2008年11月13日 星期四

"Metropolis (film)". The Great Dictator

11/14
晚上與日本友人 Kawase 先生到師範大學藝術史研究所參加 奧地利Innsbruck大學來的客座老師 Dr Cristoph Hoelz 放映 The Great Dictator by Chales Chaplin 討論一番

The Great Dictator

Wikipedia: The Great Dictator


今天讀一下紐約時報 (December 26, 1977 OBITUARY)

Chaplin's Little Tramp, an Everyman Trying to Gild Cage of Life, Enthralled World

By ALDEN WHITMAN

No motion picture actor so captured and enthralled the world as did Charles Spencer Chaplin, a London ragamuffin who became an immortal artist for his deft and effective humanization of man's tragicomic conflicts with fate.

humanization 讓我想起WWS說 Dr Deming的統計教學:

;">這三課程是商業研究的統計方法,除了介紹各種統計方法本身之外,他更會結合它們究竟如何發展而成的故事。戴明博士有獨特方式、本領,將統計數學賦予人情味
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I first met Dr. Deming the fall of 1972 at New York University's Graduate Business School. They were just completing the World Trade Center at the time and it towered above the classrooms at 100 Trinity Place. Deming had turned 72 at the time and was the only "old" person that I knew who didn't dwell on the past. "Management's job is the future." Deming focused on it. The course was on statistical methods for business research and was a combination of stories on how the methods were developed and the statistical methods themselves. Dr. Deming had a way of humanizing the mathematics of statistics.



師大藝術史研究所電影之夜 建築與電影的對話
2008/11/07
1800-2000

Wikipedia article "Metropolis (film)".

Film | 04.07.2008

Long-Lost "Metropolis" Reels Hint at Fritz Lang's Original Vision

A long-lost original cut of the 1927 silent film "Metropolis" found in an Argentine film museum was shown to journalists for the first time. The cut reveals some the extent of director Fritz Lang's original vision.

The celluloid of the German classic was in private hands for 80 years and then was in the Museum of Cinema in Buenos Aires where it was discovered in April with never before seen scratched images.

Museum director Paula Felix-Didier said theirs is the only copy of German director Fritz Lang's complete film.

Three reels, edited out and long thought lost, were part of the discovery of the film that depicts a 21st century world divided between an underworld working class and the above-ground thinkers who control them.

Buenos Aires film distributor Adolfo Z. Wilson acquired a long version of "Metropolis" in 1928 which survived as a copy, and finally ended up in the archive of a local film museum, said Felix-Didier.

Rediscovered reels deemed authentic

Fritz Lang Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Lang's original vision may finally be realized

A DVD of the version was brought to the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation in Wiesbaden, Germany, for analysis. Researchers at the foundation, which owns the rights to "Metropolis," confirmed that the scenes were original.

"We were overjoyed when we heard about the find," foundation head Helmut Possmann told Reuters news agency. "We no longer believed we'd see this. Time and again we had had calls about supposed footage but were disappointed.

"We're not being fooled," he said. "The film can now be shown more or less as Lang originally intended it. In terms of understanding what it's about, we'll be seeing a new film."

Material expands characters and plot

A film poster for Bildunterschrift: The film wasn't an initial success

Around 20 to 25 minutes of footage that fleshes out secondary characters and sheds light on the plot would be added to the film pending restoration, he added. But around five minutes of the original were probably still missing, he said.

Due to the poor condition of the film stock, it was too early to say how long restoration would take, Possmann said.

"It's taken several years with similar films," he added.

Written by Lang and his actress wife Thea von Harbou, “Metropolis” was originally three-and-a-half-hours long but was cut into a shorter version since seen by millions worldwide.

Commercial flop to influential blueprint

It was not a commercial success and nearly bankrupted the studio behind it. According to some estimates, it still ranks as one of the most expensive movies ever made once inflation is factored in.

With its cold, monumental vision of a vast mechanized society in the middle of a tumultuous class struggle, "Metropolis" forged a template for generations of science fiction cinema, and its enduring influence has been cited on films from "Blade Runner" to "Fahrenheit 451" and "Star Wars."

"Metropolis," was the first film to be entered into UNESCO's Memory of the World Register -- which aims to preserve cultural achievements of outstanding significance.

DW staff (nda)

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