Today’s post, in which I bestow a “filmmaker of the year” honor, is the first of three offering a highly personal round-up of the year in movies. It will be followed in the next two weeks by posts relating my ten favorite home video releases of 2010 and my ten favorite theatrically released movies of 2010. So stay tuned . . .
During the past calendar year, the single filmmaker whose work inspired me the most was not Abbas Kiarostami, Apichatpong Weerasethakul nor David Fincher, even though that esteemed trio was collectively responsible for directing the three best new films I saw in 2010. Instead, I’d like to bestow my first annual White City Cinema Filmmaker of the Year honor on a man who was born 120 years ago this month, died in 1975 and directed his last film in 1960. A pioneer of the German Expressionist movement who became a master of American film noir. A director of stunningly composed geometric images whose dispassionate view of the individual’s relationship to society made him, along with Shohei Imamura, cinema’s greatest entomologist. A man who habitually wore a monocle (but only for dramatic effect), told self-mythologizing tall tales about his filmmaking career in Weimar-era Berlin, had a reputation for being sadistic to actors, and included a shot of his own hands in every single one of his films. Of course I mean Fritz Lang.
Like all great film artists, Lang’s best work continues to look better over time and has remained relevant to generations of cinephiles in ways that Lang himself probably never could have anticipated. 2010 saw yet another restoration/re-release of Lang’s seminal Metropolis, one of the most famous of all science fiction movies, albeit in a new cut that restored the film to something closely approximating its original length for the first time since its 1927 premiere. (Now missing only about 5 minutes of footage, this is likely the most complete the film will ever be.) After a successful theatrical run, especially for a silent film, the “complete” Metropolis was released as a perfect Blu-ray disc by Kino in November. Additionally, 2010 saw the Criterion Collection release M, Lang’s first sound film and arguably the greatest German movie of all time, in a spiffy new Blu-ray edition that easily superseded all previous home video releases. If that weren’t enough, Lang’s Moonfleet from 1955, highly regarded in auteurist circles, received its U.S. DVD debut courtesy of the Warner Archives label and his final Hollywood film, the superb noir While the City Sleeps from 1956, received its world DVD debut from the UK label Exposure. (I didn’t buy these last two however; I’ve got to eat too, for God’s sake!) Revisiting Metropolis and M, arguably the twin peaks of Lang’s career, in their newest incarnations, was simply the most fun I had at the movies this year. For me, 2010 was truly the year of the Fritz.
The story of the many lives of Metropolis is by now familiar; after its disappointing German premiere, the film was drastically cut by UFA, the studio that had allowed Lang to realize his ambitious and expensive folly. Metropolis has seemingly been in a state of perpetual “restoration” ever since, including a misguided 1984 version supervised by composer Giorgio Moroder that featured an incongruous pop music soundtrack, and a much-ballyhooed 2001 “re-construction” that was thought to be definitive. Then, in 2008, a 16mm print of Metropolis was found in an archive in Buenos Aires that ran almost 30 minutes longer than any previously known version. This print, in admittedly poor condition and in a different aspect ratio than the original film, was sent to Berlin where the F.W. Murnau Foundation (the film’s official rights holder) performed a digital clean-up of the “missing scenes” and integrated them into the 2001 restoration. This Metropolis was given a rapturously received re-premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in February and the rest, as they say, is history.
I hasten to add that I think the newly restored footage, which I first saw projected at the Music Box over the summer, made a world of difference in my estimation of Metropolis as a whole. While it still isn’t my personal favorite silent Lang (that would be the apocalyptic, two-part Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler from 1922 and the prototypical espionage thriller Spies from 1928), the “complete” Metropolis has fleshed out a couple of previously sketchy subplots that give the film a greater sense of harmony and balance. I also found that the film’s controversial ending, much derided even by some of Lang’s admirers, works for me in a way that it never did before. I can only concur with Roger Ebert when he called this new/old version the “film event of the year.”
The aspect of Metropolis that seems most prescient today may be its depiction of class warfare; the futuristic city of the title is only able to function because of a slave-labor system that keeps the working class confined to a world that is literally underground. While many other sci-fi movies have since come and gone that look dated in their attempts at allegorizing contemporary issues (the now long-gone Cold War, for instance), I think Metropolis still looks an awful lot like the world we’re living in. Specifically, it looks like Dubai. Lang brings this futuristic world to life through a pioneering use of special effects, all of which still have the ability to impress and charm (and which clearly exerted an influence on everything from Dr. Strangelove to Star Wars to Blade Runner to The Fifth Element to even the sci-fi sections of Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046). However, the most impressive “effect” in Metropolis for me remains the performance of nineteen year old Brigitte Helm, who positively dazzles as the wholesome and beautiful workers’ advocate Maria as well as the sensual, evil robot designed in her image. Eighty three years after the film’s premiere, it remains a real pleasure to watch Helm act the hell out of this dual role.
The symmetry that’s brought into focus with the restored footage is Lang’s doppelganger motif, which previously encompassed the divide between underground/above ground, workers/bourgeoisie and human Maria/robot Maria. The new restoration fully fleshes out Lang’s schema so that similar doublings occur between the film’s other major characters: Georgy 11811, a member of the slave-like proletariat trades places with Freder, the aristocratic son of Fredersen, Metropolis’ autocratic ruler. Georgy 11811 explores Metropolis’ seamier side (such as the delightfully decadent Yoshiwara club where the robot Maria performs an outrageous production number designed to inspire impure thoughts); for his part, Freder discovers the hard way, through monotonous, back-breaking labor, what exactly makes his father’s city run. But the most crucial doubling seen in the restored footage is one of the most fleeting sequences: Fredersen and Dr. Rotwang, the mad scientist who creates the robot Maria, commiserate at the foot of a monument to Hel, the woman whom both men loved and lost.
The doppelganger motif, a favorite device of German Expressionism in general and Lang in particular, also rears its head in M. Thanks to Criterion’s Blu-ray, the dichotomy drawn by Lang between the police and the criminal underworld in 1931 Berlin is thrown into sharper relief than ever before. But where Metropolis comes much closer to “pure” Expressionism, M mixes Expressionist techniques with elements of the police procedural and the serial killer thriller (both of which it can be seen as having written the playbook on) in a way that anticipates film noir; suspense is built not only through the film’s plotting but through the tension that arises between its stylized, abstract qualities (high contrast lighting, overhead angles, recurring images of a spiral) and its more conventional narrative elements.
What was ultimately being “expressed” in the German Expressionism movement were the innermost thoughts and feelings of a film’s characters, which Expressionist filmmakers attempted to externalize through a distorted and exaggerated mise-en-scene. Sci-fi, fantasy and horror were popular Expressionist genres precisely because they were the most conducive to extreme stylization of cinematography, lighting and set design. When M was released, the Expressionist movement was effectively over and yet stylistic traces remain; the film’s Expressionist qualities mainly concern the subjective experiences of Hans Beckert (the serial killer expertly played by bug-eyed Peter Lorre) as he stalks the streets of Berlin, but they co-exist with narrative qualities that occasionally achieve a documentary-like realism: the film begins with the sound of a gong like that heard before radio news reports in Germany at the time. Many of the scenes involving both the police and criminal underworlds contain “inventory shots,” in which Lang’s camera objectively surveys the tools of the trade of each group. Some early montage scenes, in which we see a police dragnet widening day-by-day as the search for the heinous child killer expands, come across like something out of a police training film.
My favorite aspect of M though is the film’s innovative sound design, which is saying a lot given Lang’s visual mastery. In 1931, Hollywood films had taken a huge step backwards in terms of visual sophistication due to the difficulties of early sound recording. Additionally, even the best Hollywood directors of the time were frequently saddled with “dialogue directors” brought in from the world of theater by untrusting studio executives. As a result, most American films of the early sound era look static, theatrical and uncinematic. Fritz Lang, on the other hand, saw creative possibilities for the use of sound while simultaneously refusing to allow his camerawork to suffer. Instead, sound and image work together in M in a kind of relay; indeed, it was the first film in which the sound of a character’s voice from one scene was carried over into another scene set in a different location. Intercutting between two groups of people in two different locations (the police and the criminals), Lang reinforces the parallel between them by having them seemingly finish each other’s sentences. At other times, Lang shuts the soundtrack off entirely to convey a feeling of eerie quiet. And, finally, there is the absence of a traditional musical score. Instead, the only music heard in the film is Beckert’s whistling of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” which allows the audience to identify the killer even when he is not onscreen.
One of the welcome supplements on Criterion’s M Blu-ray is M le maudit, a short film tribute/remake by the late, great Claude Chabrol. This is fitting as no other director in the history of cinema proved to be as astute a student of Lang as did Chabrol. However, as masterful as Chabrol at his best could undoubtedly be, even this tribute underscores the idea that Lang is a cinematic giant precisely because he did it all first. Lang’s best movies deserve to be re-discovered by each new generation of film buffs, as Metropolis and M continually have been, whether by theatrical revival or in new transfers on the latest home video technology. And if that final missing five minutes of Metropolis ever does turn up, I’ll be first in line to see it again.
White City Cinema 
December 25th, 2010 at 10:15 am
[…] Fritz Lang’s sci-fi masterpiece looks more prescient than ever in this “complete” cut, in which 25 minutes have been restored for the first time since the film’s 1927 premiere. The missing footage was long considered one of cinema’s holy grails (alongside the missing footage from Greed and The Magnificent Ambersons), so this release is cause for celebration. Kino’s blu-ray is perfect. More here. […]
December 12th, 2011 at 10:01 am
[…] “filmmaker of the year honor,” establishes a new tradition following last year’s tribute to Fritz Lang. It is also the first of three posts offering a round-up of the year in movies. Over the next two […]
November 17th, 2014 at 9:07 am
[…] would also most likely be dead or have their best-known work decades behind them. (Hence, Fritz Lang, on the strength of the “Complete Metropolis” restoration, was my inaugural winner, […]
May 27th, 2015 at 8:09 am
%first_paragraphFurther, let us describe each to understand further of what each can do to your eye trouble. On the other hand, all optometrists are also an eye doctors who had graduated a 5-year optometry course but didnt attend a medical college. This kind of eye doctor had finished pre-medical studies, job, with extensive 4-5 years of training & medical service. An ophthalmologist is an eyeball doctor that is licensed to carry out eye test, give diagnosis & performs typical eye surgeries & procedures.
Your whole body may be relaxing but your eyes are still working and when it is time for a check up you conveniently forget that they too need some maintenance to keep them going and remain in good health.
Your eyes are pretty important, you used it daily that even when relaxing you still use it like when relaxing on a hot tub and reading or just lying on your bed watching television.
Today, it is not at all difficult to find a good optometrist in Miami. If you have relatives and friends who wear eye glasses, perhaps you could speak to them and find out which optometrist in Miami they visit. Or if you are Internet savvy, there is no better way than an Internet search. You can begin by looking through the phone book and check the names of various eye doctors in Miami. If the eye doctor is open to receiving new patients then you should easily be able to get an appointment for an eye exam. Some eye doctors in Miami have a family practice so you can take your kids there too. They will have an eye exam for all ages so if your kids have vision problems or eye complications then you should get an eye checkup for them.
An optometrist is someone who is licensed and trained to be able to provide primary types of eye care. They complete their education in a school of optometry so as to be able to provide myriad services. For instance diabetes has an effect on eyesight, as does high blood pressure, or hypertension. This means examining the eyes of their patients for diseases like cataracts, glaucoma, and retinal deterioration. They also can sometimes diagnose diseases that affect the whole body.
So naturally when someone in this country thinks of eye examinations and buying glasses they think of this vision care center first. The best news concerning this is there are three of these visions centers set up for your convenience, the Optometrist St Arnaud offices, the Optometrist Stawell offices, and the Optometrist Ararat offices. For the last three generations the Blizzard Optometrist offices have been providing great customer service and quality eyewear to the people of Australia. The three locations have slightly different hours of operation but they all have the same quality and service you have come to expect in the last sixty years.
If their customer is not happy with the eyewear they have purchased then all they need to do is come back to the location they got the glasses at and allow the friendly staff to help them fix their issues. This is done as easily as walking in and just saying you are not happy with the product. In order to assure that you get the glasses you want, the fit that you want, and the lenses that you need, these vision centers offer you a one hundred percent satisfaction guaranteed policy. The whole goal of these professionals is to make you happy.
Making sure your eye glasses or contact lenses are at the right prescription will also assist in keeping your eyes from getting worse as the years go by. The eye doctors in Miami will even tell you ways and means by which you can keep your eyes nice and healthy. A regular visit to your optometrist in Miami is a good prevention method to keep you from running into serious eye or vision problems as time goes by.
There are also some times when the doctor might find a condition or a disease in the patient’s eye. When the practitioner finds out the capacity of the patient when it comes to vision, he will then recommend a remedy to enable the patient to regain part or most of his or her vision. Refraction is a common way of diagnosing the extent or the limitation of a person’s vision. Diagnosis
The way that the optometrist diagnoses his patient may be similar to that of other doctors who also focus on the organ that gives us vision. Many doctors use equipment that can refract and give an accurate reading with regards to the visual capacity of an individual. Since he or she is educated in optometry and this touches other fields connected to the state of the eyes, it is possible that he can diagnose it accurately and treat it.
There are also many similarities between the two which may confuse a lot of people with regards to the responsibilities of each. Although both professions concentrate on the eyes and sight, the difference is acute and can be explained very well. There is a big difference between the ophthalmologist and the optometrist.
They qualified for this profession and they have the years of experience which help them to perform the best eye treatment.
You can recommend them to your friends for an eye check up so your friends will also have the idea where to go in case they have problem with their eyes. Thus, this eye doctor is your best eye health care partner for your family.%
June 19th, 2015 at 1:25 am
%first_paragraphBut how do you drain the battery when Windows wont let you do just that? Theyre not safe (you might forget to change them back), they may not be getting an accurate reading, and they quite possibly wont let you set the critical Newest ASUS N73SW Battery level to 0 percent. Dont bother with the settings described above. (If they did, it would crash Windows.
The Rock n fold chair totally provides you comfort and ease. The Rock n fold chair is helpful to increase your enjoyment of watching movies and playing video games. The Rock n fold chair is flat and balanced with earth surface. these are the movements when you want a complete rest and want to enjoy watching movies and playing video games. The Rock n fold chair may be not so impressive at first glance and you just consider to a cheap chair but while you are going to use the Rock n fold chair then you will realize that the Rock n fold chair is so comfortable and it provide the exciting comfort and luxury to you. Rock n fold chair is widely used now a days, these Rock n fold chair is specially used while you are watching movies, films, TV serials, playing video games etc. Rock N Fold Chair Is So Simple And Luxury In Use:
It may be true or false. It involves with many lives and it leads to bedlam. Likewise Tsunami Threat, Hijacking are some of the rumors which involve with people’s lives and concerns. For example, Making an anonymous call and telling that the bomb has been fixed in a school, which is going to burst in few minutes. Fears or Concerns is involved with rumors being told about any life threats.
The prices start around 250 (but you can check the prices on this site called website The N150 comes in different colours too, you can get it in black, blue, red, white and yellow and what’s more the cover is scratch resistant and finger print proof.
Santander is a historical city with a great culture. The city was present under a different name in the Roman Era. Santander is the capital city of Cantabria in Spain. The current name of the city emerged in the third century. It is a beautiful city with beaches and mountains that can amuse all kinds of visitors to the city.
Frst nr du vet dine totale lnekostnader kan du se om det vil lnne seg med en refinansiering. Om du ikke vet dette, har du ingen forutsetninger for vite om et tilbud vil vre lnnsomt nr du skal refinansiere. Sett deg ned og g gjennom lnesaldoer og kontoutskrifter og skaff deg en oversikt over hva gjelden koster deg.
Nr du skal refinansiere dyr gjeld m du frst vite hvor mye du har i gjeld. Hvordan kan man refinansiere dyr gjeld?
Rock N Fold Chair Provides Feel of Relaxation And Comfy While You Are Watching Games On TV: If you are willing to purchase the Rock n Fold Chair then do not worry about the Setting of the Rock n fold chair is really trouble-free, just unfold it and go to set the arrangement or position of your Rock n fold chair at your home and then sit on it and enjoy watching your favorite movies and playing your video games.
The handset looks superb with its 3. So, the handset can give its users full satisfaction about entertainment and photography. 0 operating system enriched with ARM 11 680 MHz processor and 3D graphics HW accelerometer. You will feel yourself lucky after possessing this mind blowing widget because of its music player and 12MP camera that comes with Carl Zeiss optics, supported by auto focus and xenon flash. Apart from that, the Nokia N8 contract on orange mobile phone comes with various connectivity features including GPRS, Wi-Fi, WLAN, Bluetooth that makes internet access and data transfer very easy for the customers. To store your favorite music tracks and images you have enough space with the handset. This handset works on the symbian version 3. The handset also has inbuilt video/photo editor and Flash Lite v4.
You may be satisfied that, an armed security person is located at the gate, so no one would dare to enter in. But then, after all, he is a human being and mistakes and negligence can occur unintentionally. This is the thought of many people and that is the reason they have beefed up the surveillance in their house or office or business centers. Just locking it and double locking it isn’t enough, at least in today’s scenario, when breaking through is quite easy. For this, they have set up the security cameras. If something unwanted happens, what is the use of lamenting later on. Have you ever thought about the security of your home when you are away? Why not be a little extra cautious beforehand?
This cellular phone arrives using the flip pattern style with each of the qualities which could possibly be excepted through the Nokia N sequence phones. After the prosperous marketplace of N sequence of cellular phones like N71, N72, N95, N97, N97 mini etc, Nokia has adding even more colours for that N sequence is Nokia N75. Lets evaluate the features.
The solar lights are easy to manipulate. Solar lights are versatile and safe to users. It has a superb blight lighting and can give you about 100,000 hours. It is also long lasting and one is sure to get several years of service. You also have a wide variety of fixture choices. The L-948 2-N-1 LED Solar Rechargeable Shed Light is a perfect choice of solar lighting that one can count on. Installation of power lighting is very easy since they are wireless and very portable.%
July 24th, 2015 at 4:41 am
you are truly a just right webmaster. The website loading pace is incredible.
It sort of feels that you’re doing any unique trick.
Also, The contents are masterpiece. you’ve done a great job
in this matter!
November 30th, 2015 at 10:21 pm
Your style is very unique in comparison to other people I have read stuff from.
Thanks for posting when you’ve got the opportunity, Guess
I’ll just book mark this blog.