Update on the Film Metropolis

To the Editor:

There is an important update to my cover essay on Metropolis (T&C, April 2010). Key scenes—thought to have been lost forever when the original film was drastically edited shortly after its release in 1927—were rediscovered and digitally restored in a new version, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2010 and the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood in April 2010. The new version, which contains about twenty-five minutes of added scenes and reaction shots, was made possible by the discovery of reels containing a copy of the original film found in canisters on the shelves of the Museo del Cine archives in Buenos Aires.

The new reels were an exciting discovery because they give added coherence and depth to the film. For the first time viewers can gain new insights into Rotwang's obsession with Hel, his rivalry with Joh Fredersen and his wish for revenge, Freder's friendship with his father's secretary Josaphat, and the role of the sinister "Thin Man" in the film. Other restored shots include previously edited sections of the false Maria's notorious erotic dance and shots where she leads workers underground to destroy the Heart Machine.

The story of the journey of these lost reels from Berlin to Buenos Aires is in itself like a detective story. Here is what happened: In 1927, only a few months after the premiere of the film in Berlin, Adolfo Z. Wilson, a Buenos Aires film distributor, took a copy of the original film to Argentina for showings there and in Europe (small changes were made in the film's ending). Meanwhile, other copies of the original film—which ran about two and one-half hours—were heavily edited by Paramount and by UFA, the German film studio, and the other copies of the original were lost or destroyed. The surviving original copy in Argentina was later acquired by Manuel Peña Rodríguez, an Argentine film critic and collector. (During the 1970s, however, the original 35 mm nitrate film negative was made into a 16 mm copy at a lab, and because the lab did not clean the original film, the copy was in many places heavily scratched and a few sections even too damaged to be digitally restored in the 2010 version. After the copying, the 35 mm version was destroyed.) Rodríguez then sold or donated the film copy to Argentina's National Endowment for the Arts, which then donated it to the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires in 1992. In 2008, researcher Fernando Peña and Paula Félix-Didier, the director of Museo del Cine, discovered the 1970s print in the museum's archives. These reels were subsequently restored by the F. W. Murnau Foundation in Germany, and many of the newly restored lost scenes were integrated into the partially restored 2001 version (the new insertions are identifiable because of their scratches).

With the discovery of the original film—which had long been the holy grail for film historians—viewers can see for the first time sections of the film that dramatically highlight Rotwang's preoccupation with Hel, the woman once loved by both Rotwang and Fredersen, who died giving birth to Fredersen's son Freder. (Some have argued that references to Hel were edited out because her name looked too much like Hell.) In one restored scene, Fredersen goes to Rotwang's house and pulls back a set of curtains. He is astonished to see a monumental sculpture of Hel's head. Fredersen is filled with grief but Rotwang comes in, enraged at the discovery of the towering sculpture of his beloved Hel. Rotwang shows Fredersen his metallic robot and says that in another twenty-four hours (after the workings of his "transformation machine"), no one will be able to tell the difference between the robot and Hel. Indeed, as Rotwang later chases Maria, he calls out, "My Hel!" Says Rotwang, "The woman is mine!" In another restored key scene, Rotwang's wish to get revenge is seen as he instructs the robot to destroy Fredersen, Freder, and the city...