Metropolis cover art1 (2-disc Kino restored edition) (1 Viewer)

[Joshua_Y]

Just picked up my copy. Screw FYE.com!

 

[DeeF]

I bought it, and watched a lot of it last night.

The restoration is a miracle, but I still find that the documentaries about the restoration and history of the film are more interesting than the film itself. The film is really a... yawn, sorry. Perhaps the other missing material would help, but then it would be longer, yaawwwwn.

I do think many passages seemed to be at the wrong speed, fast and jerky.

I was truly amazed at how many films Lang managed to make during the Weimar Republic era of Germany, with hyperinflation, staggering poverty, etc. This is the Cabaret, Blue Angel period, and still these guys made movies, a lot of them.

 

[Eric Huffstutler]

Silent Films are definitely not for the average viewer. They have their own following and hope there are enough sales to justify the tremendous expense put into restoring this movie.
Yes, it is a big yawwwwn as early silent films ran between 15 to 30 minutes, not 2 to 2½ hours... because of attention span. But that was as normal back then as 78rpm records and early static radio broadcast. We are just spoiled in this era of wanting things "too perfect too quickly" and lacking appreciation for it.
I wonder what happened to the trailer? You can still download a copy at:
Apple Trailers (QuickTime)

 

[DeeF]

But I love silent movies, LOVE them, my attention span is perfectly attuned to such things. Also, many silent movies were very long -- Greed was supposed to be 6 hours long!

I appreciate the art form. I did find Metropolis a little vague and long-winded, but it is certainly beautifully designed, and I was quite intrigued by the score, which apparently was written in the 20s specifically for the movie, but this is a newly recorded rendition, beautifully done.

But German expressionism is so stylized that much of the humanity is lost. I prefer Dreyer's Jeanne D'Arc, which uses constant closeups of tormented faces, to the arch stylings of Lang.

 

[Eric Huffstutler]

DeeF

Honestly, this was my first and only silent film in my collection. Since you are a fan of them, possibly you can suggest some other restored gems to look for?

 

[Randy A Salas]

I did find Metropolis a little vague and long-winded, but it is certainly beautifully designed

Metropolis, to me, isn't so much about the story as it is about the incredible visual presentation. What a stunning look it still has almost 80 years later.

 

[Kevin M]

Honestly, this was my first and only silent film in my collection. Since you are a fan of them, possibly you can suggest some other restored gems to look for?

Steven, you might want to try Nosferatu and Sunrise.
I just received Metropolis from Netflix and I am pretty sure that this is a completely virgin unwatched DVD, I seem to be the first one to have rented this from Netflix so anyone who rents this title in the future remember....my hands have been ALL OVER IT!!!....MUAHHH HAAA HAAA!!!
..cough...um..sorry about that..
Seriously, it is a beautiful restoration and the extras are quite nice...why was it all put onto one disc though? A film as long as this would benefit from a two disc set, not that it looks bad.
As far as the score goes....well...it isn't to my taste as far as the mood this film needs and I made my own compilation of music for this film a few years ago, with such artists as Wendy Carlos, Bach, Vangelis, Prokofiev, Tangerine Dream, Moussorgsky etc., so I will stick with that as I watch.
You might wish to try this yourself, it takes a while to find the right music for the changing moods of the film but it is fun after awhile, as far as playing time I first used a reel to reel but you can use an MP3 CD-R using 320Kbps that sounds pretty good depending on the software you use(and assuming you have an secondary MP3 capable player to sync up with the Metropolis DVD).
None the less I will eventually buy this DVD for my own, it is top notch and highly recommended.

 

[Claes Ljunghorn]

possibly you can suggest some other restored gems to look for?

Forgive me if I suggest "Sunrise". There is a review here on the forum.

 

[oscar_merkx]

and a very good one at that.
Another one I can highly recommend is the R2 John Ford Silent The Iron Horse if you have a multi region player
http://www.playserver2.com/play247.a...arch&adudisc=y

 

[Joshua_Y]

Just finished watching the film. Boy its great to see the movie finally get the respect it deserves with this glorious transfer, and the film makes much more sense with the new footage. Now I must go burn my Madacy disc and laugh manically!
BTW - On the subject of silent films, wasnt there a boxset of Chaplin films comin out in SE's and all?

 

[Mark-W]

Joshua_Y-
I always cringe a tinge when a thread veers off
the main topic, but to answer your question,
Charlie Chaplin's films are now under the control
of his estate (hence the OOP situation for the one's
released by Image Entertianment supervised by David Sheppard, who did a fantastic job),
and WB is doing some kind of digital restoration,
which, (and I could be wrong), is being down by Lowery
At any rate, I haven't heard of a deluxe boxed set,
like the two collections Image Entertainment released,
which were very nice, but I have heard that the estate
is planning on releasing Chaplin's films, I thought,
in two film sets.
In the case of films like The Gold Rush the
concern was that Chaplin was a revisionist,
and his later years narration of The Gold Rush
and slight additions and subtractions of shots in
various films are not looked on now with kindliness.
(Much the way one hears "Greedo shot first!"in other threads.)
Well, WB and Chaplin's estate have stated they will
release both the original version of The Gold Rush and Chaplin's later narrated version together. This is
good news, considering a quality version of the non-narrated
version has never appeared on DVD.
Back to Metropolis:
For a kid raised on Star Wars, I can see why some
would say the film is long winded. While I find it
entertaining, I consider it much more "visual poetry,"
and don't really watch it with adrenaline pumping through
my veins...I don't think the film can be faulted for being
the way it is as far as pacing goes: it was meant for a
late 1920's audience, and they didn't have Mtv.
Still, I have to say, I do get the "ooh ahh" feeling
watching many parts of it.
Like others, I highly recommend Sunrise which
I saw on TCM a few months back, and also,
Murnau's Nosferatu (make sure to get the Image Entertainment version, as the one contained in the "Masterworkds of German Horror" boxed set
runs too fast and has other quality issues.),
and Cecil B DeMille's (sp?) Male and Female,
which stars Gloria Swanson (who you may remember from
Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard).
You might also give other Lang silents a try like
Dr Mabuse, The Gambler, but if one finds
Metropolis "a yawn," I would not recommend it:
it "feels" longer to me than Metropolis.
Regards,
Mark

 

[Kevin M]

I thought I should give the original score another listen and upon revisiting it I do find parts of it to be very good but too few and far between for my liking, it is really very dated (not normally a problem for me) and IMO just doesn't hit the right tone or capture the right feeling and mood for the film often enough.
I would have been quite happy to have the film ran at 20 FPS and had a new score created for it as it is rather "keystone cops" in many scenes.

But that's just my opinion, I'm sure there are many others to be expressed.

 

[Brian Kidd]

I have the press kit for the restoration of METROPOLIS and they are very clear that the film was intended to be shown at 24fps. Take that how you will. I loved the score and felt that it was very ahead of its time in places. For those of you who are making your own discs, just remember that this is the score that was written for the film upon its original release. To change it would be just as bad as removing John Williams' score for STAR WARS and replacing it with Yanni. Wait... perhaps I shouldn't give Lucas any ideas.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Brian, you have to remember that the presskit is intended in part to deflect criticism of the 24 fps rate. Also the reference to "intended" speed--intended by whom? Available evidence indicates that it was the speed intended by the studio, which was on the verge of bankruptcy and wanted to cram as many showings in per day as possible, thus the faster frame rate--actually 26 fps, which is utterly manic. We have ZERO evidence as to what Lang himself intended. Having seen Metropolis at 20 fps, I find it difficult to believe Lang intended it to run at a comical 24 or even worse the 26 fps apparently notated on Huppertz' score.

 

[Randy A Salas]

I find it difficult to believe Lang intended it to run at a comical 24 or even worse the 26 fps apparently notated on Huppertz' score.

On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that the present-day companies would spend all that money on an extensive, painstaking, exhaustive restoration of Metropolis--as shown in the DVD's supplements--and then transfer the film at the wrong speed. What would be the point?

 

[Jason Seaver]

Well, there's the issue that many theaters might not be equipped to run movies at any other frame rate, or at least not with the soundtrack. Even if Kino felt that 20 fps is the intended frame rate, they still might have released the theatrical prints at 24fps for pragmatic reasons

I've seen the restored version twice in theaters, and I have to say I don't find it too terribly sped-up, or at least not more so than other silent movies being projected at what I assume is their proper speed. The time I saw it at 20 fps looked right, too - but it may just have looked more right to my modern-day eyes. But, that sort of speed-up or slow-down seems to be a frequently used storytelling tool for that period.

 

[kevin_y]

Did anyone notice the Region 1 DVD of Metropolis has a 118-minute running time, not 124min as indicated on the box? The running time has been a matter of controversy as we know. Did they speed up the 124min version even more to make it 118min??

 

[Kevin M]

The score, in 5.1 Surround, is very impressive, with some good themes and some fairly limp ones. I've read much more astute musical criticism of Gottfried Huppertz's work than I can offer. It certainly presents motifs that follow the basic drift of the story, but it makes little effort to 'ride' the emotional content of each scene, even to the extent that good silent-movie organists will 'play' the mood of the films they accompany. It's timed out well, right down to orchestrating aural blasts to complement the shift-change sirens on the rooftops of the city. But during the catacomb church scene, for instance, almost nothing at all happens to mark or underline Maria's entrance, or the two lovers coming together. I guess movie score 'Mickey Mousing' happened later with composers like Max Steiner.
Huppertz veers toward kitsch when his 'revolt' theme quotes 'La Marseillaise'. But his music consistently augments and amplifies the rhythms that Fritz Lang built into the film, such as the ringing of the giant bell in the Workers' city. That was the main failing of Moroder's dynamic disco score - it too often ignored the rhythms of the movie running beneath it.

I agree with this opinion, the music follows the films rhythms fairly well but it falls flat on the tone(s) of the film more often that not.
A score by John Williams sounds like a wonderful idea after listening to this admittedly historically "correct", but ultimately hit or miss(again IMO) original score that misses more than it hits.
Your Mileage May Vary.
By the way...I hate Yanni.

 

[Rain]

Did anyone notice the Region 1 DVD of Metropolis has a 118-minute running time, not 124min as indicated on the box?

Hey, you're right?

Considering that a big deal has been made of the 124 minute running time, I'd like to know exactly what is going on here...

Now we are another 6 minutes short somewhere.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that the present-day companies would spend all that money on an extensive, painstaking, exhaustive restoration of Metropolis--as shown in the DVD's supplements--and then transfer the film at the wrong speed. What would be the point?

That's exactly what I'm mad about. Why did they fuck this up so badly? Kino says that the German licensor insisted on the 24 fps rate and there wasn't anything they could do about it. But the fact remains that the original "museum" screening tour of the restored print was specifically set at 20 fps, and the 24 fps version was a later compromise to allow it to play in theaters that were unequipped for variable frame rates. I'm baffled at the apparent change of heart by Patalas and the Murnau-Stiftung on this issue, but for some reason that seems to be at the core of the problem with this DVD. Is it possible that the licensors could only afford to do one video transfer and screwed up and did the 24 fps version instead of the optically correct one? I don't know, but that's one explanation that occurs to me. Another one is that they judged the publicity value of using the Huppertz score as being a more powerful commercial incentive for purchasers than running the film at a slower and less comic rate--if that's the case, I have new contempt for the German licensors. Or perhaps having sunk a large amount of money into the recording of the Huppertz score for the regular-theatre print, they felt compelled to use it and recover some of the costs on the DVD. All speculation, but all possible answers to your question. The Germans remain mum.

In any event, I have to say that I've seen Metropolis at a lot of times with different frame rates (mostly of them 24 or faster) on the large and small screen, but it works best, by far, at 20. It was nothing less than a complete revelation over all other viewings. Had this disc been transferred at 20 it could have been definitive (absent some additional footage turning up). As it is, it's a painful reminder that what we have is an aborted view of Lang's vision.