New footage changes the way we see 'Metropolis,' says film restorer
'Metropolis' is legendary because of the footage that was missing for so many years
A half hour of additional footage of the 1927 film "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang has arrived in Germany for restoration. DW spoke with chief film restorer Anke Wilkening about the significance of the new scenes.
Deutsche Welle: A complete version of Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" was discovered last year in Argentina. Now you'll be working on restoring the film in digital form at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung in Wiesbaden. What is it about the long version that's so important?
Anke Wilkening: All versions that we know today are considerably shorter. The film was originally cut by about 30 minutes by Paramount studios, and the UFA studios (Editors' note: Universum Film AG, better known as UFA, was a major film studio in Germany during the first half of the 20th century) also cut it for German distribution and export in a similar manner - about four months after the German premiere.
So until this Argentinean version was found, the film was half an hour shorter. The distributors decided the film was too long out of economic reasons. The restoration of this missing half hour will completely change the film as we know it. When you're cutting a film, it's easier to eliminate scenes containing supporting characters and not the main characters, and that's exactly what happened to "Metropolis."
In this case, three male supporting characters which were very important to the film had almost been eliminated - they'd been reduced to extras. They are quite important because they have a special relationship to one of the main characters, Freder. In all the previously known versions, this relationship had always been unclear. "Metropolis" is very well documented: We have the script by Thea von Harbou, we have the musical score by Gottfried Huppertz, we have several stills, we have critiques from the film's premiere. So it was easy to imagine what theses scenes were supposed to look like, but this is quite different from having the real footage....
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A half hour of additional footage of the 1927 film "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang has arrived in Germany for restoration. DW spoke with chief film restorer Anke Wilkening about the significance of the new scenes.
Deutsche Welle: A complete version of Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" was discovered last year in Argentina. Now you'll be working on restoring the film in digital form at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung in Wiesbaden. What is it about the long version that's so important?
Anke Wilkening: All versions that we know today are considerably shorter. The film was originally cut by about 30 minutes by Paramount studios, and the UFA studios (Editors' note: Universum Film AG, better known as UFA, was a major film studio in Germany during the first half of the 20th century) also cut it for German distribution and export in a similar manner - about four months after the German premiere.
So until this Argentinean version was found, the film was half an hour shorter. The distributors decided the film was too long out of economic reasons. The restoration of this missing half hour will completely change the film as we know it. When you're cutting a film, it's easier to eliminate scenes containing supporting characters and not the main characters, and that's exactly what happened to "Metropolis."
In this case, three male supporting characters which were very important to the film had almost been eliminated - they'd been reduced to extras. They are quite important because they have a special relationship to one of the main characters, Freder. In all the previously known versions, this relationship had always been unclear. "Metropolis" is very well documented: We have the script by Thea von Harbou, we have the musical score by Gottfried Huppertz, we have several stills, we have critiques from the film's premiere. So it was easy to imagine what theses scenes were supposed to look like, but this is quite different from having the real footage....