Metropolis...again!

One of my all-time favorite films is Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I'm not quite sure why. I mean, I'm not quite sure how it came to be that way, but it did at some point in my life. I guess I'm thinking that's slightly remarkable given the different versions of the film that I first saw.

Having done some of my growing up in the '80s, it was Giorgio Moroder's version of the film that I first saw. I remember renting it at the local mom and pop video joint and taking it home, watching it and being impressed to a degree. Though, I don't think the story held much of anything for me at the time. Of course, I also didn't know much about the history of the film, that it had been severely edited in all sorts of different versions and that this editing happened fairly soon after the movie made its debut in 1927.

My first visit was via this version.

 

Sometime after that, I found a VHS version at a local Kmart for about five bucks. I was excited, because I thought it was the version I had previously seen. Alas, it was not. This one was released by the always craptastic Goodtimes Home Video company. It ran a long 120 minutes, but the quality was absolutely terrible, with many of the shots' frames being entirely off-kilter and the intertitles being completely unreadable. Still, there was something about it that fascinated me.

When I got my first DVD player in the late '90s, yet another budget version of the film made it into my new DVD collection. Again, it was a horrible mess and the orchestral score made for it sounded like it was recorded on cheap synths. This was undoubtedly the worst version I had ever seen. But I kept coming back to the film, and a few years back I wound up getting Kino International's beautifully restored 2001 version that was seemingly as complete as it was ever going to get.

So the other night I'm at Best Buy, and I'm about ready to check out, when lo and behold in a new release DVD bin I see The Complete Metropolis, again released by Kino and now with an additional 25 minutes of footage restored, bringing the film almost completely back to its original running time. A two-disc set for 20 bucks. I was sold and bought Metropolis yet again.

This is the one you want.

It's a wondrous movie, if you're in to such things. I won't go into the whole history and detail of the thing, but if you're into film and you've never seen this one, then this latest edition is the one to have. It's influenced countless other film makers, designers, architecture, pop stars, you name it. Its dystopian narrative still feels fresh, but more than that Metropolis also feels like it's still 100 years into the future. Thanks, Kino.