The find of the century

Sometimes things are lost, for one reason or another, and after that they’re gone forever. Maybe fragments remain, or a dimmer emanation of the whole, but what once was is no more and shall never be again. No take-backs. F’realz.

Such was the fate that befell the original and complete version of Fritz Lang’s monstrous, astonishing, adjectival undertaking, Metropolis, a silent film from 1927 that has still yet to be surpassed in sheer audacity. The original version was over three hours long and cost (adjusting for foreign currency and inflation) roughly $200 million to make. 37,000 extras. Groundbreaking and freaking difficult faux-matte effects using mirrors. Intricate set pieces that would today remain difficult even with computers. If only it had been a financial success.

But it wasn’t, and so distributors ordered some cuts. It was mangled down to a shorter, simpler film, losing a great deal of its power and meaning in the process. Eight decades of neglect, accidents and secrecy later and over a quarter of the film must be considered permanently lost – negatives destroyed by fire, sent to the trash or simply misplaced. That Metropolis can only exist in an incomplete and imperfect state is almost axiomatic; the shabby story of such an incredible film is seen broadly as both a disgrace and a warning.

But now Die Zeit is reporting that a complete print has been discovered in Buenos Aires, of all places. My first inclination was to give the credit for this to some thoughtful Nazi-in-exile, but apparently not:

Adolfo Z. Wilson, a man from Buenos Aires and head of the Terra film distribution company, arranged for a copy of the long version of “Metropolis” to be sent to Argentina in 1928 to show it in cinemas there. Shortly afterwards a film critic called Manuel Peña Rodríguez came into possession of the reels and added them to his private collection. In the 1960s Peña Rodríguez sold the film reels to Argentina’s National Art Fund – clearly nobody had yet realised the value of the reels. A copy of these reels passed into the collection of the Museo del Cine (Cinema Museum) in Buenos Aires in 1992, the curatorship of which was taken over by Paula Félix-Didier in January this year. Her ex-husband, director of the film department of the Museum of Latin American Art, first entertained the decisive suspicion: He had heard from the manager of a cinema club, who years before had been surprised by how long a screening of this film had taken. Together, Paula Félix-Didier and her ex-husband took a look at the film in her archive – and discovered the missing scenes.

What luck.

No word yet on when a restored and completed version will be released to the general public. Quite apart from a DVD, though, this is an important enough event to perhaps warrant releasing the thing in theaters. I would go to a three hour silent film as a matter of course, but in the case of Metropolis it would be almost a matter of duty. There’s a different silent film for which I’ve been meaning to post a review here, actually, so maybe this will get me off my ass to do it.

For now, though, just revel in the news. The world just got a little bit bigger.

UPDATE: Ain’t it Cool News has a substantial amount of new information about this story and is adding more all the time.  The post includes lots and lots of stills from the recovered footage as well as a promise of a translation of a far more substantial Die Zeit article that still remains in German.  Their readers are working on it and results are expected soon.