This is way badass. I'm going to be at work so I won't be able to catch the stream (unless it's repeated all day). Catch it if you can.



Roger Ebert:

[hr]
The eagerly awaited restored version of Fritz Lang's silent classic "Metropolis" will steam live on the internet on Friday Feb. 12. In America, it can be see in the afternoon. It's said that nearly an hour of footage, long thought to be lost, has been added. The footage was discovered in a film archive in Buenos Aries.

It will be streamed via websites in both German and France. This is one of the the most important film archival discoveries in history, as surprising as if the missing ending of "The Magnificent Ambersons" were found.

My correspondent Larry J. Kolb writes: "Since I speak German, I called the press officer of the festival in Berlin to get details about the streaming. It begins at 8:15 PM, Europe time, on the 12th. At first, the streaming will cover a bit of ceremony, introductory speech, etc. The actual film is scheduled to start playing at 8:40 PM. Germany is 7 hours ahead of Chicago, so that means the actual film is scheduled to start streaming at 1:40 PM CST, Chicago time."

Here is the French link from which the movie will stream: http://j.mp/9SS92S

Germany: http://j.mp/9W8Pua

On the German page, it appears that this is the link where the movie will stream: http://j.mp/dhktCR

A gallery of photos: http://j.mp/aYTgWY

It is not clear what languages the film will be seen in. Since the general story is familiar and Lang worked so powerfully with images, it hardly matters. [/quote]

I finally caught this at a local theater last night. It was great to see it on the big screen.

While the narrative and dialogue can be overly simplistic at times, the film's importance can’t be understated. Because Lang is such an ambitious and visually dynamic filmmaker, the movie is still awe-inspiring over 80 years later.

As a whole, I was surprised at the poor quality of the restored footage. I suspect that someone will digitally clean the re-added footage during my lifetime. However, as the restored frames are pretty ravaged, it will take years upon years for full scenes to be fixed.

In relation to Star Wars, there are a number of influences. In terms of locales, the city itself serves as a prototype for Coruscant and a portion of the city’s underground resembles the Mos Epsa slave quarters from TPM. One of the most obvious connections is C-3PO whose design was based on robot-Maria. Also, the mechanical and gloved hand of mad scientist Rotwang was incorporated into both Skywalker’s.



Consequently, the actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge who plays Rotwang also played Dr. Mabuse in two films for Lang. In the first film, Mabuse is a manipulative mastermind and disguise artist. In the second film, he appears as an emaciated phantom. Mabuse’s nature and look was an inspiration for Emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious.