With Live Piano by John Sweeny
The great future city of Metropolis is inhabited by two distinct classes: the industrialists live off the fat of the land, supported by the workers who live under the city and endure a bare-bones existence of backbreaking work. The story concerns a forbidden love between Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), a young man from the industrialist class, and Maria (Brigitte Helm), an activist who preaches against the divide between the two classes. The subterfuge and deceit involving a robot duplicate of Maria culminate in a revolution that quickly spells disaster for all involved.
Containing some of the most impressive images in film history, Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi epic can now be seen as the director originally intended. Shortly after that 1927 release, an entire quarter of Lang’s original version was cut against the director’s wishes. The excised footage was believed lost, until one of the most remarkable finds in all of cinema history, as several dusty reels were discovered in Buenos Aires in 2008. Since then, an expert team of film archivists has been working at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung in Germany to painstakingly reconstruct and restore Lang’s film.
The restoration and reconstruction of Metropolis represents one of the most significant film restoration projects in cinema history.
Germany, 1927, 150min, Fritz Lang, with Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich
