Thanks, Wolfgang... I'm always interested in restortation stories and discovery of lost films.
Appreciate it very much - Glenn ----- Original Message ----- From: Wolfgang Jahn To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 3:59 PM Subject: [MOPO] Metropolis 2010 Restoration 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 Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
