I don't hear enough about the miracle that was the near-total restoration of Metropolis, and that's a shame.

When it first came out in 1927, Metropolis was given mixed receptions and forced to cut down from its original 153 minute length (!) to a mere 106 minute cut, and even then it progressively got cut down to a mere 93 minutes within a decade. The scrapped quarter of the film was presumed lost.

Even so, this didn't stop a bunch of attempts to properly restore it. East Germany tried (and it was a mess), Giorgio Moroder tried after outbidding David Bowie (also a mess), and finally a Munich edition in 2001 was considered as definitive as we could get. Even then, the film was 124 minutes, still not quite near the original run time.

And then came the miracle.

A 16mm cut of the movie - based off the original cut! - was found in a film museum in Argentina, a safety copy made in the 1960s that included 25 minutes not seen since the original release. Thank to a massive effort (and a print found in New Zealand a few years prior that also contained missing bits), this reel was restored, and the 2011 version of Metropolis sits at 148 minutes; it's probably as close as we'll ever get.

This is truly one of the greatest stories in film history in my opinion; considering that ~85% of silent films are gone and lost forever (perhaps a better example than the Library of Alexandria of a large loss), the fact that we saved - and practically have a complete cut of - one of the most important films of that era is just astonishing.

Submitted July 24, 2021 at 10:59PM by Chengweiyingji https://ift.tt/3eR1Hx3