The restored Metropolis: my own feelings

[eric_hinkle]

This last Sunday night, for the first time in over 80 years, the German Expressionist movie Metropolis was shown, appropriately enough, on TCM. I posted the ink so everyone can go and check out the plot and such for themselves. What I'm writing here relates more to how the restored masterpiece of SF and cinema made me feel.

And be warned, this is

Comments

[hannahsarah]

I've only seen it twice, but both times were on a large screen with a live piano accompaniment. It's one of my all time favorite movies, for so many reasons

[eric_hinkle]

That's a good interpretation too. Though given the rather obvious tone of the film it's both odd and sad that the Nazis, especially Goebbels, fell in love with it for its "celebration of the workers over the bourgeoisie".

[jeriendhal]

Only caught a few minutes of the showing on AMC because I was busy watching the kids, but it looked utterly fascinating, especially the new bits fleshing out the ambiguity of the managers.

[eric_hinkle]

The new version makes the old one look like crap in comparison, just as ther new version of Nosferatu (apparently they also found some missing footage of that film, too!) is 100% superior to the older, mangled version most of us saw.

And not AMC, TCM. You think they'd actually show a movie more than 10 years old on AMC? ;)

[jeff_ringtail]

Another flick that was inspired by "Metropolis" was "Blade Runner!" Some of the city buildings in that movie with Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer was Metropolis influenced as well. =)
My former roomy of a few years back had a video copy of "Metropolis" with some extra still scenes to add where the missing footage was. Using the bands of the time and tinting parts of the film for emotional effect was really interesting. I watched that flick over and over again! Eversince I've been trying to find a copy of it to no avail, though!

Jeff Ringtail

Just to add

[jeff_ringtail]

Also, an interesting thing about this movie. It shows what happens when you produce CLASS ENVY! Class envy what the movie was against and the union between the rich and the poor/working classes (at the end) has a better out come than when the poor and working class are used against the rich!

Jeff Ringtail

Re: Just to add

[eric_hinkle]

The rich aren't much better in the movie. After all, Joh Frederson (the builder and ruler of Metropolis) is the one who drags Rotwang into the whole thing in the first place. And the rich managers are defnitely shown as wrong in their treatment of the workers.

Re: Just to add

[jeff_ringtail]

The thing is that the movie was anti-class envy ... meaning that both the rich managers and poor workers were both against each other. The managers demeaned the poor workers while the workers vent vengeance against the managers. Rotwang and his evil incarnation had tested both by pitting the rich against the poor to see the world burn in their own hatred.
But at the end, the hero brings the hands of the rich and the worker together, symbolically to show that both has to work together to make society a better place for all to live. That's what I got out of the flick, anyhow. =)

[dustmeat]

Oh hey, we watched part of that!

[eric_hinkle]

I hope you liked it!

[stauros]

I saw it once in college and I very much want to see the restored version, and introduce my cubs to it.

[eric_hinkle]

You should, they'll love it. Be warned that there is some nudity in it at parts, though the dance given by the (mostly) dressed False Maria at one point shows surprisingly little skin, yet somehow manages to be one of the most obscene things you'll ever see. Because she somehow gives you the idea that you're seeing something that just looks like a human trying and failing to act like one.

Pure nightmare fuel!

[stauros]

Because she somehow gives you the idea that you're seeing something that just looks like a human trying and failing to act like one.

Uncanny Valley.

And isn't there a folk tradition that when the Devil takes pleasing form, there's always going to be one thing defective about that pleasing form? A hidden cloven foot, or something unnatural?

"The Dark Power cannot create, but only copy and imitate."
-- somebody in Lord of the Rings

[eric_hinkle]

It's not just one flaw that makes her look inhuman, but a whole lot of little things in her expressions and bodily movements that seem so subtle by themselves but when put together are insanely creepy.