Endnote 381: the Metropolis-print chronology
More like B.S. 1926, according to the Still Photo Archive at NNY City’s Museum of Modern Art. Plus n.b. the print—which Hal correctly remembers Avril always loathing [*51] —long pre-dated J.O.I.’s ever picking up a camera.
Context
(And sub-note a:) Glosses 179's Weston-house inventory item "The chilling framed print of Lang directing Metropolis in 1924" (the 179 entry above). Three claims. (1) A date correction from inside the apparatus: the endnote fact-checks its own text's "1924" to "More like B.S. 1926," citing the Still Photo Archive at NNY City's MoMA — text and note contradict on the date and both are preserved as printed (the run's flags already log the real-world wrinkle: Metropolis was shot 1925-26, released 1927). (2) The chronology gloss proper: the print "long pre-dated J.O.I.'s ever picking up a camera" — the image of a director mid-command hung in the family's rooms before there was any filmography at all; the emblem of cinematic authority precedes the career and, per sub-note a, outlasts it. (3) Persistence: Hal "correctly remembers" Avril loathing it (a rare narrator-reliability stamp from the annotating voice), yet four years after the felo de se it is still up on the HmH living-room wall — "it's not like anybody asked her to keep the thing up." The loathed picture of directing itself, kept up unasked over the auteur's widow. Plan pre-marks the raw texture; assembly may want it higher on the chronology load.