Metropolis Tagged Articles at Cinematical

This week, the first season of J.J. Abrams' terrific television series Fringe comes to DVD, and if you haven't seen it yet, well, this is a great chance to catch up on what you missed before the new season starts on Sept. 17. The most intriguing character on the show is Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), once a brilliant, acclaimed scientist whose work in the area of "fringe science" made him the father of any number of ethically questionable, highly dangerous, and flat-out weird innovations that now seem to be popping up all over the place. In the tradition of the great mad scientists of literature and film, Bishop's brilliance and the nature of his work drove him bugnuts crazy, leading to his being institutionalized for 17 years.

Going back to Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Caligari and Dr. Mabuse, science has long been a force that drives gifted men insane, often with violent consequences. The underlying message is that we mere humans shouldn't play God, and the mad-science industry really boomed once we started testing atomic warheads in the 1940s. The later crop of science-based masterminds, like James Bond's nemesis Dr. No, Buckaroo Banzai's Dr. Emilio Lizardo, and Wild, Wild West's Dr. Loveless, were more interested in global domination than the usual areas of obsession like genetic mutation, robotics and bringing the dead back to life. But deep down inside, they're all mad scientists, and here are just a small handful of favorites:

It was around this time last year that the film world got an astonishing bit of news: A huge chunk of footage that was missing from Fritz Lang's 1927 classic Metropolis -- and presumed lost forever -- was FOUND in a museum's archives in Argentina. The film, a futuristic sci-fi thriller that has influenced everything from Blade Runner to Tim Burton's Batman, was 153 minutes long when it premiered in Berlin, where it was a huge flop with critics and audiences. It was subsequently chopped down to about 90 minutes, and once the American copyright expired, in 1953, various people started releasing "restored" versions, none of them complete. And that missing footage just sort of disappeared.

The copyright was re-established by the F. W. Murnau Foundation in 1998, and in 2002 a 127-minute version was released on DVD, all the footage cleaned up as much as possible and the original musical score re-recorded. Intertitles were used to explain the content of the 26 minutes' worth of scenes that were still missing.

More at SciFi Squad!

While researching my post on the Metropolis missing footage that's been discovered in Argentina, I missed a vital tidbit of information. (My brain is still leaking, sorry.) The tidbit? Kino International officially confirmed to The Digital Bits that their upcoming Blu-ray of Metropolis will include the newly-discovered footage, and that a standard definition DVD would also be released. Ta-da!

One of our readers, Eric, noted that Kino's Restored and Authorized Edition DVD, released in 2003, "actually makes sense," plot-wise, and recommended it highly. (Thanks, Eric! I've already ordered my copy.) By coincidence, Kino announced in May that they would begin offering their titles in Blu-ray in 2009, and then said that Metropolis would be their first title offered in the high-definition format, per High-Def Digest, though they did not provide details on a release date, technical specifications, or supplements.

In the UK, Eureka released a Region 2 DVD edition in 2005. DVD Beaver did a detailed comparison between Kino and Eureka and found the Eureka release to be superior: "This appears to be a classic example of PAL-NTSC ghosting derived from improper conversion." If you know what that means, you'll want to read their entire article before making a purchase decision -- and note, of course, that you'll need a region-free DVD player for the Eureka version. Film critic Glenn Kenney recommends the Eureka edition, by the way.

Others will choose to wait for Blu-ray, but whatever your decision, now would be a good time to get caught up with Metropolis so you can fully appreciate the new missing footage. If you need any more convincing, check out the clips and trailer at Kino's site.

I confess my temporary insanity: the news that missing footage from Fritz Lang's Metropolis had been discovered in Argentina, as detailed in the Guardian and elsewhere a few days ago, did not initially make my head spin. (I blame the blasted summer heat, which has made my brains melt.) Shaking off a weekend of lazy moviewatching has now convinced me that this may be the most significant movie news of the year.

Metropolis has always struck me as a classic more to be admired than loved -- difficult to follow, easy to be amazed by the stunning visuals, and in general, to be awed by its vision of a future society gone hellishly wrong. Roger Ebert acknowledged that the plot "defies common sense, but its very discontinuity is a strength." He noted that Lang's original version had not been seen for many years, "chopped by distributors, censors and exhibitors, key footage was lost" but that didn't keep it from influencing everything from Alphaville to Blade Runner to Dark City to Gotham City.

David Hudson detailed the discovery at GreenCine Daily and, as usual, compiled numerous links to coverage of the story. His updates indicate that the footage represents about 85% of what was considered lost forever, and that the 16mm copy is "in terrible shape," though there are high hopes that good quality images can be drawn from the material. As David wrote: "Still!"

Peter Bradshaw wonders if the missing footage would "explain" the movie or "just make it more baroque, more mysterious, and more mad than ever"? It looks like we'll all be able to see for ourselves, eventually. As Glenn Kenny writes, what's next? The Magnificent Ambersons? Greed? What's your dream restored classic?

Everyone has their list of movies that should not be remade -- whether it's an epic classic like Gone with the Wind, or a cult mainstay like Heathers. That doesn't stop filmmakers from trying, however, with some that re-imagine things and others that recreate things shot by shot and miserably fail. *cough* Psycho *cough* Now we're going into Fritz Lang territory as Variety reports that his epic science fiction film Metropolis is about to be remade. Happy 80th birthday, Metropolis, you could very well be headed for a crappy remake.

To be fair, I'm not completely against the idea, although the only way I'd want to see the possibility is if some great, unique filmmaker took it. If Guy Maddin was going to continue his silent film craze with his take on the German classic, I'd buy it. He does wonders with silent film. However, producer Thomas Schühly (Alexander) bought the remake rights, and is currently working with co-producer Mario Kassar to get a "top director" to helm the project. I imagine that means we'll get a script to accompany this version, and lots of mainstream buzz.

Schuehly says: "With the overwhelming role technology plays in our daily lives, the growing gap between rich and poor, including the gradual elimination of the middle class, the story of Metropolis is a frightening reflection of our society that takes place in an all too possible not too distant future." Why mess with it as a remake? In situations like these, I don't know why filmmakers don't take the base story, use one of those "inspired by" credits, and do something new -- so you give props to the story while also allowing it to exist on its own.

But what do you think? Can the producer behind Alexander, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and The Name of the Rose handle Metropolis? Oh yeah, and just to make it more exciting -- Kassar produced Basic Instinct 2.