Missing Scenes Discovered From Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"

Missing Scenes Discovered From Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"

HAMBURG, Germany, July 2/PRNewswire/ -- The following is a press pre-release of DIE ZEIT No. 28 first on sale on
Thursday, 03 July 2008

For 80 years the original version of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" has been
considered lost. The ZEITmagazin shows details from the missing scenes of the
1927 masterpiece for the first time in its Thursday edition, and reports
exclusively on how the film was tracked down in the archive of the Museo del
Cine (Cinema Museum) in Buenos Aires.

Through this new discovery, key scenes from the silent film become more
intelligible, minor characters now have leading parts.

Rainer Rother, Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kinemathek Museum in
Berlin and the series of "Retrospectives" at the Berlinale, examined the
footage for ZEITmagazin and comes to the following conclusion: "Metropolis,
Fritz Lang's most famous film, can be seen through new eyes." For him the
find represents a "sensational discovery".

Prof. Martin Koerber, the restorer of the most recent version of
"Metropolis", who also examined the footage, confirms like Rainer Rother the
authenticity of the material. He adds: "No matter how bad the condition of
the material may be, the original intention of the film, including all of its
minor characters and subplots, is now once again tangible for the normal
viewer. The rhythm of the film has been restored."

Enno Patalas, the film historian and former director of the Munich Film
Museum, who has been working on the reconstruction of the film since the
1970s, and was responsible along with Martin Koerber for producing the 2001
version of "Metropolis" current until today, talks of the "most authentic
material that we know" after viewing the scenes.

Helmut Possmann, director of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation, the
holder of the rights to "Metropolis", said to ZEITmagazin: "The material
believed to be lost leads to a new understanding of the Fritz Lang
masterpiece." Following the discovery, the Murnau Foundation sees itself as
"responsible, along with the archive in Buenos Aires and our partners for
making the material available to the public."

Select screen images at:
http://www.zeit.de/online/2008/27/bg-metropolis-en

We would be glad to send you the complete DIE ZEIT text of the following
report for quotations. If you have any further queries, please contact Elke
Bunse, DIE ZEIT Press and Public Relations Department, Tel.: +49-40-3280-217,
Fax: +49-40-3280-558, email: elke.bunse@zeit.de

Source: Die Zeit Gerd Bucerius GmbH & Co.

We would be glad to send you the complete DIE ZEIT text of the following report for quotations. If you have any further queries, please contact Elke Bunse, DIE ZEIT Press and Public Relations Department, Tel.: +49-40-3280-217, Fax: +49-40-3280-558, email: elke.bunse@zeit.de

-------
Profile: intent