Silent no longer
Garth Wilshere
Fritz Lang’s Metropolis with the original orchestral score, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Conductor – Frank Strobel. Michael Fowler Centre, November 5, Reviewed by Garth Wilshere
THE history of this seminal film, one of the last silent movies and certainly one of the greatest, is as grand as the film itself. Cut and mutilated after its 1927 premiere, primarily for the American market, it has only been reassembled in anything like complete form in 2010 from a copy found in Argentina. The original 1927 orchestral score by Gottfried Huppertz has long been known and was fundamental in the film’s reconstruction in that the score has many cues which didn’t match known footage but could also give a reasonably accurate running time for the original film.
It is visually arresting, with astonishing Art Deco design elements and a plot which encompasses a wide and varying range of ideas in futuristically, elegant science fiction and fantasy garb, all driven by the modern power of the machine. As a work of film it was hugely influential on future filmmakers. It has everything and is a powerfully affecting package.
To see Metropolis in a reconstruction as close to director Fritz Lang’s original, visionary masterpiece, with the original score played live by the NZSO, was a revelation. Conductor Frank Strobel knows the score intimately and clearly loves it and that care and attention showed in the marvellously detailed two and-a-half hour performance.
With a huge sweep the story is “operatic” in scale, concept and structure, the musical influences and references in themes and motifs clearly signalling the character or what is happening on screen.
The NZSO played the demanding score extremely well, with Stobal matching music cues with images perfectly, and they certainly didn’t let the fatigue, which I’m sure they all felt, show. The brass in particular had an excellent night. They played almost non-stop for the entire time, like the film itself, an heroic effort.
THE history of this seminal film, one of the last silent movies and certainly one of the greatest, is as grand as the film itself. Cut and mutilated after its 1927 premiere, primarily for the American market, it has only been reassembled in anything like complete form in 2010 from a copy found in Argentina. The original 1927 orchestral score by Gottfried Huppertz has long been known and was fundamental in the film’s reconstruction in that the score has many cues which didn’t match known footage but could also give a reasonably accurate running time for the original film.
It is visually arresting, with astonishing Art Deco design elements and a plot which encompasses a wide and varying range of ideas in futuristically, elegant science fiction and fantasy garb, all driven by the modern power of the machine. As a work of film it was hugely influential on future filmmakers. It has everything and is a powerfully affecting package.
To see Metropolis in a reconstruction as close to director Fritz Lang’s original, visionary masterpiece, with the original score played live by the NZSO, was a revelation. Conductor Frank Strobel knows the score intimately and clearly loves it and that care and attention showed in the marvellously detailed two and-a-half hour performance.
With a huge sweep the story is “operatic” in scale, concept and structure, the musical influences and references in themes and motifs clearly signalling the character or what is happening on screen.
The NZSO played the demanding score extremely well, with Stobal matching music cues with images perfectly, and they certainly didn’t let the fatigue, which I’m sure they all felt, show. The brass in particular had an excellent night. They played almost non-stop for the entire time, like the film itself, an heroic effort.
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