Guest Co-Hosts: Ranjit Sandhu, Federico BertoliniSci Fi July launches with a titan of cinematic futurism: Metropolis (1927), Fritz Lang’s visually stunning epic set the blueprint for dystopian science fiction, blending Gothic horror, political allegory, and machine-age spectacle. Co-written with Thea von Harbou, the film envisions a divided city of soaring towers and subterranean toil, where Freder--the privileged son of master planner Joh Fredersen--awakens to injustice through his encounter with the spiritual leader of the working class, Maria.
Mike is joined by Ranjit Sandhu and Federico Bertolini to discuss the many versions of the film, its fraught production, the complex legacy of Lang and von Harbou, and why Rotwang's lab never goes out of style. From Giger to Gaga, Metropolis casts a long, haunting shadow.
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Buy Metropolis by Thomas Elsaesser
Buy Fritz Lang: Nature of the Beast, A Biograph by Patrick McGilligan
Buy Metropolis on Blu-Ray
Buy Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis on Blu-Ray
Buy Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis on Blu-Ray
Read Metropolis: An Historical and Political Analysis by Ann J. Drummond
Read Aitam Bar-Sagi, The Film Music Museum: “Metropolis” around the World
Read The Human Drift by King Camp Gillette
Watch a video about Taylorism
Buy German Film Architecture 1918-1933 ed. by Nadejda Bartels
Watch the BBC2/PBS version
Watch a lecture about Metropolis by Professor Leigh Morrisey
Read Michael Organ's Metropolis website
Watch Aitam Bar-Sagi, Metropolis (1927) - the three Negatives
Watch Aitam Bar-Sagi, Metropolis (1927) - the three negatives Nr. 2
Multiple negatives were common in the silent days — and early talkie days, too — partly because nitrate negatives were so fragile that they would not be able to withstand running through the printer enough times to make sufficient prints. So prints for different territories were made from different negatives. When negatives got damaged, replacements were pulled from cans of spares (alternative takes that had never been shown before, that were kept on file just in case). Or, if all else failed, they were pulled from copy negatives or even dupes.
Watch the Australian nitrate print dating from April 1928 (one of five)
Australia probably received only a single print, and this was it, and the distributor abridged it prior to releasing it. The video transfer was made at about 17fps. This is very similar to the edition shown in the US from August 1927 until the end of its run in probably the early 1930’s, except that it was printed from a different negative, of course. Michael Organ uploaded this.
Watch the first half of the June 1928 New Zealand nitrate
Watch a counterfeit copy of Metropolis
Watch another one
Music:
"Metropolis" - Kraftwerk
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