Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS: Cinematic Visions of Technology and Fear

Elsasser, Thomas. "Innocence Restored? Reading and Rereading a "Classic"" in Minden, Michael and Bachran, Holger, eds. Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS: Cinematic Visions of Technology and Fear. Camden House, 2000.

While much of this article dealt with film theory that I haven't the background to comprehend, I was taken with the concepts of restoration, original, and derivative works. In 1984, the musician/producer Giorgio Moroder set a sort-of new-wave/disco soundtrack to the original film Metropolis, and thus, it became something new and different. That work had become appropriated and transformed through the eyes of another creator. The original music was performed on piano, and consisted of salon music. Very different effect. And yet, which is truer to Fritz Lang's vision. In this area, restoration and preservation are complicated by what the original conception of the work is, and how it was carried out. If the original (not in Metropolis' case) was a flop, and the writer/producer decide to revise it later, and it then succeeds--that will be the version that will hopefully be remembered. Everything else is just context. We should remember the context, but be sensitive to when the artist considers the work to be done.

I think it was a televised Boston Pops concert wit John Williams conducting that illustrated to me the power of music with images. Imagine Jaws without the minor 2nds, or with a Beach Boys inspired soundtrack. Not the same effect, huh?