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- guardian.co.uk, Friday July 4 2008 10.26 BST
- The Guardian, Friday July 4 2008
Still from the Fritz Lang film, Metropolis Photograph: PR
The cinematic world is celebrating the rediscovery of missing scenes from German director Fritz Lang's legendary silent film Metropolis, which turned up in the archive of a Buenos Aires museum after being thought lost for 80 years.
- Metropolis
- Release: 1927
- Country: Rest of the world
- Cert (UK): PG
- Runtime: 83 mins
- Directors: Fritz Lang
- Cast: Alfred Abel, Brigitte Helm, Gustav Frohlich, Gustav Fruhlich
Key scenes cut from the science fiction picture produced on the outskirts of Berlin, either because they were considered too brutal, or for length reasons, will be available for the first time since May 1927, when the original version was last shown in Berlin, where it flopped.
Rainer Rother, the head of Berlin's film museum, Deutsche Kinemathek, called the find a "sensational discovery", saying one of the most famous films of all time "can now be seen through new eyes".
Metropolis, which is set in a futuristic city state and explores the clash between workers and their capitalist exploiters, was one of the most expensive films made at the time, but was hated by critics and the German public alike. It was shortened by the American company Paramount, which considered it impenetrable for the US market, leading to an oversimplification of the plot, the disappearance of key scenes, and the sidelining of significant characters.
The restored version is said to throw light on questions that have tantalised generations of film buffs.
The uncut version is said to solve the mystery of why Maria, the workers' insurrectionist leader, is mistaken by a baying mob for her doppelganger, a female robot. Schmale, a spy who is sent by the autocratic leader of the futuristic city, Joh Frederson, to pursue his son, Freder, plays a minor role in the cut version, but a significant supporting role in the original. "The role ... can finally be understood," Rother said. A scene in which children are saved from drowning in the workers' underworld is also said to be "much more dramatic" and violent than in the cut version.
The rediscovery, revealed by the newspaper Die Zeit, came to light after Paula Felix-Didier, curator of Buenos Aires' Museo del Cine, was told by a former film club director that the full-length version had been gathering dust in the museum's archive since the 1990s. Fearing that the discovery would not be properly appreciated in Argentina, she flew with the footage to Germany this week to present it to experts, who deemed it to be authentic.
Die Zeit has reconstructed the story of how the film found its way to Argentina. A copy of the long version of the film was first sent to Buenos Aires in 1928 at the request of the Terra film distribution company. A film critic called Manuel Peña Rodríguez obtained the reels afterwards, selling them in the 1960s to Argentina's national art fund. A copy of them was passed to the Museo del Cine in 1992, but their value was not fully realised then.
Helmut Possman, director of the Friedrich-Wilhelm Murnau foundation, which holds the rights to Metropolis, said the uncut film, which is badly scratched, would be made available to the public after it had been restored.
