Recent Film Restorations

[Stefan Andersson]

Part-Time Wife (McCarey, 1930) has been restored by UCLA (reel two missing), and will be shown in a Pre-Code series at MoMA:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/7550

Series also includes East Lynne (Lloyd, 1931), in "a 35mm print on loan from the UCLA Film & Television Archive. It was made from a preservation dupe negative of the 11-reel nitrate print held in UCLA's Fox archive, and is the only complete version of this Best Picture Academy Award nominee known to exist.": https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/7557

Full program:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5434

[Ribs]

Berlinale Classics 2022 line-up

[Matt]

Larks on a String!

[hearthesilence]

I caught these three Sergei Parajanov shorts and this excellent Otar Iosseliani documentary at MoMA - FWIW, these films weren't just screened but donated to the museum. They look marvelous, an incredible relief because as posted elsewhere the color timing on the current restoration for The Color of Pomegranates is horrendous, as seen on the Criterion Blu-ray. The 4K restorations of the shorts were done by a different team: Fixafilm (Warsaw) within the framework of the Hamo Bek-Nazarov Project (Paris). It's too bad they didn't do The Color of Pomegranates, the color here was perfect. Kudos to forum member jsteffen who of course has written quite a few published works on Parajanov - I caught his name in the credits (presumably as a consultant).

[FilmSnob]

Also a directed by Kinuyo Tanaka retrospective presented by Carlotta. I could see Arrow potentially releasing this in the US other than the fact a couple of the films are Toho releases.

Also a directed by Kinuyo Tanaka retrospective presented by Carlotta. I could see Arrow potentially releasing this in the US other than the fact a couple of the films are Toho releases.

A boxed set of all six films would be great!

I watched five of these in December-January, and alas, the only one I didn't get to see is The Moon Has Risen, which Ozu wrote and I think helped her direct. Since Ozu is my favorite director and that's probably the most Ozuian film ever made by anyone other than Ozu himself, I hope I can see it one day.

Out of the Kinuyo Tanaka films I did watch, there wasn't a bad one in the bunch, but two I really liked and the rest meh.

Eternal Breasts (1955)
Love Under the Crucifix (1962)

The Eternal Breasts is really her masterwork, everyone should see that one day. Might be the saddest movie I've ever seen, the last twenty or thirty minutes never let up and peak right at the last shot.

Love Under the Crucifix (starring Tatsuya Nakadai and Ineko Arima) also worthy of praise, and I just love how the final shot of Tanaka's directorial career almost exactly calls back to the final shot of Eternal Breasts -- just a completely different context. There's an ominous yet defiant tone instead of a sad one. Two good/great movies I would definitely watch again.

[WmS]

these three Sergei Parajanov shorts...were done by a different team: Fixafilm (Warsaw)

They're on Vimeo on Demand for rent in 4K here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/parajanovtriptych/432603219

They also have their 4K resto of Mayak available on demand, which looks fantastic. I don't know if that's the same one on the Second Run dvd, which says theirs is 2K.

[hearthesilence]

A new 4K restoration of Hiroshi Inagaki's 1943 film Muhōmatsu no isshō (aka The Life of Matsu the Untamed, more commonly known as The Rickshaw Man but not to be mistaken for Inagaki's own color remake of the same name from 1958) will be screening tomorrow at MoMA, and it's had quite a history. Found this at the edifying link, and the restoration documentary mentioned in it will also be screened with the restoration. FWIW, a Blu-ray edition has already been released in Japan.

A new 4K restoration of Kinuyo Tanaka's Forever a Woman (aka The Eternal Breasts) will also be screened tomorrow.

[hearthesilence]

Part-Time Wife (McCarey, 1930) has been restored by UCLA (reel two missing), and will be shown in a Pre-Code series at MoMA:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/7550

Full program:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5434

So at the last minute, I went to this, and by some wacky coincidence, Mike Reiss of The Simpsons fame was sitting two seats over from me. He was talking with someone in the row in front of us - quite a bit about Woody Allen's appearance on some podcast - and when I first heard him say something, not only was his voice recognizable from the DVD commentaries, he mentioned that James L. Brooks was always trying to cut down the length of The Simpsons movie, so much that they had to research how short the film could be and still be called a feature. (It was impossible not to hear - they were projecting their voices well and there wasn't exactly much noise in the theater as we were waiting for the film to start.) Anyway, it was kind of awesome that he was there given the film.

And the film was pretty good! Not great, it's clearly McCarey at a very early stage, but it had so many nice touches and even some hilarious visual comedy (the one that stands out is the very long take where Edmund Lowe takes his very first swings with a golf club). A shame reel 2 is missing but it's true, you don't get lost in the film - it's obvious that scenes are missing, but in terms of following the story, it's easy to pick up with what's there.

[Stefan Andersson]

Kühle Wampe (1932) has been restored, but scenes censored in 1932 are missing.

For a description of missing scenes, see p. 2 here (German text):
https://www.frankfurter-hefte.de/media/ ... berger.pdf

The Film Foundation´s 2020 report is now online. Contents include a resto of The Misfits, with day-for-night-scenes now correctly time for night; Guns of the Trees; Il Bidone; Accattone; La Strada; What Price Hollywood? (1932) from nitrate negative; Tap Roots (1948); Xiao Wu; Djibril Diop Mambéty´s Contras´ City and more.

Reports 2011-2020 all online: https://www.film-foundation.org/annual-reports

Reports 2006-2012 also here: https://issuu.com/thefilmfoundation

[Stefan Andersson]

Restoring La Llorona (Mexico, 1933):
https://www.elmanana.com/desafio-la-llo ... na/4895729
https://www.cinematecadebogota.gov.co/a ... r-fantasma
https://www.yucatan.com.mx/espectaculos ... 32398.html
https://www.sinembargo.mx/02-09-2019/3638753

List of restorations made for Nicolas Winding Refn´s site:
http://peterconheim.com/currentprojects

[Stefan Andersson]

Program for the 2022 Toute la mémoire du monde festival at the Cinématheque Francaise:
https://www.cinematheque.fr/cycle/toute ... 1-638.html
Restorations include:
Rules of the Game, a 2021 resto with Criterion as co-partner
Tarr´s Family Nest and Outsider
La Terre, André Antoine, a 2022 4K resto
Der Katzensteg, Lamprecht, 1927
Au-delà des grilles, Clément, 1948
Les Dragueurs, Mocky, 1959
Maddalena, Kawalerowicz, 1970
La Maison du Maltais, Chenal, 1938
Tu m´appartiens, Gleize, 1928
Three 60s films by Yuzo Kawashima

[Stefan Andersson]

Eaten Alive! (Tobe Hooper), The Cow (Dariush Mehrjui), Queen of Diamonds (Nina Menke) and Women in Love (Ken Russell, 4K) restored:
https://cinea.be/events/classics-restor ... ival-2022/
Eaten Alive! restored by Arrow Films and American Genre Film Archive from the OCN.

Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. (Spencer Williams, 1946) restored; cinema revival for The Bloody Child (Nina Menke):
https://wexarts.org/explore/cinema-revi ... toration-1

Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) restored in 2K by WB:
https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/34496.html

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

A 4K restoration of Jet Li's debut Shaolin Temple (1982) is being released in Japan on April 15th (trailer here). I get the impression there's something keeping this from a legitimate release in the West⁠—it's only been released on Blu in Japan and Korea and all of the (many) U.S. DVDs are clearly bootlegs.

[hearthesilence]

13 newly restored Pasolini films will be returning to theaters to celebrate his centennial.

[ryannichols7]

13 newly restored Pasolini films will be returning to theaters to celebrate his centennial.

let the boxset rumors begin...

don't know how likely it is but I'm sure there will be plenty of requests for it. if nothing else, I'm sure we'll see Criterion and BFI release a good few of these

[Stefan Andersson]

Bronco Bullfrog has been restored in 2K. For an HD trailer, go here and scroll down:
https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/rushes- ... ire-island

[Stefan Andersson]

For the record -- articles about restorations of Portrait of Jason and two Lois Weber titles:
https://www.chicagofilmsociety.org/2013 ... nis-doros/
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/05/68237205 ... 7193932431

[Stefan Andersson]

Lino Brocka´s "Cain and Abel" restored; released on bluray by Vinegar Syndrome´s Kani label:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film10/blu-ray ... lu-ray.htm

[tenia]

As a follow-up to the discussion in the Kino thread about this specific technicality : Carlotta in France will release soon the Sri-Lankese movie The Wasps Are Here, and the 4K restoration, performed by Ritrovata from a sole surviving 35mm print, is claimed to have required 4750 hours of work.

[Stefan Andersson]

Invaders from Mars (1953) restored by Scott MacQueen:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... ay.375409/
https://hollywood-elsewhere.com/restore ... t-to-land/

[Stefan Andersson]

Artus films in France is crowdfunding a 4K resto of Danse Macabre (Margheriti, 1964) in conjunction with rights holders LYRE. The OCN is deteriorating. For more info in French, go here and scroll down:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1677480212490284

[beamish14]

The Film Foundation, Turner Classic Movies, and Steven Spielberg teamed up to do a 4K restoration of George Stevens’ Giant

[hearthesilence]

Was there a music licensing issue with previous home viewing releases? IIRC someone claimed the DVD removed "The Yellow Rose of Texas" which had been used twice, the second time at the very end. I'm not sure if that was ever settled, but if not, this restoration at least gives them an opening to do so.

[MichaelB]

Presumably the problem was with the performance/recording rather than the mid-19th-century song?

[hearthesilence]

Presumably the problem was with the performance/recording rather than the mid-19th-century song?

I would imagine so. Regardless, I found this published in September 2008, written by Jonathan Rosenbaum:

"...the once-memorable and semi-audacious use of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” over the final credits — a very significant reprise of a song that plays over a climactic fistfight provoked by anti-Mexican behavior in the movie’s penultimate sequence — is no longer part of the movie on the DVD, presumably because the owners of the song rights demanded too much money."