Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)

[Antoine Doinel]

Very interesting news (I didn't even know 9.5mm was a format!) that I can only imagine will stall the forthcoming DVD release as they wait to see what (if anything) is found in that print. Mattnyc makes a good point that it was probably from the same distributor but does that mean it's the same edit?

To those with a better knowledge of early cinema distribution: is it possible that the distributors had various edits on their hands at any given point for a film depending on the market (ie. perhaps one territory requested a shorter version)? We all know studios manhandled films for whatever arcane reasoning they had, but did distributors have twitchy scissor fingers at all?

[marknyc5]

What the posters I quoted above are saying is that most likely this is the 1920s version of an 8mm home release, and as such there's a good chance it is a highly edited version.

But even if that's true, it may contain some lost scenes - and since the Argentina version is so badly scratched, it may be possible to replace a few of its scenes with footage from this version.

[MichaelB]

If I remember rightly, Kevin Brownlow first discovered Abel Gance's Napoleon via a cut-down 9.5mm print.

9.5mm had quite a bit going for it - the reason the perforations were down the middle was that it allowed the image to stretch across the entire width of the celluloid, giving it a much bigger picture area than the narrowness of the gauge might suggest (certainly closer to 16mm than 8mm), while at the same time making extremely efficient use of the raw materials. Quite a few facilities houses in Britain can still handle the format, which was also popular with amateurs.

[Jonathan S]

Metropolis is, I gather, one of the more common 9.5mm prints (at least here in the UK) and it was even available in a Standard 8mm reproduction - of the same Pathescope version - from Perry's Movies in the 1970s. I collected 8mm at that time but never bought it because the film was available on 8mm in the 9 reel American version from another company, twice the length of the 9.5mm edition.

I never collected on 9.5mm myself but I knew two collectors who did, one of whom - the late Gerald McKee - wrote several books largely devoted to the gauge. He and my other friend Peter Spooner went to great lengths to transfer their 9.5mm rarities to video. Among the more interesting titles they sent me are Der Verlorene Schuh (Ludwig Berger, 1923 German expressionist version of Cinderella), Cagliostro (Richard Oswald, 1928), Les Miserables (Henri Fescourt, 1925, 9 reels but still much reduced), Pampered Youth (1925 version of The Magnificent Ambersons), La Proie du Vent (Clair, 1927), Le Tournoi (Renoir, 1928), The Road to Mandalay (Chaney, 1926), Captain Blood (1924) and Le Tourbillon de Paris (Duvivier, 1928). Most are cut down to only two or three reels but I believe some of them do not exist in any other form. At least they give a better idea of the films than stills, but Pathescope's editing could be very ragged, removing shots (and even parts of shots) within most sequences and adding far too many new intertitles to cover the narrative gaps. Print quality also varies a lot, but at its best is as good as 16mm.

Peter Spooner (who sadly died a couple of months ago) also made video transfers from the even rarer domestic gauges of 17.5mm and 28mm, again of films which probably do not exist in any other form. By comparison, Metropolis is well covered!

[HerrSchreck]

Hmmm.. I think I have a disc off of that print of Cagliostro. Is the copy you're talking about tinted, and with english intertites?

[Jonathan S]

Yes, that's the same 9.5mm edition of Cagliostro - it may even be from Peter Spooner's transfer if it has an orchestral compilation score.

By the way, your "green blob" copy of Wiene's Raskolnikow is probably from the transfer Peter made from his English-titled 8mm print (my VHS copy is a bit better than a blob - perhaps fewer video generations involved). This was a collaboration between Peter and the late Leslie Shepard who added the green tint, plus a needle-drop music track (starts with Brahms 1) and interpolated a short section from Cinema Europe (on which he received a credit), easily recognisable by the sudden major improvement in quality!

I wouldn't be surprised if Alpha's edition of Raskolnikow is taken from Peter's transfer - has anyone seen it or read a review?

(I should perhaps emphasise that none of the three deceased collectors I've mentioned did their transfers for monetary gain, but the fact they traded with others worldwide means their editions have gained fairly wide circulation, which is exactly what they wanted - sadly it was all done before DVDR duplication. Leslie Shepard in particular was highly critical of collectors who "held silents to ransom," as he put it.)

[HerrSchreck]

God bless genuine cineastes after that fashion. Prior to the age of dvd this was the only means of getting a look at a silent beyond Metropolis or Nosferatu, and god knows back inna day I was grateful to see a wall projection of 8 or 16mm elements of something like Warning Shadows or Variete that somebody shot onto a sheet in their kitchen, to be picked up by a big klunky old vhs recorder... and sold tapes of that, one generation removed.

That's love of cinema. That's sitting there with your eyelid smeared up against the tube television screen, trying to make out if that was Lya dePutti's ass or a burlap sack that just went by on the fuzzy image. Yet somehow all that analog and generational noise and grain-buildup seemed to constitute the physical manifestation of the time that had elapsed between the date of viewing and the date of the film's shooting. Some of my most thrilling, haunted viewings of silent films was back then peering at these washed out images... where it felt like it was not generational interference, but the actual mists of time that was coming between my eyes the eeeeerie onscreen images.

And I know who you mean when you reference the type that "holds silents for ransom", like this fucking numbskull who literally held Edison's dazzling 1910 Frankenstein hostage for suitable payment. Finally the old bastard paired it with something like The Golem and slapped it out on some supermarket dvd label with a giant electronic image-logo of his company blasted digitally right onto the image.

His antithesis is William Buffum, the guy who realized he had the earliest surviving American feature-- 1912's sublime Richard III-- and freely donated it to the AFI along with the rest of his nitrate holdings.

Both Richard III and Frankenstein 1910 were shot where?

Where?

Ah, yes-- that's correct. The Bronx New York.

[zedz]

The nudge about this film in the Kino thread reminded me about a tiny tidbit of info on the new restoration. The FWMS aren't just restoring and interpolating the recently rediscovered material, but in the quest for definitiveness they're checking out every source they can think of. A local archival print in good condition (but not, as far as anybody knows, a unique version) has been drafted in on the off chance it's got some shots in better condition than the current material and as a reference for tinting and toning. This print hasn't been involved in any previous restoration, and there's a good chance nothing from this source will end up in the final version, but it's good to know they're exploring every possibility.

[skuhn8]

I wonder how that 'canvassing' works. I'd be curious to know if they checked in with the Hungarian film archive. They had a great relationship with UFA before the war (and I suspect during) and when I watched their print of "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" my jaw dropped at the quality--fantastic greyscale, very little damage--and I believe this was an unrestored print. (showing Munk's Eroica tonight--couldn't get the wife on board with that).

[HarryLong]

The FWMS aren't just restoring and interpolating the recently rediscovered material, but in the quest for definitiveness they're checking out every source they can think of.

Not to dismiss the effort, but when I interviewed Martin Korber for FILMFAX I got the impression that this had already been done on the last restoration.

[Antoine Doinel]

A brief update on the restoration which is slated to be completed in January and possibly screened at next year's Berlin Film Festival.

[eerik]

Here is a newspaper ad for the premiere in Tallinn, Estonia:



It premiered in Estonia on 12nd March 1927.

[accatone]

About the "restoration".

[MichaelB]

That story is over three months old - does anyone have anything fresher?

[perkizitore]

Restored Metropolis to be screened in Berlinale =D>

[HarryLong]

That story is over three months old - does anyone have anything fresher?

And in English. Sorry to be a Philistine, but I don't read German.

[accatone]

I posted that elsewhere some time ago - if i am seriously interested into something i will get my shit together and try to translate the stuff i got my hands on - the one sided (limited i.e. to only one language) discussion on film in the internet (exp. in Blogs!) is seriously bothering me. (Of course there are some out there who take care of translating stuff which i find really refreshing and intellectual promising…).

However, sorry for the not so up to date post, iw as not aware of the state of affairs…

[markhax]

The restored Metropolis will be screened at the Berlinale on February 12 in the Friedrichsstadtpalast, with the original score by Gottfried Huppertz played live. The film is 30 minutes longer. Here's the link to the Spiegel story.

[htom]

The restored Metropolis will be screened at the Berlinale on February 12 in the Friedrichsstadtpalast, with the original score by Gottfried Huppertz played live. The film is 30 minutes longer. Here's the link to the Spiegel story.

The page is also available in english

[aox]

am I reading this right that even with this newly restored footage, the film still remains incomplete? What else is missing?

[Peacock]

Wiser members i hope will elaborate on this, but I believe the monk preaching the apocalypse in the church near the beginning is still missing - but only because it was a reel end and very damaged, not sure how much more of the film is gone though. I'm genuinely through the roof at the possibility of seeing the dream sequence and the rest of the Thin Man schizz. Hope the new stuff looks good all restored.

[marknyc5]

Here's a very rough translation of part of it:

A first rough cut has been completed, worked on from February to September by a team including Anke Wilkening, a restorer from the Murnau Foundation, Martin Koerber, head of the German Film Archive Film Archive in Berlin (he was responsible for the 2001 restoration which now serves as the base for the new version) and Frank Strobel, film music conductor and artistic director of the European Film Philharmonic. “We want a work of art showcase,” says Wilkening. In the coming year, several major performances are scheduled with orchestra.

The process started with a screening of the two versions on an Avid editing suite – a scene by scene comparison, viewed next to each other in split-screen. The deletions of the 2001 version, which are represented by titles, helped the team to position the new material from the Argentine version. Discrepancies were discovered in the assembly, with some scenes still lacking, so the question arose as to what extent they could rely on the Argentine version at all.

“We had to assume that the Argentine version does not match the original, and that the Argentine owner made changes that he considered meaningful,” stated Wilkening. Especially problematic were scenes that were incomplete in the 2001 version, which gave the Argentine version of previously unknown scenes. On the other hand, certain scenes that were included in the 2001 restoration were missing in the Argentine version. It was thus very difficult to decide how this could have been the final edit,” says Wilkening. To check this, the piano score for the film, composed by Gottfried Huppertz, was used, as it documented the final cut of premiere. By comparing the Argentine version with the music, numerous variations in the Argentine version have been confirmed.

New storylines
Three restorations, from the late 1960s to 2001, have attempted restore the film based on the shortened American version. In the new reconstruction, it is now possible to see Fritz Lang's utopia almost completely restored and his work resurrected. American editor Channing Pollock reduced the action to the "Frankenstein" motif and a central conflict between Rotwang, the inventor of the machine-man, and the ruler of Metropolis, John Fredersen. The storylines of the three not-unimportant minor characters - Geordie (a worker), the Thin Man (Fredersen's spy) and Jehosaphat (Fredersen's secretary) - were eliminated. For Wilkening, these all relate to Fredersen's son, Freder, and address the subjects of friendship, loyalty, and treason, which are also in numerous other Lang films, such as “Die Nibelungen” (1922-24) and “Rancho Notorious” (1952).

Reinserting these scenes brings not only a change in content, but also in the narrative structure itself, since it leads to many more parallel stories. Similarly, the figure of Hel, Fredersen’s beloved wife, who died giving birth to their son, Freder, returns to the film. Pollock had removed them because her name was similar to the English word "hell" and would have seemed inappropriate and funny to the American public. You will be able to see the scene almost complete: Fredersen discovers the monumental statue in Rotwang’s house, and the original reason for the creation of the robot becomes clear.

Whole scenes were added. One of the longest is Geordie's automobile journey through Metropolis, during which he wears Freder’s clothes, finds his money and goes not to Jehosaphat's apartment but instead to the entertainment club Yoshiwara. Since a few minutes of footage are missing here and there, "Metropolis" still remains a fragment and its completion a challenge to film archives and film institutes. That the new restoration is ultimately only an approximation of the premiere version, however, is also due to the deplorable state of the Argentine copy. Currently, the new scenes are being digitally restored and then edited into the 2001 restoration. In the spring of 2010, the team wants be finished. Wilkening is looking forward to the premiere of the new version: “I'm excited about the new interpretations when the film is shown.”

[Tommaso]

According to this page (in German), on February 12, 2010 arte TV will do a live broadcast of the premiere of the new "Metropolis"-resto, directly from the Berlinale! Gorgeous!!

[marknyc5]

Damn! How do we get someone to record this??

[perkizitore]

Damn! How do we get someone to record this??

Many people will record it and Tommaso too, don't worry.
I am suspecting restored Metropolis will hit German retailers a few months earlier than the rest of the world.