Cyberpunk Review » Fritz Lang’s Metropolis restored to full-length glory.

Source: Kino (Official Website)

While this classic has undergone restorations before, a recent discovery has provided all an opportunity to see it as it was first seen in 1927.

Lost footage found. I was reading Wired’s review of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake when I saw the following trailer among the others:

A quick websearch lead me to the official site where the news is apparently confirmed:

In the summer of 2008, the curator of the Buenos Aires Museo del Cine discovered a 16mm dupe negative that was considerably longer than any existing print. It included not merely a few additional snippets, but 25 minutes of “lost” footage, about a fifth of the film, that had not been seen since its Berlin debut.

Originally, the film was 153 minutes long, but was cut down to approximately 90 minutes for commercial distribution. Several restorations over the years since had manage to extend the film to 124 minutes. But with the Buenos Aires discovery, fans can now witness the full 153 minute epic. Or 149 minutes by the math.

A near tragedy. Even when using digital technology, the restoration of this print was not easy:

The condition of the 16mm negative posed a major technical challenge to the team. The image was streaked with scratches and plagued by flickering brightness. “It had all been printed from the 35mm nitrate print, which means they have become part of the picture,” says Wilkening. The source 35mm element was later destroyed (probably due to the flammability and chemical instability of the nitrocellulose film stock).

An unfortunate lessons was thus learned from the restoration. “Don’t throw your originals away even if you think you preserved them, and even if they are in bad shape,” Koerber says, “If we could have had access to the 35mm nitrate print that was destroyed after being reprinted for safety onto 16mm dupe negative some 30 years ago, we would have been able to make a much better copy today.”

Even so the restoration and cleanup of the visuals was completed successfully, and now the full film is making its way through the US in limited theater releases this summer. And a DVD will be released in November.

Will it be worth it? Some may not like the idea of such a historic piece being “altered,” but often movies are “altered” before their release to theaters and scenes that are deleted do get returned later in “director’s cuts” or as extras on DVDs. But can the restoration of a 1927 print be viewable on today’s high-definition screens? More importantly, does the added scenes add anything to what is already a historical masterpiece?

We’ll have to wait until the DVs come out…

See also: SFAM’s review of Metropolis.

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Comments

Awesome, I will be seeing it in L.A. then.

I am interested because the version I saw years ago had a lot of title cards to explain missing scenes.

I’ve seen the full restored version already some months ago on free tv

Isn’t this movie Public Domain soon?

Bencoder already has this, he hard coded english subtitles over the german and we watched it weeks ago, its been out since feburary. Its good but the restored parts are out of sync with the rest of the movie because they are in another aspect ratio and are heavly cropped, they also have a grainny quailty to them and are not enhanced into high def as far as I can tell. They did not save 100 percent of the film but I would put it at at least 87 percent what they have done is fill in some of the tiny gaps that derail the story. Maybe the DVD release will be better but only time will tell.

Even if the currently restored footage is difficult to watch, digital restoration technology continues to improve. In the future they may be able to make even better versions that are still true to the original. I doubt this will be the last release of Metropolis.

I’ve seen the fully restore version. There are some key parts that are restored, While the films restored quality isn’t the greatest, it’s definitely not a negative impact. When it beocmes available in the states i recommend it. The version I saw had live music with it which was absolutely amazing. I’d be willing to right a review for the restored part or, Pass it on to you guys here over a more descrete channel.

Skyrmir, that would be very appreciated by the members of Cyberpunk review. On top of the mainpage is a link to the Forum, there you can post your review.

Usually I am tired of Hollywood remaking everything and it’s dog but this film should be one of the VERY few exceptions. For one thing it’s 83 years old & I would love to see this thing done with modern SFX. Yes, even Cameron’s new 3D process - it’s awesome! But one caveat: keep Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich and Stephen Sommers FAR AWAY FROM IT) ’cause they WILL eff it up!

This classic movie needs a remastering not a remaking, there is an anime movie called metropolis although its not a real remake.

The person who discover the 16 mm film is a profesor in the ENERC (National school of cenema and visual experimentation) I’m an student there … Actually he discover the film in the year 1989, but due to burocracy (some idiots in charge of the museum) the directors of this national deposit of films denied him the right to watch it… Finally , after decads of fighting against the sistem (when a new board was asigned to the Museum) he saw the film and send a copy to germany in 2004.

The problem with the quality of the shots in 16 mm, is that this 16 mm is in fact a copy of the original 35 mm. It was made in the sixties, back then the Cinema Museum of Buenos Aires decided that the original films were to old and they backup all the movies in the deposit. But ther was no money, so they copy all the films to the less expensive 16 mm format… BUT they didn’t clean the films before they made the copy, so the dust was recorded in the 16 mm film…

Does the added scenes add anything to what is already a historical masterpiece?

Yesterday I saw the 16 mm copy in the ENERC (very bad quality)..
But if worth IT…

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