‘Metropolis’ Footage Found and Faint Whispers of a Blu-ray Edition in 2009
Can a classic be restored to what it was?
Back in December 2007 I watched Metropolis for the first time and wrote up this piece as there were rumblings that a remake was in the works. One thing I did not mention was that the version I watched was not the complete version. As a matter of fact no one, save for a select few a long, long time ago, has ever seen the complete version of Metropolis as it was edited down after being poorly received. The new cut was loved, but much of the cut footage was deemed lost forever.
The DVD version I watched included as much of the lost footage as has ever been assembled, but it remained incomplete, but it seems things may change very soon. In an article posted in at Zeit Online we learn that a full-length cut of Metropolis has been found in Buenos Aires.
Paula Felix-Didier, director of the museum Museo del Cine, discovered that the copy included nearly all of the long-lost scenes — some 700 meters, 25 minutes — and contacted Germany’s Die Zeit magazine. Now, the goal is to get the footage out to the public as the Zeit article says, “No matter how bad the condition of the material may be, the original intention of the film, including all of its minor characters and subplots, is now once again tangible for the normal viewer. The rhythm of the film has been restored.”
Of course, this means the quality could be extremely rough, but I am sure many people are chomping at the bit to see what has been found. Why? Well imagine if a film you loved had been featured in its longest form at about 118 minutes. Now, consider the fact that it has been said that the film originally ran 210 minutes but those extra 92 minutes had been lost forever. Now imagine those 92 minutes have been found and consider your excitement.
Metropolis is a film that has influenced so many films before it, I discussed some of that here, and now we may finally see what director Fritz Lang’s ultimate vision really was.
How will this film be presented? Who will distribute? That all remains to be seen, but just recently the boys at Blu-ray.com confirmed with KINO International that there are plans for a 2009 release of Metropolis on Blu-ray. Whether this new footage will somehow be worked into the plan is unknown, but it certainly would be assumed that any new release of the film would surely include the newly found minutes.
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