----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Gene Stavis' comments regarding Moroder's 1984 version of _Metropolis_ are similar to those of David Smith, in the sense that they are both basically evaluative (one likes subtitles and the other doesn't). The underlying disagreement, however, appears to be an ethical one: Smith argues that Lang's film has been desecrated, whereas Stavis contends that this adaptation has allowed the film to reach a wider audience. My position is that we are dealing with two different films: one which almost does not exist anymore (Lang's film was severely cut over the years), and one which was designed to be a kind of feature-length music video (cf.Roger Odin's excellent article on this phenomenon in _Iris_ #8, 1988). Indeed, while subtitles might be more agreeable to the eye (i.e. more modern) than full-screen titles, the fact is that these full-screen titles were an integral part of silent film editing strategies. In other words, remove the full-screen titles, and you might have jump cuts to deal with. In a comparative analysis I did about ten years ago, I found that while Moroder had added almost five minutes of new footage to the film (compared with the "standard" MOMA print), he also removed about ten minutes (not including the titles), spread out over approximately sixty scenes. So it isn't simply a question of turning the sound off if you don't like it: _Metropolis_ was re-edited to fit the new soundtrack (remember, Moroder's a composer). I don't see anything wrong with that. What *is* problematic, it seems to me, is the way in which Moroder tries to justify his tactics by quoting Lang in the opening titles, where Lang says that he was never good with sound, or music. Instead of recognizing that he has created a different film, Moroder passes it off as Lang's work with a new soundtrack, which is really a kind of misrepresentation. There is a different approach to this whole question of reviving silent classics, one which attempts to take into account the original context in which the film was produced. A few years ago, the Munich Film Archives had their restored version of _Metropolis_ tour some cities in Canada (I don't know if it made it to the States), with a live orchestral accompaniment of Gottfried Huppertz' original 1926 musical score. The painstaking historical approach practiced by Enno Patalas and other film archivists has an interest that film historians can appreciate, even though it might not reach as many people. Moroder is trying to have it both ways. Philippe Mather. [log in to unmask]