Customer Reviews

Metropolis with Giorgio Moroder Soundtrack

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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.

In 1927 Fritz Lang released a movie that, though it was panned by the critics at the time, went on to be considered one of the greatest works of cinematic art ever produced. In 1984, Italian sing/songwriter Giorgio Moroder released his own restored version of the movie, complete with a new rock-and-roll soundtrack. This version of Metropolis brings back a series of long-lost scenes from the movie, through either restoring found clips or putting in text that explain what happened in the missing clip. Also, the flow of the movie was improved by replacing the old intertitles (printed dialogue that cannot be heard in a silent movie) with subtitles.

Overall, I found this to be an excellent edition of Metropolis. Compared to the "older" version of the movie that I had on VHS, this one is much cleaner and contains some story elements that I did not know from the tape (such as Federsen and Rotwang's earlier competition over a woman). The 24 frames/second speed is a little fast, making the action a little too fast, especially when someone is running and so forth. But, I must say that the ~80 minute running time is great, subtitles producing a better flow to the movie than the old intertitles.

Now, the soundtrack was great at the time, featuring such artists as Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar, Adam Ant and other 80s favorites. Personally, I like 80s music, so I have no complaint. In fact, I did find that the excellent rock soundtrack gave more power to the movie than the old orchestral soundtrack did.

So, let me just say that I really did like this movie. I think that it is the best version of Metropolis that I have seen so far, and I really hope that it comes out on DVD. If you can get this version of the movie, then do so - you won't be disappointed!

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.

I saw this when it was released in theatres in 1984 and thoroughly enjoyed it. I recall seeing it at one of Chicago's artier venues, and I remember a few film snobs walking out, apparently not appreciating Giorgio Moroder's various rock songs interspersed throughout the film, with the lyrics commenting on the action on screen. In fact, most of the songs are quite enjoyable on their own (I still listen to the soundtrack album 24 years later, so go figure). Fritz Lang's Metropolis actually begs for a futuristic soundtrack, and Moroder has given us that, although for my part they could've ditched Freddie Mercury's Love Kills and Pat Benatar's Here's My Heart, but the other songs are perfectly in sync with the mood of the film, particularly Jon Anderson singing Cage of Freedom and Loverboy on Destruction. Moroder's own synthesized numbers, Machines and Legend of Babel are great in themselves. Though this music is very '80s, it has aged well, and to be blunt, Metropolis, though it has a place in film history (the robot animation sequence being both stunning and disturbing) is difficult to sit through today (assuming we even had a clue what Lang's original was really like, uncut. It needed some musical spice, and that's what Moroder gives us. Enjoy it, and ignore those nose-in-the-air film snobs.