine Doinel]

Sounds like wishful thinking on Kino's part for now - something like that would sound as if it would need extensive restoration and maybe a theatrical tour or two before a release.

I don't think Kino would make the announcement without having some firm plans in place to assist with the restoration and also do a theatrical run prior to their DVD release. But I think we can safely assume that the 2009 release is a best case scenario. I wouldn't be surprised if the release date gets bumped to 2010 to allow for the creation of extras/interviews/features specifically regarding the found footage.

[domino harvey]

I think Kino would absolutely make an announcement like that without having firm plans in place just to buy time and faith-- they've spent who knows how much money preparing a Blu-ray release, only to discover that new elements are now available and no one would buy their forthcoming disc without them being included. Either the Blu-ray gets delayed for a couple years or they release it without the footage.

[Antoine Doinel]

Well, they have gone on record saying the BR will include the new footage. Either it's dickswinging (which will leave them pretty blue balled if they can't get access) or they have talked to the right people to secure access to the materials.

[HerrSchreck]

None of the film's content would be originating from Kino. They're just the R1 distributors of Transit Films (on behalf of Murnau-Stiftung) material. Just like MoC, Divisa Red etc for their own respective zones. So if they say they're going to be making something available, it means they've spoken to the source and gotten a lead time.

[moviscop]

Metropolis was one of the few Criterion DVDs I was unimpressed by.

I can't exactly blame it on Criterion because I'm sure they worked hard to get it to look as good as it did. But I would like to see a cleaner version if possible. Blu Ray sounds good.

[chaddoli]

Metropolis wasn't released by Criterion. Kino is the R1 distributor.

[moviscop]

Metropolis wasn't released by Criterion. Kino is the R1 distributor.

My mistake. I had purchased the Kino version a few years back and thought Criterion was the distributor. I guess that explains my dissatisfaction. Kino seems to fall below the bar quite a lot.

Stalker was an ok transfer, but the colors were muted.