here's a bit of a film history lesson for context: so up until 2010, fritz lang's 1927 expressionist masterpiece
Metropolis was considered partially lost. for a silent picture, the film has an extremely long running time of 153 minutes so a lot of prints of it had custom cut jobs done. combine that with the flammability and natural degradation of nitrate film if it isn't stored in the exact right conditions, and it once had the fate of obscurity that so many silent films sadly have. Metropolis was incredibly high profile ever since its release because of its gorgeous surrealist imagery and early establishment of so many science fiction (and particularly robot fiction) tropes, so a movement to find and restore the film started gaining a lot of traction by the 1970s. enter music producer giorgio moroder, who in 1984 pieced together existing footage to create a cut of the film with a soundtrack comprised of popular contemporary rock musicians including freddie mercury, pat benatar, bonnie tyler, loverboy, jon anderson of yes, and adam ant. as a film cut, it isn't particularly accurate to the source material's story and sort of feels like a hazy and surreal extended music video. but to that aim it is a FASCINATING hazy and surreal extended music video. it also brought a lot of attention to the film preservation movement in an era where it still wasn't a primary concern for movie studios, with a lengthy forward explaining the concept of a lost film. I've been listening to the soundtrack a lot lately, it's a gorgeous and haunting cohesive piece of electronic rock opera goodness. it's so evocative of a very specific period of time I think. I'd love to get it on cassette at some point, or the film itself on VHS.
Giorgio Moroder & Various Artists - Metropolis