Wolfgang...
i'm so jealous! That must have been a fantastic evening! i'm hoping that they
will send the print here to los angeles, (or a new print) so we can see it
with a live orchestra here. Can't wait!
Thanks for the report.
Richard Del Belso
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:59:03 +0100
From: m...@fantompaper.com
Subject: [MOPO] Metropolis 2010 Restoration
To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
I just watched the restored two and a half hour version, restored with the
Argentine 16mm print that was found last year, adding approx 30mins to the
previous versions.
In general I’m mostly surprised how well the film works, haven’t seen
Metropolis since maybe 10 years.
It has the original score played live by Berlin philharmonic orchestra and the
original titles.
The restored scenes appear to be recognized at a glimpse due to the quality,
the restoration improved them but they couldn’t work miracles, as there were no
comparisons to the lost scenes except stills.
What was most noticeable to me as new besides some bits and pieces:
-entirely new images of the statue of HEL (the original machine-woman) created
by mad scientist Rotwang, and pointing out that Rotwang, the inventor, created
it because he fell in love/adored the real Hel (wife of the city-leader) before
she died, so he recreated her (and transforms this robot to the ‘whore of
babylon’-Doppelganger of Maria soon afterwards in the film)
- more images of Moloch, the man-feeding machine
-A short but wild montage scene showing the sins of upper-class Metropolis
(gambling, prostitution)
-A new character (called ‘Der Schmale’ = ‘The Narrow’ (or The Thin man) who is
the guard of the upper class leader
Should be out on DVD soon.
-This restoration (done in only a half year by the Murnau Stiftung) cost
600.000 Euro.
-In a documentary that was shown afterwards it was told that the original
complete 35mm negative was copied to 16mm (with major loss of picture quality
by this process and afterwards) in Argentina not before the 70s! and destroyed
– because the owner was afraid of the danger of nitrate film and didn’t have
the money to make a 35mm copy, but they didn’t know what they had of course
-The German poster (the confirmed sale 2 years or so ago) sold for about the
same amount than this restoration cost.
-Production cost of the film was an est. of 3.5 Mill Reichsmark back then
(about 15 Million Euro today)
Cheers,
Wolfgang
Kinoart.net
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