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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
METROPOLIS as Music Video., July 4, 2006
When this film first appeared in 1984 there were howls of protest from practically everyone in the film community especially those who were silent film aficionados. The idea of combining contemporary pop music with a silent film classic was sacrilege. Once the furor died down and the film became available on VHS it developed quite a following but then the video disappeared. It still hasn't appeared in a reissue or been made available on DVD and it isn't likely to be anytime soon thanks to copyright issues with the various songs. This is a real shame because this version while not Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS is still worthy of being seen because of how well it's been put together. The color tints used for the film are beautiful and effective (Lang's original has no tints) and the editing of the film, paring it down to 87 minutes from over 2 hours, is quite masterful (instead of title cards there are subtitles). Some of the performers that Giorgio Moroder selected as musical accompaniment are quite appropriate especially Cycle V, Jon Anderson, Freddie Mercury, and Loverboy. Pat Benatar's HERE'S MY HEART is a bit much as are some of Moroder's synthesized realizations but they do not detract from the overall impact the film makes.
METROPOLIS' editing was always edgy to begin with which makes it an ideal candidate to be a music video. Check out the famous robot creation scene or the son's hallucinations and you'll see what I mean. Adding contemporary music to silent films is nothing new. In fact it's happening all the time now and Moroder deserves credit for helping to bring it to the attention of others by giving the film a release on the big screen. It's just a shame that a) this version can't be seen on a big screen today with a good sound system for maximum impact and b) that the likelihood of this showing up on an official DVD release with quality control is highly unlikely. That leaves us with used VHS copies. Grab them while you can before they become too expensive or disappear altogether. And silent film enthusiasts lighten up! It's not Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS it's Giorgio Moroder's METROPOLIS but it's beautiful to look at and it clearly shows how silent cinema is an art form unto itself and how like other great art forms it can be reinterpreted for future generations.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Masterpiece - Reinvented, July 18, 2006
This is an unusual and quite special VHS which I'm very glad I came across. As a silent film enthusiast, I was intrigued by this 1984 version of legendary German director/filmmaker Fritz Lang's most famous silent cinematic masterpiece, "Metropolis", and am very glad I bought a copy. While I can understand why some critics and film `purists' might disapprove of an eighties-sounding soundtrack to such a classic old silent film, I was able to see the positive aspects and thoroughly enjoyed "Metropolis" with a very different sound and also some colour tinting to the pictures. Georgio Moroder not only composed this modern score but also edited the original film and added subtitles, condensing this once-epic film even further to just under 90 minutes in length. At the same time, however, Moroder managed to retain the essence of the story, and with many original scenes given new and fitting music, it still packs a punch even today. Even a modern audience unfamiliar with silent films might be impressed to see some of the dramatic, expressive, artistic and powerful images, many of which were innovative and stunning in the mid 1920s, and are still surprising and impressive today. Also timeless in its effect is the story itself: although made as a futuristic sci-fi about a high-tech modern city built and kept operating by hard-working labourers who are deemed as lower-class citizens, the ideas are still valid and thought-provoking even in our day. The film, based on a novel by the same name, has elements of social, class and religious issues, as well as romance and relationships. Finally, the piece-de-resistance is the quite beautiful and fascinating robot - built by a mad scientist - who leads the suppressed workers to a rebellion. The many surreal and surprising images in this film are highlighted by Moroder's score: sometimes a quiet modern synthesizer accompaniment, then Rock for the dramatic and exciting action scenes; the latter being performed by some of the biggest names of the 1980s such as Pat Benatar, Bonnie Tyler, Adam Ant and Freddie Mercury. It might be hard to imagine this combination of classic silent masterpiece and 1980s pop/rock, but in my opinion it's quite a successful blend and definitely worth a look, whether one is familiar with the original silent film or not.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Effort, March 17, 2007
When Metropolis was brought to America in 1926, American ditributors cut an hour out of the film because they believed that their audiences would not like any film over 90 minutes. One butcher went as far as to claim that his cut and re-edit was actually closer to Fritz Lang's original vision of the film. Almost sixty years later, these shortened versions (all slightly different and missing key scenes) were all that remained. Georgio Moroder restored the story of the film as best he could, added color and provided a modern soundtrack with the intention of giving it the distribution that it should have had in the 20's. I had been a great fan of the film for many years and was a little worried about this "modern" version, especially about adding color (the early colorizations by Turner still sometimes make me wake up in a cold sweat). Earlier attempts to re-issue films for a modern audience included a version of Gone With The Wind where they cut off the top and bottom of the image to give it a "widescreen" look. It was a great thrill to see Metropolis returned to the big screen. Moroder's version had a story that was more complete than any previous version, the color was only used sparingly and the "electronica" soundtrack worked quite well with the mechanistic themes of the film. He even used still pictures to restore some scenes which was not done even with the recent restoration. The only flaw was that he chose to keep it under 90 minutes. Like the earlier distributors, this was intended to maintain a mass appeal and being that it was the plastic 80's, he was probably right. I have read a lot of reviews that hated this version and these people obviously love their opinions about how to do a film restoration more then they love this film. Moroder did a great job and this version will sit on my shelf right next to the modern restoration.
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