Footage Restored to Fritz Lang's ‘Metropolis’ (The New York Times)

By LARRY ROHTER

For fans and scholars of the silent-film era, the search for a copy of the original version of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” has become a sort of holy grail. One of the most celebrated movies in cinema history, “Metropolis” had not been viewed at its full length — roughly two and a half hours — since shortly after its premiere in Berlin in 1927, when it was withdrawn from circulation and about an hour of its footage was amputated and presumed destroyed.

But on Friday Film Forum in Manhattan will begin showing what is being billed as “The Complete Metropolis,” with a DVD scheduled to follow later this year, after screenings in theaters around the country. So an 80-year quest that ranged over three continents seems finally to be over, thanks in large part to the curiosity and perseverance of one man, an Argentine film archivist named Fernando Peña.

The newly found footage, about 25 minutes in length and first exhibited in February at the Berlin Film Festival, is grainy and thus easily distinguished from an earlier, partly restored version, released in 2001, into which it has been inserted. But for the first time, Lang’s vision of a technologically advanced, socially stratified urban dystopia, which has influenced contemporary films like “Blade Runner” and “Star Wars,” seems complete and comprehensible.

“ ‘Metropolis’ is the most iconic silent picture of its day, mainly because of the visual ambition and virtuosity of the film itself,” said Noah Isenberg, editor of “Weimar Cinema,” a book about early German films, and a professor of film and literary studies at the New School. “But until now, we didn’t have the full story. These additions are really essential to understanding the full arc of the narrative.”

Made at a time of hyperinflation in Germany, “Metropolis” offered a grandiose version — of a father and son fighting for the soul of a futuristic city — that nearly bankrupted the studio that commissioned it, UFA. After lukewarm reviews and initial box office results in Europe, Paramount Pictures, the American partner brought in toward the end of the shoot, took control of the film and made drastic excisions, arguing that Lang’s cut was too complicated and unwieldy for American audiences to understand.

Mr. Peña discovered a full-length copy of “Metropolis” in 2008 in the archives of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires. He had first heard stories 20 years earlier that a two-and-a-half-hour print had somehow found its way to Argentina and was wandering from one government institution to another, but his efforts to gain access to the film cans had always been frustrated by an indifferent bureaucracy.

Since the 1930s, the full-length version of “Metropolis” had been part of a large private archive assembled by a prominent Argentine film critic, Manuel Peña Rodríguez, who would lend titles to local film clubs. At his death around 1970, the collection was donated to the Argentine version of the National Endowment of the Arts, which handed it off to the Museo del Cine in 1992.

Over the years, Mr. Peña had shared his frustrations at not being given access to the film with Paula Félix-Didier, another film archivist and, during the 1990s, his wife. When she became head of the Museo del Cine in 2008, she said, “I called Fernando and said, ‘Just come, let’s do it.’ So he came, we looked for the cans, and there they were, cataloged and up on a shelf.”

That a copy of the original print of “Metropolis” even existed in Buenos Aires was the result of another piece of serendipity. An Argentine film distributor, Adolfo Wilson, happened to be in Berlin when the film had its premiere, liked what he saw so much that he immediately purchased rights, and returned to Argentina with the reels in his luggage.

“If he had gone two months later, he would have come back with a different version,” Mr. Peña said in a telephone interview from Buenos Aires. Initially, the F. W. Murnau Foundation, a German film-preservation group named after the great silent-era director, which holds the rights to Lang’s silent films, did not respond when the Argentines notified it of the discovery. So Mr. Peña made a DVD and while on a business trip to Madrid took it to a prominent film scholar there, Luciano Berriatúa, who watched the film with him, enraptured, and immediately phoned the Germans to tell them, Mr. Peña recalled, “It’s the real thing.”

Restoring the Argentine reels required the latest in digital technology. In the early 1970s, the original 35-millimeter nitrate print was taken to a laboratory in Buenos Aires to be reduced to a 16-millimeter negative. But the lab technicians were careless, Ms. Félix-Didier said, “so they didn’t clean the film, and as a result there are all these artifacts, like dust and hair and scratches, on the 16-millimeter print” from which the Germans had to work. Because of damage to the reels, a couple of scenes have also had to be supplemented with intertitles.

Some of the newly inserted material consists of brief reaction shots, just a few seconds long, which establish or accentuate a character’s mood. But there are also several much longer scenes, including one lasting more than seven minutes, that restore subplots completely eliminated from the Paramount version.

For example, the “Thin Man,” who in the standard version appears to be a glorified butler to the city’s all-powerful founder, turns out instead to be a much more sinister figure, a combination of spy and detective. The founder’s personal assistant, who is fired in an early scene, also plays a greater role, helping the founder’s idealistic son navigate his way through the proletarian underworld.

The cumulative result is a version of “Metropolis” whose tone and focus have been changed. “It’s no longer a science-fiction film,” said Martin Koerber, a German film archivist and historian who supervised the latest restoration and the earlier one in 2001. “The balance of the story has been given back. It’s now a film that encompasses many genres, an epic about conflicts that are ages old. The science-fiction disguise is now very, very thin.”

Even as the full-length version of “Metropolis” plays in Germany and the United States, the Argentine archivists continue to examine the Museo del Cine collection in Buenos Aires. Just last month, Ms. Félix-Didier said, a print was found of a Soviet-era silent film long thought to have been lost: Yevgeny Chervyakov’s 1928 “My Son.”

In addition, the Museo del Cine has discovered what the Library of Congress says are the only surviving copies of three American films: a 1916 William S. Hart western called “The Aryan”; a 1928 drama called “The Crimson City,” with Myrna Loy and Anna May Wong; and a melodrama from 1921 called “The Gilded Lily” and starring Mae Murray.

“This is great news,” said Stephen Leggett, program coordinator of the library’s National Film Preservation Board.

Mr. Peña said: “I’m glad I persisted. We still haven’t been through everything, so new discoveries could keep appearing.”

"Metrópolis", de Fritz Lang (trailer norteamericano)

Apple has the trailer for the re-restored version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis which premiered at Berlinale, will be the closing night film of the ongoing TCM Classic Film Festival and which will play in US theatersbeginning May 7 at New York’s Film Forum.

Re-restored? Well, “definitive” versions of the butchered classic have come out over the years including a 2001 75th anniversary restoration including 124 minutes of the film’s original 153. Then in 2008, a 16 mm reduction negative of the original cut of the film was discovered in poor shape in Argentina. The new footage has been restored as best as it can be (you can see how scratched much of it is in some of the scenes above) and the film is being shown in a form as close as possible to the way Fritz Lang originally intended.

The original editing has been restored with scenes now in their original order. Subplots are returned, others expanded on and character motivations are better explained.

Read more about the restoration, an updated synopsis and a detailed list of the new scenes at the Kino website.

Seldom has the rediscovery of a cache of lost footage ignited widespread curiosity as did the announcement, in July 2008, that an essentially complete copy of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS had been found.

When it was first screened in Berlin on January 10, 1927, the sci-fi epic ran an estimated 153 minutes. After its premiere engagement, in an effort to maximize the film's commercial potential, the film's distributors (Ufa in Germany, Paramount in the U.S.) drastically shortened METROPOLIS. By the time it debuted in the states, the film ran approximately 90 minutes (exact running times are difficult to determine because silent films were not always projected at a standardized speed).

Even in its truncated form, METROPOLIS went on to become one of the cornerstones of fantastic cinema. Testament to its enduring popularity, the film has undergone numerous restorations in the intervening decades. In 1984, it was reissued with additional footage, color tints, and a pop rock score (but with many of its intertitles removed) by music producer Giorgio Moroder. A more archival restoration was completed in 1987, under the direction of Enno Patalas and the Munich Film Archive, in which missing scenes were represented with title cards and still photographs. More recently, the 2001 restoration—supervised by Martin Koerber, under the auspices of the Murnau Foundation—combined footage from four archives and ran a triumphant 124 minutes. It was widely believed that this would be the most complete version of Lang's film that contemporary audiences could ever hope to see.

But the world of film preservation is not governed by the laws of wide belief. 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. The discovery of such a significant amount of material called for yet another restoration. Spearheading the project was the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (hereafter referred to as the Murnau Foundation), which controls the rights to most of Lang's silents and is the caretaker of the legacies of many other German filmmakers, including the one after whom the foundation is named. Film Restorer for the Murnau Foundation, Anke Wilkening coordinated the endeavor.

"We discussed the new approach with experts and German archive partners to establish a team for the 2010 restoration,"Wilkening explains, "The project consisted of two main tasks: the reconstruction of the original cut and the digital restoration of the heavily damaged images from the Argentinian source."

Returning to METROPOLIS was Koerber, Film Department Curator of the Deutsche Kinemathek, who had supervised the 2001 restoration. "Three people worked on what we call 'edition'—meaning sorting out the material and determining the order of shots, making aesthetic and technical decisions, etc.: Anke Wilkening, Frank Strobel and myself," says Koerber.

As word spread of the discovery of the Buenos Aires negative, a nervous public worried that archival politics might hinder the integration of the rediscovered footage into METROPOLIS. Koerber explains this was never the case. "They were always willing to cooperate, in fact they offered the material once they identified what it was."

Once obtained by the Murnau Foundation, the 16mm negative was digitally scanned in 2K by The Arri Group in Munich.

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."

Fortunately, advances in digital technology allowed the team to at least diminish some of the printed-in wear. "If we would have had the Argentinian material for the 2001 restoration, it would have hardly been possible to work on the severe damage," Wilkening says. In 2010, however, "it was possible to reduce the scratches prominent all over the image and almost eliminate the flicker that was caused by oil on the surface of the original print—without aggressively manipulating the image."

Under Wilkening and Koerber's supervision, the visual cleanup was performed by Alpha-Omega Digital GmbH, utilizing digital restoration software of their own development.

At one time, purists objected to the use of digital technology in the restoration of film. But it has become an indispensable tool for preservationists. "[Digital technology] has made things possible we could only dream of a decade or two ago," Koerber says, "Digital techniques allow more precise interventions than ever before. And it is still evolving—we are only at the beginning."

"The work on the restoration teaches us once more that no restoration is ever definitive," says Wilkening, "Even if we are allowed for the first time to come as close to the first release as ever before, the new version will still remain an approach. The rediscovered sections which change the film's composition, will at the same time always be recognizable through their damages as those parts that had been lost for 80 years." Viewing METROPOLIS today, the Argentine footage is clearly identifiable because so much of the damage remains. The unintended benefit is that it provides convenient earmarks to the recently reintegrated scenes.

Other changes are not so noticeable. Because the Buenos Aires negative provided a definite blueprint to the cutting of METROPOLIS—which in the past had been a matter of conjecture—the order of some of the existing shots has been altered in the 2010 edition, bringing METROPOLIS several steps closer to its original form.

It is important to note that the "new" shots are not merely extensions of previously existing scenes. In some cases, they comprise whole subplots that were lopped off in their entirety.

"It restores the original editing," Koerber says, "restoring the balance between the characters and subplots that remained and those that were excised."

"Thanks to the Argentine find, the film's structure changes thoroughly," explains Wilkening, "especially the three male supporting characters—Josaphat, Georgy and "der Schmale" (the Thin One)—who had been diminished to mere extras due to the elimination of two large scenes." "Parallel editing becomes now a major player in METROPOLIS," Wilkening says, "The new version represents a Fritz Lang film where we can observe the tension between his preferred subject, the male melodrama, and the bombastic dimensions of the Ufa production."

The 2010 restoration took about one year, from conception to completion, and was performed at a cost of 600,000€ (approx. $840,000). But Wilkening is quick to point out that it is but the latest chapter in an ongoing saga, and pays tribute to the other preservationists who have so vigorously championed the film. "METROPOLIS is the prototype of an archive film. Decades of research for the lost scenes and various attempts to reconstruct the first release version have produced a large pool of knowledge of this film."

Asked how the METROPOLIS restoration compared to other projects in which the Deutsche Kinemathek participated, Koerber replies, "No comparison, METROPOLIS is more complex in many ways. On the other hand, it is also more rewarding, as the [availability of source material]—film material as well as secondary sources—is exceptionally good."

Currently, Wilkening is finishing a restoration of Lang's DIE NIBELUNGEN saga, and is optimistic about future projects. "Like everybody we would be keen to find the lost films of Murnau and Lang." But she adds, "I would be happy to turn from the holy grails to some films which are existing in the vaults of the archives, but are forgotten and hardly considered for restorations as they are not part of the canon."

On behalf of the Deutsche Kinemathek, Koerber says, "We were happy to be a partner with the Murnau-Stiftung and provide all the necessary expertise as well as the documents from our collection (script, music, etc.). I hope this successful cooperation will be a model for future projects."

"The project was a very good experience regarding team work." Wilkening says, "The collaboration of the different individuals with different background—historians, musician and technicians—was exceptionally fruitful."

Now that METROPOLIS is—at least for now—behind them, preservationists resume their watch for new opportunities, and forgotten cans of film that might offer other cinema treasures a second life.

David Bordwell analiza la nueva versión de "Metrópólis"

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Diario del Festival de Berlín: Parte 5

Si no duermo ya, lo que queda de mi cuerpo helado va a entrar en estado Walt Disney. Mañana en el diario saldrá casi todo lo que vi hoy: HOWL y THE GHOST WRITER más entrevistas y conferencias de prensa. Algunas cosas que vi todavía no puedo comentar (hay un embargo de publicación de las películas de la noche previa a la función oficial) y lo único que dejé de lado fue la película rumana "Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man", de casi tres horas, de las que vi una y media. La película de Constantin Popescu es una bastante repetitiva colección de episodios de la resistencia anticomunista en Rumania durante los '40 y '50 (al menos la parte que vi yo), tiene algunos momentos intensos y muchos violentos, pero termina haciéndose una suma de episodios que se acumulan narrativamente pero no hacen crecer la película hacia ningún lado.

Y vi 20 minutos de la nueva versión de METROPOLIS en la Puerta de Brandenburgo. La proyección se atrasó y tenía que volver a ver SUBMARINO, de Thomas Vinterberg. Eso, sumado al frío de 10-15 grados bajo cero que hacía, me hicieron regresar rápidamente. La escenografía y la proyección en ese lugar igual hicieron que la experiencia valiera la pena igual. No llegué, creo, a ver nada de "la parte argentina". Apenas pueda subiré las fotos de la experiencia.

Eso. Hasta mañana. En unas horas habrá mucho más para leer entrando a http://www.clarin.com/

Berlinale 2010: "Metropolis" Redux (Variety)

New version restores long-lost cuts to Lang classic

By SHANE DANIELSEN

New version restores long-lost cuts to the Fritz Lang classic pic 'Metropolis.'

Despite what you might believe, you've never really seen Fritz Lang's "Metropolis."
For all its revivals and restorations, unless you happened to be among the film's world-premiere audience at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin on Jan. 10, 1927, with an original orchestral score by Gottfried Huppertz, you've never seen the film as Lang intended.
This will change today with simultaneous screenings of a newly restored version at the Berlinale, where it will screen in the FriedrichstadtPalast, and at the Old Opera House in Frankfurt. At each venue it will be accompanied by live performances of Huppertz's score, performed by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Staatsorchester Braunschweig, respectively.
The history of this silent classic is complicated -- worthy, at times, of the pulp-fiction Lang loved.
His original cut ran approximately 153 minutes -- that is, the print was 13,823 feet, and was most likely projected at 24 frames per second. But it remained intact for only three months. By April 1927, the desecration of "Metropolis" had begun.
In December 1926, the American rep for German studio Universum Film (Ufa), Frederick Wynne-Jones, screened the film for Paramount, which agreed to distribute it in the U.S. But the Hollywood execs considered the original cut too long and engaged Gotham-based playwright Channing Pollock to oversee a re-edit.
According to Eckhart Schmidt, who recently completed the doc "Myth of Metropolis," in the American version a decisive scene was cut concerning the relationship between the master of Metropolis and the inventor Rotwang.
"They loved the same woman -- called Hel," says Schmidt. "The American distributor thought 'Hel' (was too) close to 'Hell,' so they cut the whole sequence. In the cut version nobody understands the problem between Rotwang and the Metropolis boss."
Indeed, the result was a nearly incoherent mess. At 114 minutes, the pic had lost many of the story's core conflicts -- most notably between the industrialist Fredersen and Rotwang, the scientist, that would inspire the creation of the famous machine-woman, and with it the eventual destruction of Metropolis.
Pollock's intervention necessitated radical changes to the intertitles, and also to the editing of surviving scenes, for which the playwright was unapologetic: "As it stood when I began my job of structural editing, 'Metropolis' had no restraint or logic," he announced. "It was symbolism run riot ... I have given it my meaning."
In Berlin, Lang's cut was withdrawn after only a few weeks for reasons that still remain unclear. After meetings in April 1927, Ufa's board adopted the Paramount edit for future German screenings.
It was this 10,695-foot version that survived for more than 70 years, though other, shorter cuts circulated as well. Lang, embittered by the experience, declared years later that "Metropolis" was a film that no longer existed.
In 1984 came a restoration and new edit overseen by music producer Giorgio Moroder. Now just 80 minutes long, Moroder's cut substituted subtitles for intertitles, and featured songs by Queen's Freddie Mercury. Purists were less than impressed.
In 1986, German film historian Enno Patalas undertook a more comprehensive restoration, working from newly rediscovered copies of the original script and Huppertz's original score, which provided clues to the order of scenes and even individual shots. And in 2001 came a full digital restoration by the F.W. Murnau Foundation and U.S. distrib Kino Intl. It preemed at that year's Berlinale, and has been in distribution more or less continually ever since.
In 2008, came news of an astonishing find: a 16mm reduction negative of the original cut of the film, featuring many scenes thought lost, had been uncovered in the archives of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires. Adolfo Z. Wilson, of local distrib Terra Film, had purchased a 35mm nitro print after the 1927 Berlin premiere -- before Paramount's cuts were made.
The original edit was released in Argentina in May 1928; later, this copy was acquired by film critic and historian Manuel Pena Rodriguez, who screened it at private film clubs before selling it, in the 1960s, to Argentina's National Art Fund.
A copy was made -- a 16mm negative "safety duplicate" -- which was fortunate, since the original 35mm was subsequently lost and is now believed destroyed. But the copying was poorly supervised, transferring all the damage sustained by the show print in addition to the poorer resolution and truncated picture size of 16mm.
In 1992 this duplicate became the property of the Museo del Cine, and was archived; for the next 16 years it sat gathering dust. But in January 2008, Museo curator Paula Felix-Didier brought the find to wider attention. The Murnau Foundation collaborated with German broadcasters ZDF and Arte and the Deutsche Kinemathek to digitally restore the badly degraded footage.
The result will not be seamless. The Murnau Foundation concedes that "even by digital means, the difference in quality between the 2001 version -- based on a camera negative -- and the heavily torn Argentinian material cannot be eliminated." For this reason, their 2001 digital restoration remains the "spine" of this new restoration.
Nevertheless, the 1927-2010 version is an historic event: At 145 minutes, it offers modern-day audiences their first glimpse of what Lang originally intended.
Munich's Transit Film will handle world theatrical sales, and the Murnau Foundation will release it on DVD this year.

Berlinale 2010: Sitio oficial de la restauración de "Metropolis"

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The restoration is being carried out by the Wiesbaden-based Murnau Foundation in cooperation with ZDF and arte, and the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen (Berlin), and with the Museo del Cine Pablo C. Ducros Hicken (Buenos Aires). The original music by Gottfried Huppertz will be re-edited by the European FilmPhilharmonic / Die Film-Philarmonie GmbH. Restoration and re-screening are being funded by the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Gemeinnützige Kulturfonds Frankfurt Rhine-Main, by the Verwertungsgesellschaft für Nutzungsrechte an Filmwerken mbH, as well as the DEFA Foundation. Transit Film GmbH (Munich) will be in charge of internationally distributing this most recent reconstructed version of Metropolis.

The problematic condition of the found material poses the biggest challenge during restoration. The up to now missing shots and scenes have been found as 16mm Dup Negative whose original was a heavily used 35mm distribution copy from Argentina. Despite state-of-the-art restoration the newly found pieces of more than 30 minutes length will always vary from the photographic quality of the version from 2001. Music plays a significant role in restoring the montage of the original version as the original score of Gottfried Huppertz – besides censorship information and reviews – made up the most important source for the restoring team consisting of Anke Wilkening, Martin Koerber and Frank Strobel.

The long forgotten globally unique version of METROPOLIS was found by Fernando Martín Peña and Paula Félix-Didier, director of the Museo del Cine, who immediately realised the significance of the discovery and made contact with Germany in June 2008. The first observation happened shortly after and the material was brought to Wiesbaden in July 2009. At the moment re-edition of the score and digital restoring of the film material take place.

METROPOLIS and its versions

The mutilation of the monumental film began immediately after its premiere at the Berlin Ufa-Palast am Zoo on January 10, 1927. Approved by the Film Board, the 4189-meter-long version screened at this venue without success for four months; as a consequence, the Ufa withdrew the film and produced a much shorter version, 3241 meters in length, for release to movie theaters in the summer of 1927.

The Ufa based this version for German and international distribution on the American distribution copy already made in 1926 that has been reduced by Paramount by one quarter, totaling a well-established length of 3100 meters. Stage writer Channing Pollock who got the assignment made far-reaching changes: Amongst others he eliminated the rivalry between ruler Fredersen and inventor Rotwang for a beloved woman (Hel) who they both lost – and therefore purging the motive for building a female robot.

For decades only one original negative and copies of the shortened version used for German and international distribution were thought to exist. The version of film distributor Adolfo Z. Wilson which he purchased immediately after the Berlin premiere in January 1927 – and therefore before the cuts – was released in Argentinian movie theaters in May 1928. After commercial utilization the Argentinian distribution copy became private property of the film critic Manuel Pena Rodriguez whose collection – by passing the Fondo Nacional de las Artes – finally reached the Museo del Cine Pablo C. Ducros Hicken.

From the heavily used nitro copy in the 1970s a safety copy in 16mm negative was made, a process which – in today´s opinion – lacked competent supervision. It seems the easily inflammable nitro material whose damage and stain can now be seen on the duplicate has been destroyed afterwards. For decades noone knew about the treasure that has been hidden in Buenos Aires.

Reconstructed Original Cut of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis to Celebrate its Premiere at the Berlinale 2010

Fritz Lang’s original cut of Metropolis from 1927 will return to the screen at the 60th Berlin International Festival in 2010. At a gala presentation in the Friedrichstadtpalast on 12 February 2010, the classic silent film - reconstructed and restored by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation – will celebrate its premiere 83 years after the original version had its world premiere. Based on the original score by Gottfried Huppertz, the screening will be accompanied by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under the direction of conductor Frank Strobel. Minister of State and Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs Bernd Neumann will attend the event.

Parallel to the Berlinale, the film will be premiered on 12 February in the Alte Oper in Frankfurt am Main; the music for this screening will be performed by the Staatsorchester Braunschweig under the direction of Helmut Imig.

For decades crucial scenes from the film - whose restoration in 2001 led to it being the first film recognized as belonging to the UNESCO World Documentary Heritage – were considered lost. Due to the sensational discovery of a 16-mm negative in Buenos Aires in 2008 and its current restoration, Metropolis can now be shown in its almost completely restored - more than 30 minute longer – original version.

“Just about no other German film has inspired and influenced film history as greatly as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. We are especially pleased and honored to be able to present the reconstructed original cut of this legendary and seminal film classic at the festival’s 60th anniversary,” says Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick.

The restoration and reconstruction of Metropolis is currently one of the world’s most important film restoration projects. It is being carried out by the Wiesbaden-based Murnau Foundation in cooperation with ZDF and arte, and the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen (Berlin), and with the Museo del Cine Pablo C. Ducros Hicken (Buenos Aires). The original music by Gottfried Huppertz will be re-edited by the European FilmPhilharmonic / Die Film-Philarmonie GmbH. Restoration and re-screening are being funded by the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Gemeinnützige Kulturfonds Frankfurt Rhine-Main, by the Verwertungsgesellschaft für Nutzungsrechte an Filmwerken mbH , as well as the DEFA Foundation. Transit Film GmbH ( Munich ) will be in charge of internationally distributing this most recent reconstructed version of Metropolis.

“Metropolis is a classic of film history and it set the standard for cinematic art worldwide. For this reason the UNESCO chose Metropolis to be the first film ever included in its “Memory of the World” register. It symbolizes the tradition and high quality of German film heritage, and its preservation is one of our top priorities. Which was why I felt it was very important to support the completion of Metropolis and in so doing close a huge gap in Germany ’s film heritage. The Murnau Foundation has thus received 200,000 euros in funding from the BKM to help restore the silent film classic Metropolis,” states Minister of State and Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs Bernd Neumann.

Even today, Metropolis fascinates and affects contemporary film artists. The legend surrounding the film has also been kept alive by the fact that for decades, from a large number of sources, people had known about a longer version, but no prints of it could be found. Until footage – totaling some 30 minutes - was discovered in Buenos Aires, essential scenes from Metropolis were still missing, and this was the case even though a great deal of research had been conducted by generations of film historians and archivists. And so the restoration carried out just a few years ago by the Murnau Foundation and its former partners, and which presented Metropolis in unprecedented quality, remained incomplete.

This monumental film was first shortened a brief time after its premiere at the Berlin Ufa -Palast am Zoo on 10 January 1927. Approved by the Film Board, the 4189-meter-long version screened at this venue without success for four months; as a consequence, the Ufa withdrew the film and produced a much shorter version, 3241 meters in length, for release to movie theaters in the summer of 1927.

“The unwavering desire and unflagging efforts to restore what was believed to be Fritz Lang’s lost original cut of Metropolis epitomize the Murnau Foundation’s commitment to save and preserve our rich filmic heritage and make it accessible to the public. With the restoration and re-screening of Metropolis a dream has been fulfilled,” comments Eberhard Junkersdorf, Supervisory Board Chairman of the Murnau Foundation.

Since being established 43 years ago, the Murnau Foundation has applied itself to saving and preserving a large portion of Germany ’s film heritage and making these outstanding cultural and film historical works accessible to the public. They range from the early days of motion pictures to the early 1960, i.e., 2000 silent films, 1000 talkies, and some 3000 short films (advertising, cultural and documentary films). In addition to Metropolis, they include some of the great classics of German cinema, such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari), Die Nibelungen, The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel), Three Good Friends (Die Drei von der Tankstelle), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Münchhausen), Great Freedom No. 7 (Große Freiheit Nr. 7), and Helden.

Hallazgo cinéfilo

Berlín, 2 de julio (Télam).- Unas secuencias olvidadas de la obra maestra del cine mudo, "Metrópolis", de Fritz Lang, fueron descubiertas en Buenos Aires, informó hoy en Wiesbaden, Alemania, la Fundación Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau.

"De este modo podrá finalmente ser reconstruida la obra de Lang, el maestro de todos los filmes de ciencia ficción, y presentarlo de nuevo a todo el mundo", dijo a la agencia noticiosa alemana Ansa el presidente del Comité Directivo de la Fundación, Eberhard Junkersdorf.

Télam pudo saber que el hallazgo fue obra de la investigadora Paula Félix Didier (nueva directora del Museo del Cine porteño Pablo Ducrós Hicken), en colaboración con Fernando Martín Peña, periodista y director del área de cine del Malba.

Las escenas recuperadas muestran un trayecto en auto por la "Metrópolis" que Fritz Lang concibió como ciudad del futuro y la relación entre tres personajes secundarios.

Las primeras observaciones del material hacen suponer que, pese a la baja calidad de las imágenes, se podrá reconstruir la obra maestra de ciencia ficción rodada entre 1925 y 1926.

Un despacho de la agencia DPA repasó que el clásico fue estrenado en su versión completa el 10 de enero de 1927, pero pocos meses después la película ya sólo fue exhibida en versiones abreviadas.

Según la Fundación Murnau, la película mostrada en el estreno en Berlín tenía un largo de 4.189 metros y una duración de más de dos horas. La copia encontrada en Buenos Aires tiene casi el mismo largo que la versión original y unos 700 metros más -25 minutos más- que la versión abreviada alemana y estadounidense. (Télam)