Originally published at: Metropolis (1927) enters the public domain on January 1, 2023 | Boing Boing
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Could only imagine how the history of cinema would have been better if the U.S.A. didn’t embrace McCarthy and impose censorship. Rocking the strip tease in this movie.
I’ve seen the movie twice, once by myself and once showing it to my dad. It really lives up to its name for being an ambitious and amazing movie, and visually there’s nothing remotely like it.
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As the saying goes, “good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
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We watched Metropolis in a Sci-Fi and Theology class in seminary. This would have been a version / soundtrack released in the 90’s or early 2000’s - it wasn’t the rock soundtrack from the 80’s.
I seem to recall the instructor saying that there are several reels to the film and no one is quite sure of the original order or of the order Lang intended them to be seen. ETA: all of the recent releases are the best guess of the producer.
It was a wonderful class, and Metropolis was one of the highlights!
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One of the great things about classic silent movies are the variety of soundtracks.
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I was lucky enough to see Metropolis at the Detroit Film Theater, accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra.
An absolutely astounding experience.
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That must be some US-specific quirk of copyright law. Lang died in 1976.
I’ve seen that done twice, for two different restorations. Really the best accompaniment for the movie, no doubt. I saw them preform in front of a screening of Nosferatu, which was good, but didn’t work quite as well.
Given you can find that movie in the dollar bin, I thought it already was!
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I’m extremely dubious about this claim. I think this prestigious and very expensive production was well documented enough that there should be little doubt about what order everything goes in. The latest restoration even knows enough about what is missing to be able to fill in the narrative gaps with intertitles. The problem has always been simply finding the missing footage.
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Don’t be too sure. There apparently really was some doubt until at least 2008 when a complete copy of the original cut was finally discovered in Argentina. It proved that the official 2001 restoration, which was considered to be the “definitive” restoration at the time, did have some scenes in the wrong order.
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The film has been almost completely restored using prints found in Argentina and New Zealand.
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That I did know. I’ve seen it and I’m still fairly certain that intertitles are covering some minor gaps.
@Malarkey @Otherbrother I stand corrected then. I would have thought that things such as studio records and censor records (especially of the intertitles) would have made it fairly clear.
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The Wikipedia entry says that the Argentinian copy is complete but some scenes are too damaged to be restored. And yes, the 1987 restoration drew on censorship records to reconstruct the running order.
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If they don’t ever find another copy of the relevant footage (which is still possible) I’d bet that someone could use AI to produce a passable recreation of the damaged scenes. They were apparently too damaged to restore using 2010 technology but not too damaged for film historians to be able to tell what was happening in them (Wikipedia says they showed a monk preaching and a fight between two characters) so there’s no telling what future technology could do.
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Per Wikipedia the American copyright lapsed in 1953 and was restored in 1996 by the “Uruguay Rounds Agreement Act” which was legally questionable but ultimately found to be constitutional in a subsequent court case.
So yeah, definitely could have been in the bargain bin until at least 1996. And maybe “authorized” copies after that.
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Interestingly, the movie will be re-entering the public domain.
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