E-Film News: EUREKA! Debut Giorgio Moroder's METROPOLIS On DVD!

The incredible architectural skyline of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927)...

Unorthodox as it might be, I'm actually going to prelude this news piece with a slither of autobiography. I'll signpost the beginning of the actual content, which will hopefully have greater context and meaning following these two paragraphs.

Quite unforgivably, there are two very important people whose role in the genesis of this blog has gone unspoken and unthanked, despite their names really deserving an appreciative banner atop this and every other page on E-Film Blog. Honestly, whatever modicum of success I've achieved here - and it's not easy trying to distinguish yourself amongst the reams of online film writers who so passionately dedicate themselves to a dying profession - can be attributed to them, and that's because they taught me everything I know, or at least opened the doors to avenues wherein further knowledge could be attained. Their names are John Branney and Sarah Downing, and they were my A-Level Film Studies lecturers. I say this without the slightest shred of hyperbole, but if it weren't for them none of this would exist, and none of my loyal followers or colleagues would have been able to read my unchecked ramblings (I've no delusions of grandeur, there are some truly shambolic pieces on this site, and critical writing isn't something which comes easy to me; I keep them up as further reminders of the road I've traveled to this point). It was during those two years of college that my love for cinema really began to take hold, consuming me and beginning to dictate the future I was destined for. Whatever it would entail, I knew film would play a key role...

You're probably expecting me at this point to tell you about the day they screened Metropolis (Lang, 1927), but actually, they never did. A few months into the course it became clear to me that Film Studies would be where all of my college efforts were going to be aimed, and therefore I began sourcing books that would elaborate upon topics covered in class, and essentially act as a shopping list of compulsory titles. One image recurred, over and over again, in every volume about cinema history, and that is the image featured above. Before long I discovered the Masters Of Cinema company - now a fairly regular staple of E-Film Blog, and I'll soon be reviewing their Island Of Lost Souls (C. Kenton, 1932) restoration - whose astonishing two-disc Special Edition, released in 2005, simply changed everything. I became obsessed with German Expressionism soon thereafter, although wasn't able to pursue the interest until leaving college, as my time was taken up with exploring feminist film theory and shocking cinema. But Metropolis lead to me discovering dozens of films that really sparked an interest in writing about film, and from that interest this modest blog was born. Since then the film has grown in my estimation year-by-year, never more so than when Masters Of Cinema released the 2010 restoration on Blu-Ray, which I didn't get to cover due to the increased workload I was undertaking after my first year covering the London Film Festival. So, following these two shambolic paragraphs (I'm keeping the end up, at least), with the necessary thanks in place, I can finally get excited about Metropolis all over again...

News!

Following their 2010 re-release of Fritz Lang's influential epic Metropolis, EUREKA! Entertainment are presenting for the first time on UK DVD Giorgio Moroder's controversial 1984 edit, featuring music from Freddie Mercury, Adam Ant, Pat Benatar, Jon Anderson and Bonnie Tyler. This Steelbook Special Edition will surely be one of the home entertainment highlights of 2012, and certainly I've been dying to see it for the past four years, so I'll reprint the full press release below for you to pore over its details...

In the era when one could still but only dream of a comprehensive restoration of

Fritz Lang's silent sci-fi epic Metropolis, esteemed pop artist/producer and

pioneering electronic composer Giorgio Moroder followed his work on Brian

De Palma's cult-classic Al Pacino vehicle Scarface by assembling his own version

of Lang's 1920s classic. The result was a zeitgeist-infused, high-kitsch/high-art

amalgam of some of the quintessential cinema images and then-contemporary

1980s pop-chart melodrama.

For millions around the world, it is this version of Metropolis - featuring music

by Moroder himself and artistes such as Adam Ant, Pat Benatar, Freddie

Mercury, Bonnie Tyler and Jon Anderson - which first comes to mind whenever

mention is made of the Lang original or, indeed, the iconic imagery and power

of silent cinema.

Special Edition:

• New high-definition restoration from rare original 35mm elements.
• Original stereo and new 5.1 surround audio options.
• The Fading Image, a vintage documentary from 1984 detailing the creation of Moroder's reconstruction.

EUREKA! Entertainment are proud to present a new restoration of

Giorgio Moroder's cult reworking of Fritz Lang's Metropolis for the

very first time on DVD in the UK - a bizarre and beautiful retro-

futurist timepiece which continues to speak of the past, present, and

future... available in a limited edition DVD Steelbook from 23rd July 2012.

Below I'll provide the all-new trailer and several screen-grabs, including the new DVD artwork...