Metropolis is 100
On 21st March 1927, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis had its British premiere, unveiling a vision of the future that has echoed through popular culture for a century. One hundred years to the day, Northern Silents marks this anniversary with a special live‑scored screening.
Lang’s portrait of a towering future city—divided between the privileged above and the workers below—remains one of cinema’s most influential achievements. Yet Metropolis was a flop in 1927, and soon after its Berlin premiere the studio cut away a quarter of the film, leaving the story in disarray. Those missing forty minutes were assumed lost until, in 2008, almost all the absent scenes were discovered in an attic in Argentina and the film was painstakingly reconstructed.
For this centenary screening, pianist Jonny Best and percussionist Trevor Bartlett perform a live, improvised score — a conversation in sound shaped moment by moment as the film unfolds. Their partnership began over a decade ago at Leeds International Film Festival, and has since grown through more than a hundred performances, each one created from scratch in front of an audience. Together they bring Metropolis to life with music that is responsive, inventive and entirely of the moment.
Music: Jonny Best (piano), Trevor Bartlett (percussion),
Metropolis
Director: Fritz Lang
Year: 192
Length: 2 hours 30 minutes
Certificate PG
A film from the holdings of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (www.murnau-stiftung.de) in Weisbaden
