Movie | Metropolis (1927)

Found a copy of the complete movie, restored, as far as possible, to its original theatrical release.

UAP seems really confused about the film itself, the production process of early-twentieth century films, and the preservation (or lack thereof) of old film in the mid-twentieth century. It’s almost as if he is responding to this one German documentary as though it were the only text about the history of Metropolis and as if he had no access to contextualising information.

The clearest example of it is around 15:32 when he mistakes the building of the house that Fritz Lang lived in while directing the film for the construction of a film set. UAP asks ‘Where is it now, and why have these pictures not surfaced until just recently?’ When a little bit of research would tell him the buildings are still there on Schorlemrallee in Berlin-Dahlem, and that the pictures haven’t only just surfaced, they have been around for a while and the originals can be found, as far as I can work out from a quick search, in the Architecture Archives of the Akademie der Kunst in Berlin.

He also seems to be confused that ‘the people whose job it is to preserve and archive films and edit them leave it such tattered fragments that it can’t even be pieced together’ and he compares it to organising his socks. Except by that stage the film (printed on fragile film stock) was about 35 years old, had been neglected by the Nazis, who banned it and threw the print in a basement, for 12 years; and then been neglected by the Soviets, who seized it as part of a job lot of films after the war, for another 15 years. It was not being cared for, and it’s no surprise that the fragile film stock degraded. Perhaps UAP does have a drawer full of delicate 35 year old socks, but it’s hardly the same thing.

Those are just two examples, there are loads of other things, like not understanding why a German-made film would have a German censor’s card (all films had to have them) etc, that are red flags. I really wouldn’t put much faith in the idea behind this video at all.