From the Hollywood Reporter blog: link
Rock Version of Silent Film Classic 'Metropolis' to Hit Theatres This Fall
While Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is an undisputed silent film classic, a generation of moviegoers that came of age in the 1980s fondly remember the 1984 version of the movie that under the shepherding of Oscar-winning composer Giorgio Moroder included a rock soundtrack with performances from Pat Benatar, Freddie Mercury, Bonnie Tyler and others.
Kino Lorber has closed a deal to not only bring that version, which its titling Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis, to Blu-ray and DVD, but is also giving it a roughly 20-city theatrical run ahead of the November 15 store date.
The rock version had been out of print due to complex music rights issues but Kino believes there’s a demand for the edition; VHS and laser disc copies sell for hundreds of dollars on Ebay and the recent theatrical release of the recently restored Metropolis grossed over $1.2 million.In addition to Benatar, Mercury, and Tyler, Moroder’s version includes songs performed by Billy Squier, Adam Ant, Jon Anderson and others.
The version infuriated film purists at the time, who cried foul not only over the music but the incarnations’ shortened running time (82-minute versus the original’s almost 2-hours).
Among the cities which Moroder’s Metropolis will hit are Anchorage, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami Beach, Chicago, Albany, Charleston, Dallas, Houston, Olympia, Seattle, and Washington DC., The only Canadian stop so far is Vancouver.The DVD and Blu-ray editions will come with a documentary looking at Moroder’s restoration of Metropolis titles The Fading Image, as well as the movie’s trailer.
some time ago I saw this movie in my local cinema.
The completely restored version with almost all lost takes added again.
During the movie there was a pianist who played piano live along with the movie.
It was breathtaking.
some time later I bought this version on dvd in deluxe edition (in a metal case).
Stunning.
And hard to imagine how they could have made this movie, so many years back.
Rien wrote: The completely restored version with almost all lost takes added again.
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Even the newly found Argentina print, which is where the lost footage of 1881, the spy and Hals memorial
statue came from had cuts, for example, the garden of pleasure is still very disjointed. I think all scenes are there now, but there are still shots missing. It’s not only the creation that is fascinating, but the fact that it’s been restored from almost nothing after almost 100 years, proving you can't destroy art.
on topic: I posted this news last year, i can't wait to see it on DVD.
"[the] original's almost two hours"?
The original was between 153 and 210 minutes long (mostly to do with playback speed). The versions around at the time Moroder's version was made were about 90 minutes, a total of 101 minutes of footage was around. Moroder speeded the image up considerably and cut like a madman, but did restore some scenes and a character, Hel, as well. His product is about 80 minutes long.
I took the last German broadcast (which included the newly found Argentinian footage) and after correcting the speed (from 25fps to 16fps) it ran over 4 hours
pittrek wrote: I took the last German broadcast (which included the newly found Argentinian footage) and after correcting the speed (from 25fps to 16fps) it ran over 4 hours
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You've made a mistake with the speed - the best evidence suggests it was meant to be played at 18fps, not 16 or 20 as is often assumed. This was the speed at which it ran in Sweden in 1927, directly after release, and is the closest we can get to the Berlin premiere, which was likely identical.
If we assume that your version ran for 240 minutes (4 hours), that would mean that at 18fps, it would run for 213 minutes, quite close to the originally cited 210 minutes.
There is still some footage missing, from what I gather, this is assumed to be some 5 minutes in length. That would bring our total to roughly 220 minutes. I think the divergence of 10 minutes from the original premiere time can be accounted for by changes to the intertitles.
pittrek wrote: I took the last German broadcast (which included the newly found Argentinian footage) and after correcting the speed (from 25fps to 16fps) it ran over 4 hours
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You've made a mistake with the speed - the best evidence suggests it was meant to be played at 18fps, not 16 or 20 as is often assumed. This was the speed at which it ran in Sweden in 1927, directly after release, and is the closest we can get to the Berlin premiere, which was likely identical.
If we assume that your version ran for 240 minutes (4 hours), that would mean that at 18fps, it would run for 213 minutes, quite close to the originally cited 210 minutes.
There is still some footage missing, from what I gather, this is assumed to be some 5 minutes in length. That would bring our total to roughly 220 minutes. I think the divergence of 10 minutes from the original premiere time can be accounted for by changes to the intertitles.
I found my AVI. It runs at 18fps and the length is 3:24:16 (204 minutes)