Metropolis is no longer lost

[rm]

My parents took myself and four friends for see the Giorgio Moroder version of Metropolis for my 13th birthday.

I fell in love with it. I fell in love with False Maria as she tore at her dress, the sheer mouth pleasure of saying Yoshiwara's House of Sin, Rotwang's odd little house and the rotunda with nine doors, the sadness of the obsession over Hel whom we also know nothing of, the pleasure gardens and the sports complex. It was dreams of my city, a New York of elevated highways and biplanes and grief and love and god in the catacombs.

To say my love for it is fannish would be wrong. It's been a much more private affair. I still love the music of the Giorgio Moroder version -- it's easy to mock, but much of it is astoundingly smart. I have dragged people to see if for years. That version, later restorations every time they found another piece.

That's the thing -- Metropolis is recognized as one of the greatest films ever made, and it's been incomplete (the current publicly available restoration is believed to be only 75% complete and relies heavily on title cards and stills and lacks basic information on at least two subplots) and the missing material presumed lost since May 1927. Every once in a while a few more minutes of footage and some stills surface and another restoration is released, but Metropolis has always been shown with the knowledge that we will never know what it once was.

To love this film has been to love the elegance of loss.

When Patty and I went down to Philcon, we popped our heads into the movie room while it was showing. I was on my way to a late-night panel I was in no mood for. Patty, being gracious, was attending with me and we had a few minutes to kill

"I love this film," I told her "and I'm pissed they scheduled me against it."

The scene was when the Foreman urges the workers not to destroy the Machines for they will flood the City and kill their own children. It's an overwrought silent film moment at its finest, and without looking at her, I could feel Patty go still and be rapt with it, and it was such a great and special pleasure to me.

After we left, we realized people were MT3K'ing the film, which irked me. Metropolis is, as a silent film, of another time and place. But it was also of another time and place when it was first released. It has never not been eerie and haunting and odd. And since almost immediately after its German release, it has never not been lost.

Metropolis is no longer lost. I don't think there is a living person who cares about this film who ever expected to see it as it once was.

I'm in tears.

And Patty's first actual viewing of it will be how it was originally meant to be seen. Over eighty years later. That's fucking spectacular.

Thanks to coyotegoth for the heads up.

Comments

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

Thank you

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm dead chuffed about the news, meself.

I can't wait to see a restored version - I'm sure it won't be long until it rolls out on DVD.

[hey-its-dave.livejournal.com]

Wow! Hope there'll be NYC theatre screenings! Ziegfeld please!

[eac.livejournal.com]

OMG. OMG. That's GREAT news.

[fuyukodachi.livejournal.com]

I've never seen it, either. I'm glad I'll be able to do it properly.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Kino did the most recent restoration and I saw it in San Jose 5 or so years ago. Even with the title cards to fill the gaps, the movie was beautiful (especially with the original score).

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Words fail me.
If someone told me this over the phone, I'm sure I would drop it.
I certainly would not be able to say anything. At all.

Buenos Aires?

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

What the Hades were the lost books of Ovid doing in a villa in North Africa?

[akemi42.livejournal.com]

I love this movie, but have only seen the version for which Jeff Mills made a soundtrack. Techno + Metropolis = love.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

I liked the Moroder version (though the SF Encyclopedia says that the editing changes the emphasis quite a lot). Last time I looked it wasn't available on DVD (inexplicably) so I had to buy a 2nd hand VHS.

[blergeatkitty.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the Alloy Orchestra version? That was the first one I saw and it was absolutely brilliant. (They used the Moroder cut, with the strange splashes of color, but played their own, live soundtrack over the top of it.)

[norda.livejournal.com]

I'm thrilled beyond measure as well.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

Oh oh oh oh oh

Is there any word on where it will be showing? This too is something from my childhood and silent film obsession.

Also -- mouth pleasure!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Mouth pleasure is your fault (sounds dirty, that!)

The restoration is going to take a couple of years at least. But this is a film event of epic proportion. There's no way you'll miss the news when it happens.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

Turns out it's "mouth feel." Which sounds only slightly less dirty.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a shame. Mouth pleasure is more fun to say!

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

It rolls off the tongue!

[lllvis.livejournal.com]

Man that's big news! I can't wait to see it, thank you so much for the notice!

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

That's amazing!

I first encountered the film via a home taping of Moroder's version, and later got the then best-cut version on KINO DVD.

Cannot wait to see the version originale. Surely to pete someone must show this in some of the NYC indie theaters when it's finally polished up and restored.

It is an epic piece of storytelling, and even in these days of CGI the special effects are still groundbreaking and eyecatching.

[annablume.livejournal.com]

Stunning! I'm so pleased. I am going to link in my journal and I'd like to reference your entry, if you don't mind.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Go right ahead.

[ekatarina.livejournal.com]

Fab! Can't wait!

Ekatarina

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I can't wait to see THE WHOLE MOVIE in a theater! :)

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

I am so, so excited to hear this. I loved Metropolis since I first saw it in my science fiction class in university. It has an amazing mood to it.

[dine.livejournal.com]

oh, this is terrific news! what a treasure to surface so unexpectedly!!

[don-negro.livejournal.com]

Chills have been running over my body for about 5 minutes now.

This is unbelievable.

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

I love this film. I had already heard about the complete find, and I am excited beyond words.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

This makes me so happy and yet bittersweet, and I'm hoping I can somehow take my father to see a full showing while I still have him, sad that his eyesight means he won't be able to appreciate it much and he may prefer not to go, but I remember watching this with him as a little girl and being fascinated by the robot and the machines and the wide, blackened eyes, and Dad trying to explain the story to me despite the holes.

I got to see the most recent restoration on the big screen with the original soundtrack and an organist at the opening, and I cried.

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad she'll be seeing the true version, her first time.

[rothko.livejournal.com]

oh wow.

WOW.

incredible.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

I am appalled they were MST3K'ing it.
I want to say more, but I can't get past the WTFery.