Monday, September 13, 2010

Metropolis - 1927 incomplete restoration (film review)

Directed by Fritz Lang, filmed by Karl Freund.

From the Internet Movie Data Base (imdb.com): In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

What follows, now, is a rant about the brilliance of this film. Much of this implies a certain understanding of the previously available versions.

The current version of Metropolis, now available from Kino Video, is an incomplete restoration. A recent discovery in South America of approximately 30 minutes of previously thought to be missing footage was edited into the existing prints. Prior versions had been found, and this new nearly-restored version made great use of everything that had gone before as well as the newly-discovered missing pieces.

The editing process was directly attached to the existing score that was written to accompany the performance of the film. The score makes references to certain events that transpire in the story line, and the result, incomplete as it is, is now the closest thing to The Definitive Version of this master work.

The first thing that was noticed by this author was that the new South American footage was not cleaned up, not remastered. That was a disappointment, at first. There is a torn, damaged quality that is, at first, more than a little annoying. Having seen several severely damaged classics on the Criterion Collection series, this author is very aware of how current digital technology can be used to restore damaged visual images to an approximation of their original quality.

This choice to NOT do so lead to a moment, however, in the opening of the film that startled this author to such an extent that there was a verbal outcry, and the companion (Mr. Scot Murphy) noticed it. Quickly using the formula of 24 frames per second, and the approximate time of that clip (about 1.5 seconds), this author determined that the piece of damaged footage was about 36 frames in length.

From that moment forward, the realization dawned: it had to be presented in its damaged form, as that was the only way for those who have seen the other versions could identify just how flawed every existing available print had been.

Entire subplots were woven into the fabric of what was a familiar story. This author has seen Metropolis many times, and the Giorgio Moroder re-creation from the 1980's (still unavailable on DVD!! Crime against film...), went so far as to colorize the film to the original specifications: the original was hand-tinted, a practice that is rarely identified. Several classic silent films have bursts of color.

One moment in the film, where our hero, Freder takes the place of a worker, is rightly remembered as one of the high points in all of cinema; the mindless physical labor of standing before a giant circular gauge, the worker has to move two hands on the face of the gauge to match a pair of flashing lights. What is returned to us is that worker's subplot. In the Morodor version, a recently dismissed employee, now working for the son, becomes seduced by the lure of a decadent night club. Here, we now see it was the worker the hero had replaced.

The recently dismissed employee mentioned above has a fuller story, and he is harassed by the hero's father via a thug. The thug has multiple parts, the same actor playing several roles, wildly divergent from the others but slowly integrating into one character. This, in itself, is something that modern cinema has attempted but largely failed to do with this level of coherency and poignancy.

The villain of the piece, a demented soul named (of all things) Rotwang. With a lengthy sequence found in South America, a previously missing back story comes into focus: both Rotwang and Joh Frederson (the father of the hero) were deeply in love with Hel, the mother of the hero. The sequence brings a level of depth that shakes a lot of the prior understanding of the film to such an extent that this author was forced to study while viewing.

The Whore Of Babylon sequence, now longer and more fully realized, has been elevated in the mind of this author as one of the most perfect example of what cinema, as an art form can do, and should be remembered and championed, as the infamous Shower Sequence is in the Hitchcock film Psycho. Brilliant, poetic, disturbing, it now underscores the depravity of those members of society who have access to enough disposable income that they can spare time, time that the workers simply do not have, to follow not a pleasure but a sin.

Sin is now exposed in this film, sin and redemption, in such depth, in such detail that by the end of the film, this author determined that this film is possibly the single most Christian of all films made in the 20th Century. Watching it, seeing the progression of the characters, following the new segments, this author was at one time actually possessed to begin "Hail Mary, full of Grace, blessed are you among all women..."

One sequence has always been troubling to this author: the Seven Deadly Sins and the figure of Death are shown as statuary that comes to life. Now replaced to its correct setting, and supported by a previously unseen exposure of the hero to the statuary, with his sudden, heartfelt prayer to the figure of death (as recollected, it was "Yesterday, I would not have thought of you, but today, I beg of you, please pass by my beloved.") the sequence is no longer just an oddity but a vital and important portion of the story.

The restored score, performed live at the Michigan Theater on original Barton organ, was in and of itself a revelation. The music has hints of music even now considered to be experimental. Several musical passages sound more like Philip Glass than anything else. This author had the great personal pleasure of meeting the performer (Dr. Steven Ball, http://www.stevenball.com/TheaterOrgan.htm ), the organist received two separate and well deserved standing ovations.

There are portions of this film that now bring tears to the eyes, as well as swelling emotional responses that have rendered every other existing print obsolete. This is a work of genius and should be enjoyed by anyone who holds the film experience a great pleasure.

With the incompleteness of the current restoration, this author holds in his heart the notion that someday, while he still lives, that the entire film will, someday, be returned to its fullest glory.

It is a Must See.

1 comment:

  1. Well-said. I sense a dissertation waiting to burst out of you. I suggest you find a film school (does U of M have one?) and beg, harass, harangue, threaten, and weep in order to gain admission.

    One correction, though: this was the entire Argentinian film, not spliced into existing copies. Note how grainy the film was on the big screen: it was a 16mm print. I think that with a lot of digital work, as well as replacing most of the previously known 16mm print with 35mm and splicing in the missing footage only when necessary, a much cleaner and more watchable movie could be made. What we saw was the definitive story, but I don't think it was the definitive copy. This new copy comes out on DVD Nov. 16; I hope some enterprising soul brings us a better one.

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