Footage Restored

xodar · Post by **xodar** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:55 am

Lost scenes of 'Metropolis' discovered in Argentina
Published: 2 Jul 08 14:51 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/12847/

Lost scenes from German-Austrian director Fritz Lang's legendary silent film "Metropolis" have been discovered in Argentina, German weekly newspaper Die Zeit reported on Wednesday.

Paula FÃ©lix-Didier, head of film museum Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires, discovered an uncut version of the 1927 science fiction film when she looked into reports that a tape in the archive was unusually long. She travelled to Berlin with a copy of the film and met with experts who say they are certain it is the missing original-length version of Lang's masterpiece that reveals key plot scenes and an expansion of minor roles, Die Zeit said ahead of the publication of its Thursday edition.

"The film's original rhythm will be re-established," Martin Koerber, the man responsible for the current restoration of the film, told the paper.

Head of Berlin film museum Deutsche Kinemathek told the paper it was a "sensational discovery."

In 1927, Fritz Lang presented the film in Berlin after producing it in the city's Babelsberg Studios. At that time it was the most expensive film ever produced in Germany, but it was not well received by its German audience. A radically shorter version was subsequently edited in the US, after which historians believed the original version to have been lost.

According to Die Zeit's reconstruction of events, Buenos Aires film distributor Adolfo Z. Wilson brought a copy of the original version to Argentina in 1928. Film critic PeÃ±a RodrÃguez later attained the film, which he sold in the 1960's to Argentina's national art fund. In 1992 copy then went to the Museo del Cine - where discoverer FÃ©lix-Didier took leadership this January.

DDP/The Local (news@thelocal.de)

http://www.thelocal.de/12847/20080702/

Robot Devil · Post by **Robot Devil** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:01 pm

COOOOL!!!

PowerDroid5000 · Post by **PowerDroid5000** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:08 pm

Great news!

valtech1218 · Post by **valtech1218** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 8:25 pm

can i say this will be mind blowing to see
metropolis is the classic ASFR movie

Rotwang · Post by **Rotwang** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:09 am

Oh Day of days !!!

jolshefsky · Post by **jolshefsky** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 1:07 pm

Unfortunately the new footage reveals that the bulk of the movie was just Maria's dream when she gets hit in the head with a tennis ball at the garden party. Fortunately, she marries the industrialist's son and everything is as it should be.

...

So do I get the job writing remakes for Hollywood now? Where's my check?

Cornelius · Post by **Cornelius** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:07 pm

Oh the irony ... [url]hxxp://www.imdb.com/news/ni0256190/[/url]

Less than two weeks after New York-based Kino International had announced that it had completed a frame-by-frame restoration of Fritz Lang's 1927 classic Metropolis and would release it in 2009, a long-lost and badly scratched original cut of the movie has turned up in Argentina, where it was shown to reporters for the first time on Thursday. Paula Felix-Didier, director of the Museo de Cine in Buenos Aires, told the reporters that the three-and-a-half-hour print is the only known copy of Lang's complete film. The film that has been shown in theaters since that time and which in recent years has become available on home video is roughly half that length. Kino said Thursday that it may include the newly discovered footage in its 2009 release.

Now WHEN would a distributor ever halt production to avoid a DVD double-dip?