metropolis16 metropolis by fritz lang restored and re released

one of the greatest films in history by fritz lang has been restored and rereleased.  what once was lost is now found!  this groundbreaking silent film was also re-released in the 70s set to a brilliant soundtrack composed by the incomparable giorgio moroder.

from laughing squid blog

laughing squid logo metropolis by fritz lang restored and re released

The silent film classic Metropolis has been re-released with 30 minutes of restored footage that was thought lost since the 1920′s. It is showing in select theaters around the US and Canada and will be available on DVD/Blu-ray later this year. It will be playing at San Francisco’s Castro Theater from September 25-29.

vintage 1928 metropolis movie poster metropolis by fritz lang restored and re released

click to buy vintage 1928 movie poster

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and owners in capitalism. The film was produced in the Babelsberg Studios by Universum Film A.G. (UFA). The most expensive silent film ever made, it cost approximately 5 million Reichsmark.

Metropolis is the original large scale science fiction film and has had incredible influence on later films in the genre like Star Wars, Brazil, and Blade Runner. The long lost footage was found 2 years ago in Argentina and required significant restoration before it re-debuted earlier this year in Berlin.
With its dizzying depiction of a futuristic cityscape and alluring female robot, Metropolis is among the most famous of all German films and the mother of sci-fi cinema (an influence on Blade Runner and Star Wars, among countless other films). Directed by the legendary Fritz Lang (M, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, The Big Heat, etc.), its jaw-dropping production values, iconic imagery, and modernist grandeur — it was described by Luis Buñuel as “a captivating symphony of movement” — remain as powerful as ever.

Drawing on — and defining — classic sci-fi themes, Metropolis depicts a dystopian future in which society is thoroughly divided in two: while anonymous workers conduct their endless drudgery below ground their rulers enjoy a decadent life of leisure and luxury. When Freder (Gustav Frölich) ventures into the depths in search of the beautiful Maria (Brigitte Helm in her debut role), plans of rebellion are revealed and a Maria-replica robot is programmed by mad inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) and master of Metropolis Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel) to incite the workers into a self-destructive riot.

A “Holy Grail” among film finds, Metropolis is presented here in a newly reconstructed and restored version, as lavish and spectacular as ever thanks to the painstaking archival work of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and the discovery of 25 minutes of footage previously thought lost to the world. Lang’s enduring epic can finally be seen — for the first time in 83 years — as the director originally intended, and as seen by German cinema-goers in 1927.

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