#8
Germany | 118 min.
1.33:1 OAR
black & white
monaural
Special Features
- Double-disc set with 28-page booklet
- The extensive 2001 official restoration presented for the first time in the UK or USA with original German intertitles and optional subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German on the main feature and supplements.
- Original 1927 orchestral score by Gottfried Huppertz, newly arranged by Berndt Heller.
- Full length audio commentary by film historian Enno Patalas. In German audio with optional subtitles, and also presented in English audio.
- The Metropolis Case (2002) – a 44-minute documentary by Enno Patalas on the making of Metropolis.
- A 9-minute restoration documentary (2002) with Martin Koerber.
- Production stills, posters, costume designs, stills of missing scenes, and architectural sketches.
- 28-page booklet containing extensive restoration notes by Martin Koerber, writing by Otto Hunte, Günther Rittau, Aenne Willkomm, Brigitte Helm, Rudolf Arnheim and a newly revised and updated essay by Jonathan Rosenbaum.
Metropolis
Fritz Lang, 1927
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is perhaps the most famous German film of all time, and certainly one of the most influential of all silent films. In its lifetime it has been: drastically re-edited (shortly after release); unseen for decades; revisioned with a modern music score in the 1980s; and thanks to the work of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and a network of archives all over the world, restored in 2001. This restoration of Metropolis is almost certainly the most complete and authentic version possible of Lang’s original 1927 vision.
Metropolis takes place in 2026, where people are divided into two groups: poor workers living beneath the ground and the rich who enjoy a futuristic city of luxury. The tense balance of these two societies is realized through images that are among the most famous of the 20th century, many of which pre-empt such science fiction classics as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Lavish and spectacular, with elaborate sets and jawdropping production values, Metropolis stands today as a testament to Lang’s ambitious vision of what cinema could be.
This new Masters of Cinema Series 2x disc set of Metropolis features German intertitles for the first time in the UK or USA, together with a new 28-page booklet. This towering classic of silent film can now be seen in an authorised, restored form one-third longer than any previous release seen since 1927.
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