Sunday, 27 July 2008

New footage of Metropolis

While browsing the net this evening I stumbled across an interesting little tid-bit of news.

It seems that a 16mm reduction negative of the original cut of the 1927 classic film Metropolis has been rediscovered in Argentina. This is not just a couple of extra scenes. The existing cut of Metropolis runs at 90 minutes. The 1990s restored version runs at 80.

This version runs at 210 minutes. That's 2 hours more footage than has previously been thought to exist.

It's apparently badly scratched and will take a huge amount of time and effort to restore it but I think it will be worth the effort. Even today Metropolis is visually stunning and voices a social commentary we still haven't resolved.

More information here

2 comments:

Frau A. S. Lowey said...

WHERE DO I RESERVE A COPY OF THE DVD TO HELP FINANCE THE RESTORATION?

*ahem*

Pardon, my out-world-agent got loose there for a moment... but this is, indeed, most excellent news!

Emilly Orr said...

Amazing. I hope the restoration goes well!