comment #1

Rothchild says ...

I've seen at least a hundred films (older films shown at places like New Beverly, The Egyptian etc.) and I've gotten used to how shitty ALL OF THEM look. Then I saw Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm in Santa Monica last Sunday. It looked like a new film, only better. I was puzzled by all of this until I saw that it was restored in the closing credits. It's almost a tragedy that I've gotten used to horrible looking prints.

comment #2

Ponderer says ...

One of the reasons Lucas did the SE revamp of Star Wars back in 97 was that the film was literally falling apart. The stocks that were using during most of the 1970s imploded spectacularly fast, with significant color fading happening in as little as five years. It's a pity that recent films are in as much danger as the disintegrating films from early cinema history.

You know, I love the magic of film, the photochemical mystery of it. But the price of having real works of art lost because of its mercurial nature is just too high. Ninety percent of the silent films ever made are lost forever. The medium itself has made this the most ephemeral art of all time.

And now the morons at the studios don't seem to give a shit about it, though thank God for George Feltenstein. This is what he said in 2005, talking about studios not doing clean-up jobs and special features for DVD:

"In some cases, it's understandable, because they're making a financial decision. As a home-video executive, I understand it. But in other cases, it represents sheer ignorance and a lack of care. There's a title that came out just last week which I won't name, but it's a prominent film, not that old, and there were some very famous sequences that were cut out before the movie was released. And the studio didn't even make an attempt to find the missing footage. And they didn't even put a trailer on the DVD. It's just the movie. You know, they should try a little harder. [Laughs.] The problem is that most of the people at the studios who are making these decisions know nothing about film. There are exceptions, but a lot of them may as well be selling shoe polish or potatoes or toothpaste. They're strictly thinking of it as a packaged-goods business, and not looking at it as selling entertainment."

comment #3

jeffmcm says ...

I _wish_ they were thinking of it as a packaged-goods business, because they're letting their inventory waste away.

comment #4

BurmaShave says ...

As long as the films themselves are saved digitally, at the end of the day, I'm grateful. It's heartbreaking to lose the original prints, at the same time, I dont consider it tragic. I'm much more concerned about all the newsreels and microfilm and other cultural documents not preserved properly that are being lost.

comment #5

corey3rd says ...

whenever we borrowed a print from Marty, it took us twice as long to prep it. You'd figure "it's Marty's film" so that we should be able to take it straight out of the cans and onto the projector. But we spent a lot of time repairing them.

Shame they didn't talk with the Lowry folks - just saw what they did with the James Bond Ultimate Editions. But the question is how much did it cost per film to make the 4K - corrected transfers.

Digital can decay.

comment #6

OddDuck says ...

Can someone explain to me what they mean when they say digital can decay? I thought digital meant 1's and 0's, so that whether it is stored on a digital tape or disc or a hard drive it's all the same.

comment #7

Doug Pratt says ...

Whether the preservation of those 1's and 0's is on magnetic media or optical media, it can still be corrupted by time and the environment. It's not as horrific as what happens to cheaply preserved film stock, but it isn't perfect, even with extra redundancy.

comment #8

FilmTurtle says ...

Wells doesn't mention the startling anecdote at the beginning of that article (for those who haven't read it); a visitor to the Paramount archive actually stepped on the negative to "Rosemary's Baby" as it lay unspooled on the floor. Jesus H. f*cking Christ on his cross.

comment #9

York "Budd" Durden says ...

In a former life, I was a motion picture archivist for about 10 years working with a major newsreel collection (among many other film and media collections). I can't tell you the heartbreak of watching unique, historically significant material just turning into explosive goo (and then finally toxic dust) because either the money or the political will isn't there to preserve it, and NOT as 1s and 0s--I used to have endless discussions with administrators who wanted to "preserve" the material "on digital" about why it isn't preservation. Digitizing is good in terms of access, I always said, and I'm all for it, but making DVDs or what have you is not a substitute for creating new negatives or interpositives of endangered films. (And not letting people walk on them, either.)

And as for the 70's stocks being bad, you see patterns of that in all kinds of media--the 1/4 Ampex reels from thus and such a period all have to be baked to be played and yet some from an earlier period are in fantastic shape, etc etc.

comment #10

RoyBatty says ...

Glad to see most recognize that the ultimate villain here isn't the studios, but sheer dumb fucking luck: the unfortunate choice by EVERYONE (including filmmakers who could have insisted on something different if they had known) to use that film process.

The studios now have a decade's worth of titles that would have to be preserved.

But look at it this way: it could be something else to be added to the arguments to reverse the copyright extensions these clowns were given. If they can't take care of the works, then perhaps the general public should be given access to do it themselves.

comment #11

Cadavra says ...

Much of this piece is crap; virtually all the major studios are now committed to preservation. And the shot at Fox and Paramount was particularly cheap: Schawn Belston and Barry Allen are two of the best in the business, and their passion (and the results therein) are beyond reproach. Another dumbass article by someone with an agenda.

comment #12

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