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Lost footage found from “Metropolis”

Posted by admin on Thursday, July 03, 2008

Fritz Lang’s seminal science fiction film Metropolis has earned its legendary status in the annals of film historians but it’s also an incomplete work. When the silent black-and-white film debuted in 1927 it was a financial bomb. In the decades since its release Metropolis was cut numerous times and new edits released including one by composer Giorgio Moroder in the 1980s but those missing segments were lost. Now two sleuthing fans in Argentina have discovered the missing reels from Metropolis that were hidden away in a museum and a nearly complete original cut of the film could be soon playing.

The story goes that back in 1928, an Argentinian film distributor snagged a print of Lang’s long version of the film which runs about two-and-a-half hours. Because of its longer running time the businessman decided to store the print in the back room of a local museum. It was only earlier this year that the Metropolis cache was rediscovered by a new museum hire. The footage was sent to Germany and verified as true footage from the movie. Now that it’s been given the seal of authenticity work will begin on restoring the film and giving fans their first look at the unfiltered version of the film.

Metropolis is set in the world of 2027, where machinery and automization has produced a utopia for the ruling class. Trapped in the bowels of the machinery are the unfortunate workers that are needed to supply the labor and do the menial tasks of society. An inventor creates a female robot and makes her come to life. Her experiences interacting with the underclass eventually leads to an uprising against the elite.

The uncovered footage adds about 25 minutes to the film and beefs up the characterization of several secondary characters. This sounds great and all but unfortunately no one associated with the restorization of Metropolis was willing to go on the record and state when we could expect to see this director’s cut. It could take years before the work is complete.

Speaking of Giorgio Moroder jump into the way-back machine and check out the opening for American Gigolo. Moroder wrote the music for the Blondie hit, Call Me:

Tags: metropolis

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