Recent Film Restorations

[GaryC]

The NFSA in Australia has just restored The Cheaters (1929), directed by Paulette McDonagh. It premiered earlier this month.

[FrauBlucher]

I'm currently watching TCM. A between films segment, Ben Mankiewicz is interviewing John Bailey, President of The Film Academy Arts and Sciences, they are talking about the Academy Archives in which they have taken up film restorations. Bailey said they work closely with other organizations like the Film Foundation and the UCLA Archive. They are currently working on restoring Detour. That would be awesome. Especially if they came across some better elements. Hopefully it's on Criterion's radar.

[DeprongMori]

At the current Noir City festival in San Francisco, Eddie Muller announced that the screening of I Walk Alone, starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, was a new digital restoration from Universal. There is still a fair amount of speckling and damage apparent, so it wasn’t a full restoration. It still looked pretty darned good.

[Calvin]

This January's CNC funding report has only just appeared online. To highlight a few titles:

Douce (Autant-Lara)
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (Bresson)
Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson)
The Strange Monsieur Victor (Grémillon)
La Fille de l'eau (Renoir)
Nana (Renoir)
Sur un air de Charleston (Renoir)
The Little Match Girl (Renoir)

[Ribs]

And it also seems like it may explain why Arrow's pulled L'atalantide from the schedule!

[diamonds]

Today the Metrograph will be playing a reconstruction of Personal Problems (1980). I've observed rumblings about this for a few weeks leading up to it, and everything I've read about it sounds absolutely fascinating. Has anyone seen this work? Further, since the "restoration" is Kino Lorber, is there a good chance we'll see a physical release anytime soon?

[Calvin]

Dennis Hopper's Out of the Blue to be restored in 4K

[thirtyframesasecond]

Dennis Hopper's Out of the Blue to be restored in 4K

Nice, it's a great movie - especially if you're also a fan of Primal Scream's Xtrmntr.

[Calvin]

The China Film Archive's 4K restorations of Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth and Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Horse Thief will premiere at the Beijing International Film Festival this month. Though they have apparently been claiming that they've restored The Horse Thief in 48fps...

[beamish13]

The China Film Archive's 4K restorations of Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth and Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Horse Thief will premiere at the Beijing International Film Festival this month. Though they have apparently been claiming that they've restored The Horse Thief in 48fps...

WOW. These are two monumental works that have long been in need of restorations and greater visibility in the West. I saw a new 35mm print of Yellow Earth a few years ago, and it looked a bit rough, but it elevated a film I had previously just enjoyed on VHS to becoming an all-time favorite.

[domino harvey]

Yellow Earth is great, hopefully one of the more visible labels picks it up to give it more exposure

[hearthesilence]

If it was filmed in 24fps, I'm not sure converting it to 48 fps will actually do anything unless they're doing something awful like creating "interpolated" frames instead of repeating every frame. Hoping for the best.

[StevenJ0001]

Yes, love Yellow Earth, and I'd kind of given up hope of it ever getting some decent treatment. Great news!

[swo17]

Horse Thief is also exciting news!

[domino harvey]

This will be Martin Scorsese's favorite Blu-ray release of the 2020s

[swo17]

This will be Martin Scorsese's favorite film of the 2020s

Fixed

[Big Ben]

For those uninitiated here's Scorsese sitting with Ebert beaming with effusive praise for the film.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Yellow Earth is fantastic, and it would be great if his other early films (The Big Parade, King of the Children, Life on a String) got decent releases too.

[Calvin]

If it was filmed in 24fps, I'm not sure converting it to 48 fps will actually do anything unless they're doing something awful like creating "interpolated" frames instead of repeating every frame. Hoping for the best.

Whatever it is they've done, a new post on that thread says that it is distracting. And they've scrubbed the grain. Here's hoping that, if it does get licensed, they can rescue it by going back to an earlier step in the workflow.

[hearthesilence]

That sucks. Sort of like crawling through a desert and finding an oasis, only to discover that some asshat has been using it as a toilet.

[Ribs]

Cannes classics lineup

[jsteffe]

Whatever it is they've done, a new post on that thread says that it is distracting. And they've scrubbed the grain. Here's hoping that, if it does get licensed, they can rescue it by going back to an earlier step in the workflow.

I think digital film restoration is still in its awkward adolescent phase. There is much excellent work being done, but also a lot of questionable choices regarding things like grain management and color grading/color management workflow. (And now frame rate, too???) As a result, there are far too many restorations out there with obvious technical problems, and they become the default versions that people will have access to for years to come. We desperately need more internationally agreed-upon standards and more accountability within the digital film restoration community.

[Costa]

Cannes classics lineup

Every time I open this thread I open it with fear.
Fear that i'll see some favourite films being restored by Eclair and Ritrovata, the worst studios that films have ever encountered!
And alas, it's like this now!!!

The Big Blue and Cyrano, probably took the teal turn!!

by the way, I thought Vertigo already had a 4K scan according to this:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=218262" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Petty Bourgeoisie]

With each directors cut, restoration or whatever, The Big Blue moves further away from the movie I fell in love with - the truncated U.S. version with Bill Conti soundtrack. Oh well, I still have my VHS copy from the late 80's.

Good to see the restoration of Rivette's La Religieuse is complete. Being a Studiocanal holding, any ideas on who might release blu rays for regions A and B? If it comes out looking "Ritrovata Teal", I'll freak out!

[knives]

Cohen has the US holding I believe.