Metropolis
In extremely exciting news for film and sci-fi fans, a copy of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in its original long cut has materialized after circulating for 80 years through various Argentinian collectors and museums. Germany’s ZEITmagazin was presented the film and confirmed it to contain numerous integral scenes presumed lost since practically the film’s debut and subsequent butchered re-editing for viewing outside of Germany, except it seems for a copy in Argentina.
ZEITmagazin has now reconstructed the story of how the film nevertheless managed to survive. Adolfo Z. Wilson, a man from Buenos Aires and head of the Terra film distribution company, arranged for a copy of the long version of “Metropolis” to be sent to Argentina in 1928 to show it in cinemas there. Shortly afterwards a film critic called Manuel Peña Rodríguez came into possession of the reels and added them to his private collection. In the 1960s Peña Rodríguez sold the film reels to Argentina’s National Art Fund – clearly nobody had yet realised the value of the reels. A copy of these reels passed into the collection of the Museo del Cine (Cinema Museum) in Buenos Aires in 1992, the curatorship of which was taken over by Paula Félix-Didier in January this year. Her ex-husband, director of the film department of the Museum of Latin American Art, first entertained the decisive suspicion: He had heard from the manager of a cinema club, who years before had been surprised by how long a screening of this film had taken. Together, Paula Félix-Didier and her ex-husband took a look at the film in her archive – and discovered the missing scenes.
The footage is unsurprisingly not in the greatest condition, but there’s no reason it can’t be restored to a point where the world can finally see Lang’s original and complete (or nearly complete) vision, no longer necessitating title cards attempting to explain missing scenes via the recollections of the relative few who had seen the long version. The version of Metropolis currently in circulation only amounts to approximately 75% of the original film. Kino Video says they’re preparing a Blu-Ray edition of the film for next year. Here’s hoping they can get their hands on these new elements.
Head on over to ZEITmagazin for more on this discovery.
Update (7/3): Digital Bits talked to Kino and received confirmation that the new footage will be included on their Blu-Ray release of Metropolis next year, along with a simultaneous new DVD release. Happy days!
It’s also been clarified that not quite the whole film has been recovered, but something like 85% of what was previously believed lost, which is still absolutely huge.
