Fritz Lang's futuristic 1927 masterpiece to be shown in full for first time after lost scenes are restored.
Film buffs from around the world have gathered in Berlin to catch the first glimpse of a restored, full-length "director's cut" of the sci-fi epic Metropolis that has not been seen for 83 years.
The resurrection of Fritz Lang's 1927 silent futuristic thriller follows the discovery in Buenos Aires two years ago of scenes that were thought lost for ever on the cutting room floor.
The homecoming is being celebrated with simultaneous screenings – with orchestral accompaniment – tomorrow evening across Germany.
Evoking the glamour and decadence of the Weimar era in which the film celebrated its original premiere, a gala screening will be held at Berlin's Friedrichstadtpalast, a revue theatre best known for its 1930s-style female chorus lines and cabaret.
Berlin's Radio Symphony Orchestra will play Gottfried Huppertz's original score in Berlin and several Hollywood stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, are expected to be among the guests in Berlin for the screening, which critics have hailed as the highlight of this year's Berlin film festival, the Berlinale.
In keeping with the festival's ethos that it is not the preserve of VIPs, Metropolis will be beamed on to a huge screen at the Brandenburg Gate. Thousands are expected to brave the cold for a chance to see the 150-minute screening.
Film historians say the restored version gives more depth and new meaning to the cult movie, set in a futuristic city-state where the ruling class amuse themselves in "pleasure parlours" while the poor slave away underground.
The film cost 5m Reichsmarks, making it the most expensive picture of its day. It had a cast of 36,000 and was shot over 17 months.
But it flopped in Germany, after audiences and critics alike panned it. The science fiction writer HG Wells said "in one eddying concentration" it gave "almost every possible foolishness, cliche, platitude and muddlement about mechanical progress ... served up with a sauce of sentimentality that is all its own".
But Metropolis is now seen as the mother of sci-fi movies, an inspiration for film-makers such as George Lucas and Ridley Scott.
Key scenes were cut from the original picture because its distributor, Paramount, considered it too unwieldy for the American market. Protagonists were given new, American names, the insert titles were rewritten and scenes re-edited to keep the action comprehensible after the 30-minute cuts.
The tampering appalled Fritz Lang, who described Paramount's intervention as "mindless and dictatorial".
The cut footage was thought to have been lost, until 2008 when an Argentinian film historian began to search for it. In the archives of the Museo del Cine, Fernando Martin Pena tracked down a 16mm duplicate of the original 35mm export version. It had been sent to Buenos Aires before Paramount made the chop.
Today's cinephiles will be able to see the version that experts have spent months restoring. But it still shows the cuts and mutiliations that the missing parts have suffered over the past eight decades.
"We cleaned the film so that you can recognise the pictures, but you can't get rid of all the scratches and marks," said Martin Koerber, the lead restorer.
Metropolis aficionados will be concentrating less on the streaky screen – which in parts resembles a heavy downpour – and more on the unfamiliar way the film now unfolds as Lang intended. The new version restores characters who had been sidelined or removed and elucidates parts of the hitherto dizzying plot, such as why Maria, the workers' insurrectionist leader, is mistaken for a female robot.
Other changes include the reintroduction of the character of a spy; the expansion of the role of a character who helps the idealistic Freder gain access to the underworld; and the restoration of much of the drama and violence to a scene in which children are saved from slavery.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/feb/11/metropolis-fritz-lang-berlin
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