Irish Film Institute -METROPOLIS

METROPOLIS

Director: FRITZ LANG

150 minutes| Germany| 1927| Black and White| Restored version with a new recording of Gottfried Huppertz's score| D-Cinema


RE-RELEASE

This restored version of Metropolis includes the film find of the century so far: 25 minutes of footage not seen since the film’s premiere and presumed lost until recently discovered in Buenos Aires. The material fills out and clarifies some of the sub-plots and minor characterisation and completes Lang’s mighty, prophetic vision of the modern world. Many core science-fiction concerns are anticipated here: the futuristic City with its brutal social hierarchy of rich and poor; the mechanisation of work and the dehumanisation of the individual; the mad scientist; and the evil robot deliberately fomenting rebellion that will be ruthlessly crushed. If the ideas are sometimes trite, the imagery is ceaselessly amazing. Taking nearly a year to film and utilising over 30,000 extras, Metropolis was the grandest, most spellbinding spectacle of 1920s silent European cinema. This restoration, accompanied by Gottfried Huppertz’s fine original score, cannot fail to attract a new legion of awed admirers. (Notes by Neil Sinyard).

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