Metropolis Film and Fritz Lang Background

With Metropolis in 1926, science fiction cinema achieved its first real masterpiece. Seen some 50 years later much of the film does seem muddleheaded and a rather naive excuse for staging some stunning visual effects and one can see how H. G. Wells came to call it 'quite the silliest film'.

The plot is illogical, simplistic and filled with contradictions but, in terms of pure science fiction cinema, the plot is really only a vehicle for Fritz Lang's vision of the future, a vision that was to have a profound effect on the cinema for years to come.

The story, set in the year 2000 had the son of the Master of Metropolis rebelling against the exploitation of the workers, sentenced to live perpetually underground and to keep the city's machines in operation. Only the persuasive powers of the heroine Maria keep the workers from revolution. When the son is chosen to mediate between workers and rulers, his father orders a robot double to be made of Maria and the double incites the workers to revolt and destroy the machines, flooding their own homes beneath.

Only the intervention of the real Maria saves their children from drowning. The false Maria is unmasked, the Master is reunited and reconciled with his son and the last title of the film aptly sums up its utopian naivety: 'The heart must mediate between the brain and the hands'.

What the film does succeed in portraying is a credible visual future metaphor, achieved by means of its powerful architecture and model work and by the use of the Schufftan process which enabled live action to be combined, by means of a mirror with some of its reflective surface removed, with models or paintings.

Metropolis is, above all, an architectural film designed to show an all too credible future visually extrapolated from the Germany and America of the 1920s, and in its visual aspects, including Lang's handling of the crowds, the film succeeds impressively. If the science fiction content seems dated now, the elements which have become clichés of the genre still retain their power.

The machines are genuinely terrifying and the creation of the robot Maria, with its pseudoscientific apparatus, flashing sparks and whirling generators, was to become the archetypal scene of creation for subsequent genre movies.

Lang then went on to the theme of interplanetary travel with his Die Frau im Mond 1928, which also was released under the titles The Girl in The Moon and By Rocket to The Moon.

Metropolis Editor's Commentary

I spent a while last weekend recording an editor's commentary for Metropolis Redux but was unhappy with the results. It all started well but the faded out. As there's nothing I hate more than inconsequential commentary tracks, so I've dropped that audio track.

Instead, I have been adding some comments on the reconstruction as subtitles. These use much less space on the disc and are much easier to edit.

The menu screen has been done too. There are just four simple options and no animation happening. I've never quite sent the point of those - most of the time when I put a DVD in I just want it to start playing the standard movie.

Freddie Mercury's Love Kills Music Video

Here it is - a fully restored version of Freddie's track from the Metropolis film.

One hell of a lot of edits, but the results are great.

If you want to see it in it's highest quality, visit YouTube and see Freddie Mercury - Love Kills. 

Freddie Mercury's "Love Kills" Music Video Almost Done

I haven't been completely idle in the month since the last post - but hey - Christmas, work and family have sucked up lots of time.

A new addition to the Metropolis content is the restored version of Freddie Mercury's "Love kills". I knew about Freddie's track or course, but strangely I had never seen the music video for this. A quick visit to Youtube solve than and I then saw that I could re-build that video using all the new footage I had used in the full movie. That would be a great, quick addition I thought.

Cripes! 

There are so many edits in that video, that it took far longer than I thought possible. The 4.5 minute music video basically tells a whole story using clips from Metropolis.

Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis Film DVD Now Fully Restored and Available on DVD

For More information on this DVD and its availability, please visit www.morodermetropolisdvd.com.

Also feel free to browse this blog. The latest posting is available here Giorgio moroder's Metropolis on DVD.