Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Nerdgasm Alert

I don't care if you're a film geek, a sci-fi geek, or just a fan of history.  This is very, very cool.


Apparently, in 2008, a film curator in Buenos Aires discovered a negative of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.  Not one of the edited-for-general-release dupe negs, but what looks to be the most complete version of Lang's dystopian masterpiece since its 1927 Berlin premiere.  This version of a film I dearly love looks to be the definitive one, and I'm drooling in anticipation of its theatrical release this year.  Metropolis remains one of the most influential films in all of science fiction, whose presence can be felt in every frame of Blade Runner, Star Wars and The Matrix (among others).  I'm so glad we can benefit from the discovery of this previously lost footage.

3 comments:

Robert Pace said...

Now if someone could run across the original director's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, I could die a happy man.

TD said...

I don't know if that will ever happen. The closest we've been able to come has been the Criterion edit based on Welles' notes. But if someone can find a dupe neg of Metropolis that's only missing about 10 minutes from the original edit, I guess anything's possible.

Lucy Leadskin said...

SWEET!