This weekend brings a chance to see the great futuristic fantasy 'Metropolis' (1927) on the big screen and with live music.
The screening takes place on Sunday, Dec. 8 at 4 p.m. at the Natick Center for the Arts, 14 Summer St., in Natick, Mass.
More information about the film and the screening is in the press release pasted in below.
Year after year, 'Metropolis' remains one of the most-requested silent film titles, at least in my experience.
I guess even if an audience isn't into silent film, 'Metropolis' has such a novelty appeal (a silent film about the future!) that people want to experience it, which is great.
If given a chance, I try to explain that the film really needs to be seen in the context of the era that produced it.
Director Fritz Lang and screenwriter Thea von Harbou weren't just spinning a futuristic tale. They were attempting to address big questions faced by Germans in the Wiemar Republic.
What kind of a society did Germans want to create? With Bolshevism and collectivism to the east, and Gilded Age capitalism to the west, what direction should the German people take?
What role should religion and spirituality take? Both are important elements of the German culture. Lang and Harbou knew this—hence the film's final climax takes place on the roof of a cathedral, of all places.
Essentially, their message was specific to the times, but also happens to be timeless: that choices we make today will have important consequences for tomorrow.
We all know now that Germany chose abysmally in the ensuring years.
In the century since 'Metropolis' was filmed, political systems have come and gone. But the film's power endures and has a lot to say to us today.
See for yourself at our screening on Sunday, Dec. 8 at 4 p.m. at the Natick Center for the Arts in Natick, Mass. More details below!
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MONDAY, DEC. 2, 2024 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more info, contact: Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com
Restored classic sci-fi epic 'Metropolis' to screen in Natick on Sunday, Dec. 8
Landmark early futuristic fantasy, with half-hour of rediscovered footage, to be shown with live music at Center for the Arts
NATICK,
Mass.—A silent film hailed as the grandfather of all science fiction
fantasy movies will be screened with live music at the Center for the
Arts in Natick, Mass.
'Metropolis'
(1927), an epic adventure set in a futuristic world, will be shown on
Sunday, Dec. 8 at 4 p.m. at the TCAN Center for the Arts, 14 Summer
St., Natick, Mass.
The screening, the latest in the Center for
the Art's silent film series, will feature live accompaniment by Jeff
Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating music
for silent films.
Admission is $12 per person for members; $14 for non-members. Tickets are available online at www.natickarts.org or at the door.
Tickets are available online at www.natickarts.org or at the door.
'Metropolis'
(1927), regarded as German director Fritz Lang's masterpiece, is set in
a society where a privileged elite pursue lives of leisure while the
masses toil on vast machines and live in poverty.
The film, with
its visions of futuristic factories and underground cities, set new
standards for visual design and inspired generations of dystopian
fantasies from Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' to Terry Gilliam's
'Brazil.'
In reviving 'Metropolis' and
other great films of cinema's early years, the Center for the Arts aims
to show silent movies as they were meant to be seen—in high quality
prints, on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.
"All
those elements are important parts of the silent film experience," said
Rapsis, who will improvise an original live score for 'Metropolis' on the spot. "Recreate those conditions, and the classics of early cinema leap back to life."
In 'Metropolis,'
the story centers on an upper class young man who falls in love with a
woman who works with the poor. The tale encompasses mad scientists,
human-like robots, underground spiritual movements, and industrial
espionage, all set in a society divided between haves and have-nots.
The version of 'Metropolis'
to be screened at the Center for the Arts is a newly restored edition
that includes nearly a half-hour of missing footage cut following the
film's premiere in 1927. The lost footage, discovered in 2008 in an
archive in Argentina, has since been added to the existing 'Metropolis,' allowing plot threads and characters to be developed more fully.
When
first screened in Berlin, Germany on Jan. 10, 1927, the sci-fi epic ran
an estimated 153 minutes. After its premiere, the film's distributors
(including Paramount in the U.S.) drastically shortened 'Metropolis'
to maximize the film's commercial potential. By the time it debuted in
the U.S. later that year, the film was only about 90 minutes long.
Even in its shortened form, 'Metropolis'
became a cornerstone of science fiction cinema. Due to its enduring
popularity, the film has undergone numerous restorations in the
intervening decades in attempts to recover Lang's original vision.
Restoration
work continues to this day. In 2008, the curator of the Buenos Aires
Museo del Cine discovered a 16mm dupe negative of 'Metropolis' that was considerably longer than any existing print.
It
included not merely a few additional snippets, but 25 minutes of "lost"
footage, about a fifth of the film, that had not been seen since its
Berlin debut.
The discovery of such a significant amount of
material called for yet another restoration, a 2½-hour version that
debuted in 2010 to widespread acclaim. It's this fully restored edition
that will be screened at the Center for the Arts.
" 'Metropolis'
stands as an stunning example of the power of silent film to tell a
compelling story without words, and reach across the generations to
touch movie-goers from the real future, which means us," said
accompanist Jeff Rapsis, who provides live music for silent film
screenings throughout New England and beyond.
To accompany a
silent film, Rapsis uses a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture
of the full orchestra. The score is created live in real time as the
movie is screened. Rather than focus exclusively on authentic music of
the period, Rapsis creates new music for silent films that draws from
movie scoring techniques that today's audiences expect from the cinema.
The restored 'Metropolis'
will be shown on Sunday, Dec. 8 at 4 p.m. at the TCAN Center for the
Arts, 14 Summer St., Natick, Mass.
Admission is $12 per person for members; $14 for non-members.
Tickets are available online at www.natickarts.org or at the door.
CRITIC'S COMMENTS on ‘METROPOLIS’
“'Metropolis'
does what many great films do, creating a time, place and characters so
striking that they become part of our arsenal of images for imagining
the world.”
—Roger Ebert, 2010, The Chicago Sun-Times
“If
it comes anywhere near your town, go see it and thank the movie Gods
that it even exists. There’s no star rating high enough.”
—Brian Tallerico, Movieretriever.com
