This year, the landmark silent film Metropolis (1927), directed by Fritz Lang, will enter the public domain. To celebrate this occasion, experimental music duo Magazinist (Matthew Tomkinson & Andy Zuliani) will offer a live rescoring of the film, accompanied by fellow composer C.Diab (Caton Diab).
It is difficult to think of any other film that has been the subject of so many reimaginings and rescorings. From Giorgio Moroder’s Razzie-nominated rock score in 1984, to Jeff Mills’ techno score in 2000, to more recent jazz soundtracks and YouTube fan edits, Metropolis demonstrates a kind of insatiable, musicalgrowth imperative. This latest score is no exception, with compositions that mirror the analog distortion of the image, the gestural oscillations of the workers, and the electrical charge of Rotwang’s iconic laboratory equipment.
With a focus on unique hand-built instruments alongside bowed guitar, synthesizers, and other electronics, their original soundtrack supports the film’s mesmerizing visuals with a fittingly expansive score, including post-industrial rhythms, soaring utopian motifs, and dystopian drones. Embodying the subterranean labour of the workers on screen, the performers enact a restless quest of their own, to keep the Moloch Machine of music running throughout the film’s prodigious runtime without being swallowed by its hellmouth.
For many years, Metropolis was screened in fragmentary form, with certain scenes being presented out of their original sequence, until 25 minutes of additional footage were found in Buenos Aires in 2008. A decade before this discovery, Roger Ebert remarked that the film’s “very discontinuity is a strength” if only because “it makes Metropolis hallucinatory — a nightmare without the reassurance of a steadying story line.” In the spirit of the “gaps and logical puzzles” of the pre-2008 edit, Magazinist will score the penultimate version of the film, emphasizing the surreal discontinuities that existed while it remained
unrestored and incomplete.
Date: Sunday, October 22
Time: 6:30 pm
Venue: VIFF Centre | 1181 Seymour Street | Vancouver, BC | V6B 3M7
