GigantiCo™ is the blog of Chris Grayson, Digital Creative Strategist, writing at the intersection of art, technology & business – art, design, culture, architecture, technology, trends, data visualization, transhumanism, robotics, augmented reality, virtual reality, the metaverse, the tech-industry, gadgets, mobile, d.o.o.h., digital marketing & advertising – in short, whatever piques his interest.
View the whole Metropolis
Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 07:19AM 
The online edition of the German paper, Die Zeit, has broken a story of the discovery of lost reels of the original cinematic release of Metropolis, in the Fritz Lang director’s cut.
Upon it’s release in Berlin in 1927, the dystopian science fiction of the silent film era was the most expensive German film ever produced. In spite of this, in its day, the movie was not a great success. The film was subsequently acquired by Paramount who edited it down to a significantly shorter version for US distribution. Though it received accolades for it’s artistic execution and special effects, critically it was panned on both sides of the Atlantic for having a poorly structured plot, and it’s attempts to address serious contemporary political issues were generally considered naïve. H.G. Wells wrote a scathing review of Metropolis for the New York Times. As a result of Paramount’s edit, all copies of the original version were thought to have been spliced up and destroyed. The missing footage, not viewed in over three-quarters of a century, was believed to have been lost forever.
However, a full version of the original edit was just recently discovered in South America, and has now been authenticated by three German experts. After changing hands among both private collectors and public museums, the reels eventually landed in the possession of the Museo del Cine, in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the hands of museum curator, Paula Félix-Didier.
Tomorrow, Die Zeit’s Thursday morning print addition will carry a more in depth article.
Like most futurist visions, Metropolis says more about its own time than it does about the future that was to come. The morality tale concerns itself with the clash between communism and capitalism, wrapped inside a love triangle, complicated by the mischief of a robot temptress.
The movie’s vision for the future was not farsighted. Fritz only imagined more of the same grandiose enlargement already taking place in his day. Large building would get larger, factories would get bigger; and our steam filled mechanically driven future would be populated by oversized gears and levers.
The execution of this vision was however, gorgeous. The look of Metropolis was largely inspired by a 1920’s trip Fritz took to New York City, the Art Deco modernism of his times, and was heavily influenced by the architectural charcoal drawings of Hugh Ferriss. The film special effects creator, Eugen Schüfftan, invented many camera techniques and special effects that would become standards of the industry for decades to come.
Long a science fiction cult classic, Metropolis was re-released in the mid 80s, with a new soundtrack performed by contemporary pop artists, soundtrack produced by Giorgio Moroder. I have personally found that it makes for a better video/music mash-up with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, than the much ballyhooed, Wizard of Oz (but I digress).
In 2006 Carnegie Mellon inducted Metropolis’ Walter Schultze-Mittendorf designed robot, False Maria / Maschinenmensch, played by Brigitte Helm, into the Robot Hall of Fame.
A thank you goes out to Frank for pointing out the article at Zeit Online.
Reader Comments (1)
Btw. I have seen the Metropolis Paramount edit once. It is really a shame, that this is not colored. I know sounds a bit stupid to worry about colours. Anyway I think the atmosphere would win 'heaviness' (guess this was bad english translation - sorry for that), if it is coloured.