Metropolis rebuilt

[evilC]

Well... restored and with a missing scene reinstated, really.

[Ginger Yellow]

Metropolis rebuilt

Oh awesome. Now you mention it, I remember reading about them finding the footage a few years back.

Did I mention that I once saw one of the few remaining original (well, contemporary) prints of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari burst into flames in Southampton's Harbour Lights cinema?

[Ek weet nie]

Metropolis rebuilt

I'm going to the National Concert Hall in Dublin on Saturday to watch this with a live orchestra. I've being building it up for months so it's got a lot of expectation to live up to.

[Ek weet nie]

Metropolis rebuilt

It more than matched the expectation. It was awesome. There is only one bit of the story left that they have to explain via intertitles rather than images - every other aspect has images to support the plot. The imagination and sequences are mindblowing at times.

The most impressive sets that I have seen in a film has been this one and Intolerance - both made more than eighty years ago. The effects and stuntwork are more surreal and seductive than anything Hollywood has produced in the last thirty years.

The music during the riot evoked for me La Marseillaise. Does anyone know if that was delibrate? It seemed peculiar considering the origins of the tune and the reason for the march.

It's getting a cinema release from next week in the UK & Ireland. If you have any interest in cinema go see it, you won't regret it.

[linus]

Metropolis rebuilt

The extended version screened here a few weeks ago. I didn't go because I saw it only a few months ago. Ek, do you know who composed the score for the Dublin performance? The one that screened in Montreal was by a local soundtrack composer called Thibodeau, who used a 13-piece orchestra split in half, a "plebeian" side for the pieces underground and a more aristocratic ensemble for the scenes in the posher above ground quarters, with harpsichord and chamber strings.

The performance I saw was with a live pianist, a very talented young performer who does a lot of silent film accompaniments. Metropolis (even the old version) is a tour de force of sorts, very long and intense to score. Following the tradition, the score is completely improvised with the pianist following the movie and giving a spontaneous musical interpretation of the film and drama. He said it was one of the most physically demanding performances he's ever done.

On the subject of musical accompaniments to films, Severin (ex-Banshees) did a live performance to Cocteau's Le Sang d'un Poete recently here, has anyone seen him do that on his home grounds? Bill Nelson back in the day based a lot of his music on Cocteau films, maybe he was an influence.

[Ek weet nie]

Metropolis rebuilt

They used the score that Gottfried Huppertz composed for the Berlinale premiere. Helmut Imig was the conducter and it was a salon orchestra. I don't know enough about orchestra to know how it was assembled but there were approx. 20 musicians on stage and it didn't seem to me like they were split up by section of the film. Truth be told though, I was paying much more attention to the screen - I didn't go for the music.

[Wyatt Earp]

Metropolis rebuilt

Saw this last night, with Lucia and Purves of this parish. Absolutely brilliant; very highly recommended indeed.

It's funny with silent cinema: you have to adjust your whole mindset about what makes good acting, to allow for the much greater amplitude. Lucia pointed out that it was a bit like ballet or opera in that respect.

MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW

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I don't think I'd realised how, well, Lib Dem the central message of the film was: the Mediator as would-be Saviour, seeking to bring workers and owners together. I guess that reflects the abyss Germany was already staring into; a plea for calm, kind of thing. But Purv was put in mind of Bono. Whereas I thought ACAS might like it; they could do a works outing.

Very weird sexual politics in it, too: this madonna-whore thing going on with the workers' leader and the robot simulacrum.

I think it could be argued that the restored version is indeed a bit on the long side. But I've never seen the cut version from start to finish, so I don't know how badly the coherence of the story was hit by the cuts.

All in all, an astonishing, bold, magnificent trail-blazer of a work. You've got to see it.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Metropolis rebuilt

Yeah, I loved it. It's not just impressive for the gorgeous design, choreographed masses of people or special effects (the "videophone" looks decent enough to use now - the kind of thing a computery equivalent of Bose might design for extremely rich people); it has a surprisingly "modern" pace too. Thinking about other key silent films, I found Nosferatu really plodding, whereas Metropolis kept me swept up all the way. Plus the "witch" has some cool mentalist moves.

So its appeal isn't just historical, but that side's facinating too. As well as the real-life politics of the era, I wondered whether Zamyatin's Soviet dystopia in We or those newspaper kiosks Rodchenko kept designing (I noticed some similar ones here) had any influence on it.

Overall: definitely better than the 'Radio Gaga' video.

[MsD]

Metropolis rebuilt

Me too, loved it. Cinema at (one aspect of) its best.

[evilC]

Metropolis rebuilt

I still haven't seen the new version yet. Curse my poverty! I'll probably wait until it comes out on DVD.

When I was a child, I saw the image below in a magazine and it made a huge impression on me. Not knowing anything about the film, I assumed it was a still from a contemporary film (this was the 70s) and that it was somehow made in black & white just for effect. I think the reproduction of it that I saw made it look even sharper. It's just such an amazing combination of beauty and menace.

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(Click on it for the full size version.)

Incidentally, I stole that pic from this blog, the owner of which is currently colourising a version of the film (digitally). However, I'm not sure if he's implying that the colourised version is going to eventually have an official release, or if he's just taken it on as a personal project. Sounds like he's going for the whole film, either way. (I also don't know if it's done from the longer version that you chaps have seen.)

Personally, as impressive as his colourisations are, I think I prefer the original B&W versions. They just look more menacing, as if to reflect the clinical nature of the state/corporate machine. His colourisations seem a little 'after Giger', if you get what I mean. All a bit too tinged with contemporary influence.