 |
|
|
|
And then there was the Giorgio Moroder Metropolis, which was released worldwide in 1984. Moroder, the producer of several of Donna Summer's disco hits and Top 10 crossovers from films like Flashdance (1983) and Cat People (1982), and an Oscar winning composer with the score for Midnight Express (1978), scoured the world in search of varying prints. Moroder succeeded in tracking down material never before shown, inserting stills where he couldn't find it and re-released the film. The order of some scenes have been rearranged the way Moroder believes the late Fritz Lang would have wanted them, based on screenwriter Thea Von Harbou's novelization. Unfortunately the new material adds up to less than a minute's worth of time. There are some scenes added where the worker that Freder replaces goes to the Yoshiwara nightclub that are shown only in stills, and some later scenes of the robot Maria enticing men there. There is also a brief scene of Rotwang climbing a pile of vehicle wrecks, blindly thinking Maria is Hel. A few stills are also added of cityscapes and the Garden of Pleasure. In the Moroder version some scenes have been editorially tightened, particularly by the replacement of intertitle cards by simple subtitles, allowing much slicker editing. (The new subtitles now refer to the automaton as a robot, a term that was not in popular use in 1927). Moroder also adds sound effects and a music score. The sound effects add a great deal - the robot's unveiling, heralded by the dull clank of its footsteps, or the roar as the crowds suddenly revolting proves quite startling. There's an effective electronic score - the pop songs aren't that memorable but work well enough in the context. One other highly impressive effect added is the tinting of footage. The film is still principally in b/w alternated with sepia tone, but some scenes come with beautifully rotoscoped-in bubbling potions, boiling coloured clouds and glowing neon signs. It is a surprisingly effective move and one that for all the sacrilege that was cried about at the time, only succeeds in enhancing the film. - (excerpt from an article by Richard Scheib).
|
