The Complete Metropolis [Limited Edition] [Blu-ray]

Director: Fritz Lang

Overview

While Fritz Lang's gargantuan Metropolis may have nearly bankrupted UFA, the film forever enriched the lexicon of the cinema. Adapted from a novel by Lang's wife, Thea von Harbou, Metropolis combines the director's awe upon experiencing the hugeness of the New York City skyline with an H.G. Wellsian glance into the future (though Wells himself despised the film). In the year 2000, the wealthy ruling class lives in towering luxury skyscrapers, while slave laborers monotonously toil away far below ground level. The hero, Freder (Gustav Fr?hlich), is the pampered son of Fredersen (Alfred Abel), one of the most egregious of the fat-cat rulers. Freder is reformed when he meets Maria (Brigitte Helm), the loveliest of the subterrenean dwellers. Travelling incognito below ground, Freder, appalled by the laborers' squalid living conditions, immediately begins campaigning for humanitarian reforms. Evil industrialist Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) can't let this happen, so he plots to turn the slaves against the reformers. In his neon-dominated laboratory, Rotwang creates a robot in the image of Maria, designed as a false prophet to lead the rabble astray (Brigitte Helm is astonishing as she alternates between the Madonna-like "real" Maria and the wild-eyed, hedonistic android). After a destructive uprising and an underground flood of Biblical proportions, the despotic Fredersen sees the light, and agrees in the future to treat the working class with equanimity and compassion.The eye-poppingly realistic miniatures in Metropolis are the handiwork of the brilliant Eugene Schuftan, whose eponymous technical process would soon be adopted in America. When it was premiered in Germany in January 1927, Metropolis ran 153 minutes when projected at 24 frames per second. That complete version was heavily cut for release in America, removing a quarter of the movie: one whole personal conflict (and a centerpiece of the original plot) between the industrialist Fredersen and the inventor Rotwang over a woman; a subplot involving double-dealing, espionage, and the mysterious "Thin Man"; a section taking place in the "red-light" district of the city; a good deal of the symbolism in the movie's original dialogue; and a large chunk of the chase at the end. In Germany in the spring of 1927, an edited version modeled roughly on the American edition, though running slightly longer, was prepared and released, and that became the "standard" version of the movie, for both domestic (i.e. German) distribution and export. In subsequent years, other editions were circulated and still others were found deposited in various archives; in a surprising number of instances -- including that of a source stored at the Museum of Modern Art in New York -- there were tiny fragments to be found of the lost, longer version of Metropolis. The movie's reputation was compromised with the lapsing of its American copyright in 1953, after which countless copies and duplicates, in every format from 8 mm to 35 mm (and, later, VHS tape and DVD) came to be distributed in the U.S. by anyone who could lay their hands on a print, of whatever quality and with whatever music track they chose (or didn't choose) to put on it. Various restorations of the movie were attempted over the decades by responsible parties, as well. The BBC did a very effective one in the mid-'70s that was a hit on public television in America, utilizing an electronic music track that sometimes mimicked some of the industrial images on the screen. Also, there was the Giorgio Moroder version from 1984, heavily tinted and not too well assembled, with an idiotic rock score.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/23/2010
UPC:	0738329071325
Original Release:	1927
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kino Lorber
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	2:28:00
Sales rank:	4,800

Special Features

Original 1927 score by Gottfried Huppertz, performed by the Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra, Berlin, Conducted by Frank Strobel, and presented in DTS-HD Audio 5.1; "Voyage to Metropolis," a 50-minute Documentary on the Making and Restoration of the film; ; Interview with Paula Felix-Didier, curator of the Museo del Cine, Buenos Aires, where the missing footage was discovered; 2010 re-release trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Alfred Abel	Joh Fredersen
Gustav Frolich	Freder
Brigitte Helm	Maria/The Machine Man
Theodor Loos	Joseph
Heinrich George	The Foreman
Fritz Rasp	The Man of Black
Erwin Biswanger	Georg, No. 11811
Gustav Fröhlich	Actor
Fritz Alberti	Robot
Grete Berger	Female Worker
Heinrich Gotho	Master of Ceremonies
Gustav Froelich	Actor
Olaf Storm	Jan
Lisa Gray	Female Worker
Dolly Grey	pracuj¿ca kobieta
Rose Lichtenstein	pracuj¿ca kobieta
Margarete Lanner	dama w samochodzie / Kobieta wiecznych ogrodów
Rudolph Klein-Rogge	Rotwang,Actor
Erik Frey	Female Worker
Georg John	Worker
Hans Leo Reich	Mafinus
Arthur Reinhard	Worker
Max Dietze	Working man
Erwin Vater	Working man
Gustav Frohlich	Actor
Peter Lorre	Actor
Otto Wernicke	Actor
Giorgio Moroder	Composer
Abel Korzeniowski	Composer
Peter Osborne	Composer
Benjamin Speed	Composer
James Duhamel	Composer
Gottfried Huppertz	Composer

Technical Credits

Fritz Lang

Thea von Harbou

Fritz Lang	Director,Screenwriter
Thea von Harbou	Screenwriter
Erich Pommer	Producer
Eugene Schufftan	Special Effects
Jeff Matakovich	Special Effects
Eugen Schüfftan	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

Set around the apocalyptic year of 2000, Metropolis has had a seminal influence on science fiction and futuristic movies as diverse as The Bride of Frankenstein, Blade Runner, and Dark City. Featuring literally a cast of thousands, Metropolis creates a reality so complex and artistically unified the viewer gets swept away to this future world. Director Fritz Lang's surreal and occasionally incomprehensible storyline is overwhelmed by a visually spectacular exercise in German expressionism. Master cinematographer Karl Freund fills the screen with an array of stylized shadows, oblique camera angles, geometric images, and nightmarish labyrinths. The film's dialectical theme may seem dated in these post-Marxist times, and its message that the head and the hand can do no good without the heart may seem a little romantic to more cynical ages, but the warnings about techno-demagoguery continue to have modern relevance. The actors give typical silent-film performances, full of exaggerated expressions and broad gestures, but they express their characters' fragile humanity despite these mannerisms. Rudolf Klein-Rogge's unforgettable work as the evil genius Rotwang became the template for all subsequent mad-scientist performances. Despite being a critical and popular disappointment on its initial release, the film eventually gained cult status and was rediscovered by critics and audiences alike. When it was re-released in the 1980s, some missing footage was restored and a synthesizer-heavy soundtrack by Giorgio Moroder was added, to much gnashing of critical teeth.