Tuesday Morning Conversation…In The Spotlight: Film Editor, Gilchrist Anderson…The Restorer of Giorgio Moroder’s “Metropolis.”

[Note: I usually post my “In The Spotlight” conversations on Sunday morning, but due to scheduling conflict…I had to post my conversation with my special guest Gil Anderson, this morning. I hope that you enjoy what my guest Gilchrist Anderson, has to say in our interview about his painstaking restoration of Giorgio Moroder’s version of director Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis
Thanks,]

Good-Morning… Wonders in the Dark readers, and fellow bloggers, this morning I am so happy that film editor Gilchrist Anderson, took the time out of his very busy schedule to sit down and discuss with me over a cup of coffee and croissant(s) his restoration of Giorgio Moroder’s version of director Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis.

Dee Dee:
Good-morning…Gil Anderson, what a pleasure it is for me to meet you, (as I reach to shake Gil Anderson’s hand) please sit down.

Dee Dee:
Let me begin by asking you the first question that I ask all my guest and that is…

Can you once again please tell me (and the Wonders in the Dark readers,) a little about your blog? Metropolis Redux

Gilchrist Anderson:
My blog chronicles the last part of my journey in re-creating Metropolis Redux, Giorgio Moroder’s version of Metropolis.

I never really planned on making the work public, but there was so much interest I thought I’d better share and started documenting what I was doing.

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Girl With a Pearl Earring (no 84)

by Allan Fish

(UK 2003 100m) DVD1/2

Yellow, blue and grey

p  Andy Paterson, Anand Tucker  d  Peter Webber  w  Olivia Hetreed  novel  Tracy Chevalier  ph  Eduardo Serra  ed  Kate Evans  m  Alexandre Desplat  art  Ben Van Os  cos  Dien Van Straalen

Scarlett Johansson (Griet), Colin Firth (Johannes Vermeer), Tom Wilkinson (Peter van Ruijven), Judy Parfitt (Maria Thins), Cillian Murphy (Peter), Essie Davis (Catharina), Joanna Scanlan (Tanneke), Alakina Mann (Cornelia), Chris McHallem (Griet’s father),

There’s something about paintings and great art that has often daunted me, made me feel somehow insufficient, not merely my obvious inability to match the genius of the artist but perhaps not even perceptive enough to perceive his purpose, his intention.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the same is no more true of paintings than it is in the cinema, sculpture, architecture or any of the other arts.  And Vermeer is one of those painters I have always admired most because he was fascinated with the same thing that fascinates film-makers; light.  With the arguable exception of that other Dutch genius, Rembrandt, no other painter has so influenced cinematography since its inception than Johannes Vermeer.  A daunting subject then, and made perhaps even more so by the success of the historical fiction it was based on, Chevalier’s immensely popular novel.  I have to confess I have never read it and will probably always struggle to find the time, but if fans of the book have found the film less interesting – they always do, don’t they? – it remains a magnificent, seriously underrated achievement. 

            It’s 1665 in Delft, and a blind former tile-maker’s daughter is hired out of charity by the household of painter Johannes Vermeer as a housemaid, but she soon attracts the keen eye of the master.  His motives seem ambiguous initially, there’s an undoubted erotic chemistry between them, but there’s something deeper, something misunderstood by harpy wife Catharina and gossipy housekeeper Tanneke.  Griet is fascinated by what drives the master to create his paintings, and he sees in her a more than willing pupil to be his assistant and inspiration. 

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