Cool News
AICN's Mastidon Reports From The METROPOLIS Restoration Premiere In Frankfurt!!
Merrick here...
...with a report from our man Mastidon, who was in Frankfurt for the reveal of the newly restored METROPOLIS.
Mastidon's done a bit of work for us in the past - reporting from some pretty cool places (like THIS write-up of QUANTUM OF SOLACE's London premiere). But I don't think I've ever been as jealous of him as I am this weekend. To have been there...to have been there...
This said, we'll have another round-up of AICN reader's reactions to this startling new version of METROPOLIS - probably tomorrow morning(ish). For now, here's my buddy Mastidon with some thoughts on Friday's experience. Enjoy!
Hi Guys!
Mastidon here with a report about the World Premier of the newly restored Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece METROPOLIS.
It had been 14 months since I last saw METROPOLIS on the big screen (BNAT X). I was looking forward to this for months on end for the chance to finally see the newly restored version. Most of you know the story of how a print was found just sitting in a museum in Buenos Aries. What you may not know is that there is just over 30 minutes of new footage bringing the run time to 147 minutes! There are still 6 minutes missing from the original print as the 16mm copy from BA was in very poor quality and difficult to restore. In fact, special software was custom written just to get the most out of this print. A new score was written to fill the gaps of the new footage. Total cost for the restoration was 500,000 Euros ($700,000). Well worth it in my opinion.
Germany realized the importance of METROPOLIS and wanted to handle its re-release with the respect it deserved by releasing it as part of the Berlin film festival. As such, there were simultaneous world premiers in both Berlin and Frankfurt where live orchestras performed the new score. In addition, the Berlin performance was streamed to the Brandenburg Gate where 2,000 or so people watched in the cold and snow. It was also broadcast in HD on ARTE who then streamed it on the net for all to see. Merritcat and I were lucky enough to have tickets to the Frankfurt premier. This means you also have some great photos from her.
The premier happened at the Alte (Old) Opera House. If you put a stereotypical picture in your mind as to what an old European opera house looks like, this would be it. As you can see from the photo, they even rolled out the red carpet for the event.
Inside the opera house, the place was decorated with stills from the film.
Before the film started, there was the usual set of speeches. The announcer for the evening described METROPOLIS as "The AVATAR of its time." A great compliment for AVATAR in my opinion and a fair comparison since METROPOLIS invented special effects techniques used for decades later and I am sure this will also be true for AVATAR. Then there was a sit down interview session with the BA museum curator who found the print. She talked about how when the print was found, she watched it side by side with the 2001 DVD. She wasn't sure if this was a different copy until she saw the first new scene - 23 minutes into the film.
The President of Hessen (state which Frankfurt is in) got up and spoke. Added no value and was just your typical loud mouth politician but it made him feel important. A long winded speech later, and the orchestra walked out.
The film -
First the bad. The restored footage is grainy at best. No one would could call it clean by any definition. Numerous streaks throughout. Another problem for this dumb American was that there were no English subtitles. Not a huge deal though as there wasn't that much new dialogue. The biggest problem though is that the frame rate is still not fixed. 27 fps I guess simply can not be done anymore and it is not possible to correct it without messing it up. The end scene on the roof is where it is most noticeable - so much so that the crowd laughed at it. Very disturbing. Most Germans have no normal appropriate sense of humor and this certainly wasn't funny.
Now the good. The restored footage is grainy at best. This allows you to immediately see where the new footage is! Very helpful when the film is 2 1/2 hours long and sometimes the new footage only lasts one second. This cut was put together from about a dozen different sources ranging from DVD quality to faded away. The faded away came from the BA print which was not stored properly. The best effort possible was done to bring back the missing 30 minutes of footage. The team that did the restoration did a fantastic job with the source material they had.
The first new scene shows up 23 minutes in while Freder plays in the garden but before Maria steps off the elevator. It is only a few seconds of a man putting lipstick on a woman's face. Most of the new footage does not show up until the 2nd and 3rd acts.
Merritcat described this cut best as a Director's cut which sums it up perfectly. Entire subplots that were cut are now restored and put into the story where they had previously been missing. A fine example is the life of 11811 who is the guy Freder takes over the machine controls from. 11811 goes to the upper city and lives the life of a party animal. Whooping it up at a nightclub and going crazy with the women. He is followed and terrorized the entire time by Freder's father's assistant. This is a still where the assistant is hiding behind a newspaper while watching 11811.
There was also an entire subplot around the death of Freder's mother and a giant statue made in her honor. For me, the most amazing new footage came in the 3rd act. Substantial pieces of the flooding of the city with children hanging on for dear life were restored. Just the filming of it must have been an impossible feat in 1926. I am guessing it was cut due to the fact that it was too disturbing for the average person at the time. Also cut was a scene with Maria being chased by the angry mob through the city which leads to the eventual destruction of the robot.
I read in a talkback that the USA premier would be sometime in April. My advice to you, go see it. Nothing can match the experience of seeing this on a large screen with a live orchestra. No DVD release will ever give you the same passion and feel for it. One of the greatest movies ever made, now restored to its original glory. Pure genius.
Until next time. Ciao.
-Mastidon
Mastidon here with a report about the World Premier of the newly restored Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece METROPOLIS.
It had been 14 months since I last saw METROPOLIS on the big screen (BNAT X). I was looking forward to this for months on end for the chance to finally see the newly restored version. Most of you know the story of how a print was found just sitting in a museum in Buenos Aries. What you may not know is that there is just over 30 minutes of new footage bringing the run time to 147 minutes! There are still 6 minutes missing from the original print as the 16mm copy from BA was in very poor quality and difficult to restore. In fact, special software was custom written just to get the most out of this print. A new score was written to fill the gaps of the new footage. Total cost for the restoration was 500,000 Euros ($700,000). Well worth it in my opinion.
Germany realized the importance of METROPOLIS and wanted to handle its re-release with the respect it deserved by releasing it as part of the Berlin film festival. As such, there were simultaneous world premiers in both Berlin and Frankfurt where live orchestras performed the new score. In addition, the Berlin performance was streamed to the Brandenburg Gate where 2,000 or so people watched in the cold and snow. It was also broadcast in HD on ARTE who then streamed it on the net for all to see. Merritcat and I were lucky enough to have tickets to the Frankfurt premier. This means you also have some great photos from her.
The premier happened at the Alte (Old) Opera House. If you put a stereotypical picture in your mind as to what an old European opera house looks like, this would be it. As you can see from the photo, they even rolled out the red carpet for the event.
Inside the opera house, the place was decorated with stills from the film.
Before the film started, there was the usual set of speeches. The announcer for the evening described METROPOLIS as "The AVATAR of its time." A great compliment for AVATAR in my opinion and a fair comparison since METROPOLIS invented special effects techniques used for decades later and I am sure this will also be true for AVATAR. Then there was a sit down interview session with the BA museum curator who found the print. She talked about how when the print was found, she watched it side by side with the 2001 DVD. She wasn't sure if this was a different copy until she saw the first new scene - 23 minutes into the film.
The President of Hessen (state which Frankfurt is in) got up and spoke. Added no value and was just your typical loud mouth politician but it made him feel important. A long winded speech later, and the orchestra walked out.
The film -
First the bad. The restored footage is grainy at best. No one would could call it clean by any definition. Numerous streaks throughout. Another problem for this dumb American was that there were no English subtitles. Not a huge deal though as there wasn't that much new dialogue. The biggest problem though is that the frame rate is still not fixed. 27 fps I guess simply can not be done anymore and it is not possible to correct it without messing it up. The end scene on the roof is where it is most noticeable - so much so that the crowd laughed at it. Very disturbing. Most Germans have no normal appropriate sense of humor and this certainly wasn't funny.
Now the good. The restored footage is grainy at best. This allows you to immediately see where the new footage is! Very helpful when the film is 2 1/2 hours long and sometimes the new footage only lasts one second. This cut was put together from about a dozen different sources ranging from DVD quality to faded away. The faded away came from the BA print which was not stored properly. The best effort possible was done to bring back the missing 30 minutes of footage. The team that did the restoration did a fantastic job with the source material they had.
The first new scene shows up 23 minutes in while Freder plays in the garden but before Maria steps off the elevator. It is only a few seconds of a man putting lipstick on a woman's face. Most of the new footage does not show up until the 2nd and 3rd acts.
Merritcat described this cut best as a Director's cut which sums it up perfectly. Entire subplots that were cut are now restored and put into the story where they had previously been missing. A fine example is the life of 11811 who is the guy Freder takes over the machine controls from. 11811 goes to the upper city and lives the life of a party animal. Whooping it up at a nightclub and going crazy with the women. He is followed and terrorized the entire time by Freder's father's assistant. This is a still where the assistant is hiding behind a newspaper while watching 11811.
There was also an entire subplot around the death of Freder's mother and a giant statue made in her honor. For me, the most amazing new footage came in the 3rd act. Substantial pieces of the flooding of the city with children hanging on for dear life were restored. Just the filming of it must have been an impossible feat in 1926. I am guessing it was cut due to the fact that it was too disturbing for the average person at the time. Also cut was a scene with Maria being chased by the angry mob through the city which leads to the eventual destruction of the robot.
I read in a talkback that the USA premier would be sometime in April. My advice to you, go see it. Nothing can match the experience of seeing this on a large screen with a live orchestra. No DVD release will ever give you the same passion and feel for it. One of the greatest movies ever made, now restored to its original glory. Pure genius.
Until next time. Ciao.
-Mastidon
-
+ Expand All
-
I'll keep watching for release dates!
-
REJOICE.
-
Thanks for giving this some coverage. I've not watched METROPOLIS for ages (last time might even have been with the Giorgio Moroder soundtrack) - hopefully this'll get some kind of home rerelease once its done the theatrical/regional premiere rounds.
-
Sure sounds it! No one weened on today's scifi is gonna give this a chance. At 2.5 hours is is too damn long for an old silent film!! I have seen this a dozen times and doubt I'll bother with this bloated restoration. Other than the one action scene at the end it sounds like the rest of the edits were for a good reason!!
-
It sounds like this needs a lot more work than its getting.
-
Feb 14, 2010 8:27:58 PM CST
Mastidon, thank you for this story, very cool.
by stereotypical evil archer
-
I'm sure he could do something with it. Y'know, update it for the digital age in that way only he knows how..
-
I'm sure they had to nip-and-tuck the original Gottfried Huppertz score to cover edits or missing material, but since he scored the full-length film for its original premiere, I wouldn't think any brand-new material had to be written. Re-arranged slightly, perhaps. Any clarification on this point?
-
not by a long shot. As someone who lives and works with 3d software (Blender/Linux) I predict that the entire movie will be converted into 3d digital objects, and then textured to any kind of look you want. The story itself is timeless.
-
Germans have no normal appropriate sense of humor
-
What I remember is that the extant score actually fits the premiere version, and they used cue notes and markers in the score to help assemble the new restored film version. I have not read anywhere that additional pieces of score were composed for certain scenes. And I'm also pretty sure that they didn't shorten the score either, because the few missing scenes/frames in the film were substituted for black frames, at the presumed original running time, sometimes for text cards.
-
looks like it was given its due. that must have been an exciting evening.
-
Just read this.
-
This will indeed be worth seeing. Saw it on TCM about five years ago. Now with the new scenes maybe some answers will be forthcoming as to what was lost but now found.
-
Just put out a Blu-Ray with the newly found, edited out footage as extras.
-
Bitching cos he's a fat fuck. Loose the weight or own it you fat fucker!
I fully support that airliner - nothing worse than having to sit next to some smelly, sweaty fat fuck (and ALL fat people smell and sweat!).
Artie Lange had a book called Too fat to fish - smith should have one called Too fat to fly.
He's become such a self-indulgent whinging stoner. He lost me with that total piece of shite zack and miri (and blaming everything on its failure other than the fact that it was a poorly written lame piece of shit!). He's now just a coasting, complaining, self-indulgent fat fuck.
Look in the mirror lard ass, don't be surprised when your conceited uppity wife fucks somebody with a ounce of self respect for their body (really i imagine she has been for some time now) -
Because this "new" version is the closest original cut Lang wanted. The 124 minute was a butchered version that itself was restored from an even shorter 90 minute cut. Now we get to see, more or less, what the director intended.
-
Avatar of it's day?? That's such a bad comparison.
-
and before anyone says that this movie is only for film geeks...watch it, and see how many modern films, comics and books were impacted by lang's vision and the effects are amazing even today
-
while avatar is simple eye candy, metropolis is so much more and unlike avatar, has an original story
-
Not even an original for it's time, it was ripped off from multiple sources. You call that a great story? It's shit. But Metropolis is a visual treat and an important piece of history, not to be missed. However, Avatar has it beat for story by a mile. What are you, one of Oral Robert's love children or something? Did you ever even pay attention to the message/story of Metropolis? It's almost disgusting.
-
Turner Classic Movies announced its first ever Classic Film Festival, to be held in Hollywood April 22-25, 2010. Included in the festival will be the North American premiere of the newly restored version of the film, with an original score performed live by the Alloy Orchestra. (from wikipedia)
TCM Link with details:
http://tinyurl.com/yaqxe6c -
kinda out of date now, so I wouldn't call it timeless. But it's still great to look at. And the way it anticipated Nazi motifs and architecture (or perhaps the way the Nazis took from it?) is still unnerving. Why was the restored footage grainy? My stepdad's Lightroom program could have polished up those stills.
-
Fuck gingers...
-
then you either havent watched the movie or totally misunderstood it out of date? hardly
-
An awesome experience.
-
haha mastidon... "Added no value and was just your typical loud mouth politician but it made him feel important." ... i couldn´t have said it better than this. totally agree... danke für die review.
-
Are you telling me you can't remove those scratches? Really? What, has Israel offered to clean up the film and Germany politely declined?
-
more like 2nd biggest douche in the country.
-
Feb 15, 2010 7:46:52 AM CST
For a movie as old as it is, the rip of the broadcast looks grea
by wickedjester
It's about 1.4 gigs, so for those anxious it's so worth it.Kinda excited to actually sit down and watch it, just gotta get my English subtitles working..
-
Feb 15, 2010 7:52:07 AM CST
Pretty sure they can't remove the 'scratches' on the AB film.
by wickedjester
That's my take from what I've read. Maybe now that it's available someone will sit there and fix it frame by frame instead of using an algorithm.I'd like to see a TV show based on that, actually.
-
That shit is pretty damn funny, though. I'm tired of fatties getting the sympathy card all the time, it's almost as bad as pulling the race card constantly.Imagine if it was a fat black guy that got kicked off the plane?
-
Most Germans have no humor? Yeah right, mastidon. And Italians have small dicks, and all african people can run really fast and rap, and all French are cowards and all Asians look the same. Nice stereotyping. Congratulations dickweed.
-
How can you love a film made by a German and then say something so stupid about Germans? Fuck you in zee arsch
-
When people start laughing at the climax of the movie which is both a huge insult to the people who restored it and to the movie itself, I think it is safe to say Germans have no sense of humor. I have lived here for 10 years now and have found very few Germans who get humor. If you have a different opinion, so be it. But from my perspective, Germans have no sense of humor.
-
That is my take as well. They wrote custom software to get the most possible out of the BA print and spent 2 years working on it. It is the best it can be without going through and retouching every single frame by hand.
-
Even more than the average american. They are also surprisingly warm, and not as distant as some other europeans or north americans.
-
I knew several Germans at college, and they are without doubt the most humorless people on Earth. And what they DO find funny will leave most people scratching their heads. Being at a dinner party with a bunch of typical Germans is my idea of hell.
-
I honestly don't know.
-
Feb 15, 2010 10:27:45 AM CST
There is a bizzare range of humor amongst all nations
by doctorzoidberg
Including the USA...ever try and watch a comedy not aimed at your demographic? I can sit stone faced through any BET comedy and just roll my eyes at the redneck humor crowd. Those groups would think I am a robot, but yet I love to laugh. Go figure.
-
Have you seen it? I felt the same way as you, having not seen it. However, after reading more and more about it, I'm interested. I expect to be fully let down because of all the hype, but am interested nonetheless. Probably, for nothing more than the ability to trump other film nerds I know.
-
Feb 15, 2010 11:02:36 AM CST
So, did Freder actually build the Maria robot when he was a boy?
by royston lodge
Wakka wakka wakka!
-
I dunno, have you ever tried being funny?
-
Germans have no sense of Humour, French women are hairy, the irish are all alcoholics, and Americans are all Bigots.
Actually, only one of the above is true. -
I'm a little confused about this "new score" business.
I was under the impression that Lang had a score specially composed for Metropolis, and that the sheet music had survived.
Was I misinformed? -
My bad for not reading the whole talkback.
-
Feb 15, 2010 3:44:04 PM CST
WickedJester, no I have not seen it. Will check it out.
by doctorzoidberg
-
I'm worried about that, too. You aren't wrong, and the score is present on the Kino DVD. There shouldn't be any need for a new score, and I would like to hear more about this.
-
Feb 15, 2010 11:10:36 PM CST
guess there wouldn't hardly any laughter at a public us screenin
by elmenzo
cause only americans seem to have full lifetime rights on humor™. thx for reducing prejudices, mastidon.
-
I actually tried watching most of the live feed. It was kinda funny watching the people stand in the cold and not pay attention. I hope to see it for real as soon as possible.
-
No, that honor belongs to the British.
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 171 total posts 169 posts
- AVENGERS enemy revealed as pink boardgame pieces... You might suffer some form of elation... SPOILERS!!! -- 157 total posts 111 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 138 total posts 75 posts
- Here's The Red Band Trailer For Drafthouse Films' THE FP! -- 67 total posts 67 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 479 total posts 62 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 59 total posts 59 posts
- Does ‘SNL’ Rhyme With ‘Deschanel’?? Learn Which SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Vet Hosts After Sexy Zooey!! -- 62 total posts 59 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 48 total posts 45 posts
- Friday Brings SWEEPS DAY NINE!! Gab Here About Tonight’s FRINGE!! Plus Einstein on TIM, Wiig On PORTLANDIA, MAHER, CLONE, GIFTED, GRIMM, SPARTACUS, SUPERNATURAL, GOLD RUSH And More!! -- 116 total posts 32 posts
- SPACE 2099!! -- 181 total posts 30 posts