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Sturm und Lang >> Wetfish de-Moroder-ize Metropolis
by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
The silent film was directed by Germany's Fritz Lang between 192526, and by the time it was released in '27, it had become the most expensive film produced in Germany thus far. (The bill nearly broke the back of UFA Studios.) The son of an architect, Lang worked as a painter in the early years and had a profound sense of visual scope and composition to accompany his dramatic morality plays--the crime noir of Dr. Mabuse or the chilling M, playing a child murderer against vigilante mob violence. Metropolis itself waxes allegorical about the space between labour and the capitalist bosses, and the dehumanization of the industrial age. Although clumsy and pretentious at times, Metropolis nonetheless left viewers awestruck by the sheer size of the futureworld it presented. Its effect continues to this day. "We've seen it screened at the Cinémathèque," says Sandro Forte of experimental musical unit Wetfish, "with piano accompaniment by Gabriel Thibodeau. Which is very good, but we've decided we wanted to revamp that, make it a bit more modern--without perpetrating the massacre that Giorgio Moroder did. We want to distance ourselves from that guy." Oh, that's right--most of us will have thankfully forgotten the disastrous fix-it job that Moroder pulled some 20 years ago, with Queen's Freddie Mercury providing excruciating operatic bombast to accompany new prints of the film. Forte promises something more interesting. Wetfish--Forte on electronics and James Duhamel on didgeridoo and digital sampling--will establish the overall structure of the new soundtrack, with improv cameos from human beatbox EJ Brulé, DJs Simahlak and P-Love, and even a dash of Tuvan-style throat singing care of Sébastien Croteau, of local deathcore funsters Necrotic Mutation. All of which will be in THX sound, no less. "It'll be a meeting of a number of different musical styles--classic, world, DJs for certain more spectacular scenes," continues Forte, "although don't expect a rave or a club party. We're not doing a video here--we want to respect all the dramatic intensity of the movie."
Metropolis screens as part of the Science Fiction Film Festival at the Imperial, Friday, June 11, 9pm, $8 |
When you read the word "Metropolis," what comes to mind? Music fans will recognize the name as that of a big concert hall on Ste-Catherine. Comic book nerds will immediately think of Superman's home-away-from-Krypton. Film buffs, though, will tell you that Metropolis is one of the earliest classics of science fiction cinema.