Metropolis (dir. Fritz Lang, Germany, 1927, 153 min.)

Perhaps the most influential of all silent films, Lang’s sci-fi masterpiece, written by his wife Thea Von Harbou, is set in the dystopia of 2026, when the populace is divided between workers who must live underground and the rich who enjoy a city of splendor. A man (Gustav Froehlich) from the upper class abandons his privileged life to join oppressed workers in a revolt. The film had by far the largest budget of any film to date, and has endured as a work of innovative cinematic innovation and imagination, from his modernist set designs to breakthrough special effects. Shown in 35 mm. Short pre-film talk by Butler University Fairbanks Professor and Media Arts Department Chair Kenneth Creech. Live soundtrack performed by Ensemble 48.

BONUS: Show your Toby ticket stub and receive half off the ticket price for Caddy! Caddy! Caddy!, a mind-blowing work of performance art, Saturday, November 7 at The Toby.

ABOUT THIS VERSION OF METROPOLIS:
The F.W. Murnau Foundation (which now owns the film's copyright) and Kino International (now the film's American distributor) released a 124-minute, digitally restored version in 2002, supervised by Martin Koerber. It included the original music score and title cards describing the action in the missing sequences. Lost clips were gleaned from museums and archives around the world, and computers were used to digitally clean each frame and repair minor defects. The original score was re-recorded with an orchestral ensemble. Many scenes had still not been recovered at that point and were considered lost. Among the missing scenes are the adventures of 11811, a worker who trades places with Freder; the Thin Man spying on Josephat; Maria's incarceration; Rotwang's gloating and her subsequent escape; and scenes which establish the longstanding rivalry between Joh Fredersen and Rotwang.

Most silent films were shot at speeds of between 16 and 20 frames per second, but the digitally restored version with soundtrack plays at the speed of 25 frames per second, which is the standard speed of PAL video (the US DVD is a conversion from PAL to NTSC). This speed often makes the action look unnaturally fast. A documentary on the Kino DVD edition states that Metropolis may have been filmed at 25 frames per second, but this is disputed. There have been reports stating that the world premiere of Metropolis was shown at 24 frame/s, but these, too, are unconfirmed. In the 1970s, the BBC prepared a version with electronic sound that ran at 18 frames per second and consequently had much more realistic-looking movement. Since there is no concrete evidence of Fritz Lang's wishes on this subject, it continues to be hotly debated within the silent film community.

This program is presented in collaboration with the Butler University Mahler Project.