Recent Film Restorations

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1401 Post by Matt » Thu Dec 19, 2024 3:25 am

Sadly, these restorations have been around for a few years. Janus Films has the rights here in the US and showed them in a few major cities before quietly dumping them onto the Criterion Channel.

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Aunt Peg
Joined: Fri Dec 21, 2012 5:30 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1402 Post by Aunt Peg » Thu Dec 19, 2024 3:59 am

Matt wrote:
Thu Dec 19, 2024 3:25 am
Sadly, these restorations have been around for a few years. Janus Films has the rights here in the US and showed them in a few major cities before quietly dumping them onto the Criterion Channel.
That is such a shame. They would make a great Blu Ray box set.

MacVouty
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2024 7:15 pm

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1403 Post by MacVouty » Thu Dec 19, 2024 6:56 pm

Stefan Andersson wrote:
Fri Nov 08, 2024 2:12 pm
Le notte bianche (1957), plus other unnamed Cinecittà restorations of Mastroianni films:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5776
Update - in 4K:
White Nights
Peccato che Sia una Canaglia (Too Bad She’s Bad)
La Fortuna di essere donna (Lucky to be a Woman)
Matrimonio all’italiana (Marriage, Italian Style)
Una giornata particolare (A Special Day)
Il bell’Antonio (Handsome Antonio)
Todo Modo
Ieri, oggi e domani (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow)
https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/10138
[/quote]

I saw Le notti bianche at the Museum of Modern Art yesterday and it looked pristine. The movie, though, was a bore, I thought.
Image
Last edited by MacVouty on Fri Dec 20, 2024 2:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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dadaistnun
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:31 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1404 Post by dadaistnun » Fri Dec 20, 2024 1:43 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
Tue Dec 10, 2024 10:18 pm
Thanks.

I keep hoping for an English-subbed Salamandre.
The restored version popped up at Le Cinema Club this week: https://www.lecinemaclub.com/now-showin ... alamander/ Instead of the usual seven days, this will be up through January 9.



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Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1407 Post by Finch » Sat Dec 28, 2024 11:03 pm

Dark City's DoP confirmed on Instagram that he's been working on a 4K restoration.

Calvin
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:12 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1408 Post by Calvin » Thu Jan 02, 2025 5:14 am

The new restorations screened this year as part of A Season of Classic Films, a programme to raise awareness of the work of European film archives. They include a 4K restoration of Bulgarian masterpiece The Peach Thief, Joe May's Dagfin, Milano Calibro 9, Pantelis Voulgaris' Happy Day, films by experimental Irish filmmaker Flora Kerrigan, and Gloria - the directoral debut of Manuela Viegas, who is perhaps more famous as editor of Pedro Costa's Blood and Joao Cesar Monteiro's Silvestre.

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Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1409 Post by Finch » Thu Jan 02, 2025 6:53 pm


beamish14
Joined: Fri May 18, 2018 3:07 pm

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1410 Post by beamish14 » Sun Jan 05, 2025 8:27 pm


Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1411 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sat Jan 11, 2025 2:15 pm


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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1412 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Jan 11, 2025 2:30 pm

Stefan Andersson wrote:
Sat Jan 11, 2025 2:15 pm
Chameleon Street:
https://arbelosfilms.com/films/chameleon-street/
This is actually a few years old and is available on Blu-ray.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1413 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sat Jan 11, 2025 5:48 pm

hearthesilence wrote:
Sat Jan 11, 2025 2:30 pm
Stefan Andersson wrote:
Sat Jan 11, 2025 2:15 pm
Chameleon Street:
https://arbelosfilms.com/films/chameleon-street/
This is actually a few years old and is available on Blu-ray.
OK, thanks for the update!

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1414 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Jan 11, 2025 11:33 pm

I saw the new restorations of Věra Chytilová's Kalamita (Calamity) and Robert Wiene's Raskolnikow and both looked wonderful.

The former is a real gem and it's my first time seeing Bolek Polívka, who I didn't realize was a mime - while his performance is loaded with physical bits, they're all so organic and naturalistically executed that they seem to play like everyday reactions to frustrating scenarios. Highly entertaining film all around.

Raskolnikow is amazing to look at for the sets alone, and surely none of the old video transfers out there do it justice. The opening credits make it clear that this was yet another painstaking restoration where it had to be assembled from multiple sources sent to different countries. Unfortunately (or perhaps not so unfortunately) this is also another example of a silent film that produced additional negatives for foreign distribution. I can't remember if they said multiple cameras were used or if they simply assembled the foreign negatives from alternate takes, but the German version is clearly lost. Without complete documentation, this is basically their best effort at a reconstruction - new German titles had to be created, sometimes without the benefit of a script which means they extrapolated the words from different sources, including the original novel. At least one scene is clearly missing as it's explained almost entirely by a title card, and yet the restoration's running time is longer than what's been documented of the German version, so it's possible additional scenes were sent overseas, possibly ones that couldn't get past German censors. Regardless, this means quality isn't necessarily uniform from shot to shot, but it looks great overall with plenty of close-ups looking especially stunning. Perhaps the real find once again is the lead actor, Gregori Chmara, and it's astonishing how his face stands out next to others, possibly aided by make-up - he simply has deeper features, as if every wrinkle was like a crevice, and it seems apiece with the Expressionist sets. At times he even has a passing resemblance to Daniel Craig, which brings to mind one rave notice when Craig was cast as James Bond - that he was the first Bond actor who looked like he could kill someone from his expression. AFAIK, this film was actually made to present what was then new approaches to acting by Konstantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theater (maybe for the first time in a film?).

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1415 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sun Jan 12, 2025 3:17 pm

Specifics about Raskolnikow, as per Stefan Drössler:

"Today only foreign versions of the film have survived, all of
which are incomplete and significantly shorter than the German
censorship length of 3168 metres. In 1991 the Nederlands (now
Eye) Filmmuseum created a reconstruction based on a Dutch
nitrate print, supplemented with footage from a Russian copy
from Gosfilmofond, into which parts of an Italian version from the
Cineteca Italiana in Milan had already been incorporated. For the
new reconstruction, in addition to the original nitrate print from
Italy, a dupe negative of the American distribution version was
used, which contained previously unknown scenes and, above all,
better shots from the A negative, while the Dutch and Russian
material came from a B negative and a C negative.
Unfortunately, no detailed synopses, screenplay, original score, or
censorship files are known to exist which could help to recreate
of the original version of Raskolnikow. As contemporary critics
emphasized that the film “faithfully followed in the footsteps of
its poet, most of whose text had been used verbatim in the titles”
(Lichtbild-Bühne Nr. 44, 3.11.1923), the 1912 German translation
of the novel by Hermann Röhl had to serve as the basis for the
reconstruction. The wording for the texts of the intertitles was
also taken from this source"

https://www.giornatedelcinemamuto.it/wp ... LowDef.pdf - see p. 13

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spectre
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2011 4:52 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1416 Post by spectre » Sun Jan 12, 2025 5:34 pm

The Sealed Soil is a wonderful film – I hope that means we'll be getting it on disc or maybe retrospective screenings soon. (The restoration seems to have missed the boat on the 2023 MoMA pre-revolution Iranian retrospective and its various spinoffs around the world.)

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1417 Post by Stefan Andersson » Wed Jan 15, 2025 2:05 pm

Berlinale Classics 2025:
https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/news-p ... 60875.html

Includes:
Solo Sunny
The Goddess (Ruan Lingyu)
Hell´s Angels, 1930
The Paradine Case, 114 min. verson
Seisaku no Tsuma, Masumura
Dirty Harry

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1418 Post by Stefan Andersson » Fri Jan 17, 2025 2:44 pm

Dying (Michael Roemer, 1976), 4K:
https://filmforum.org/film/dying

Interview with Silver Salt Restoration - discussion of Hitchcock silents:
https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=35832

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1419 Post by Stefan Andersson » Mon Jan 20, 2025 3:36 pm

Happy Day, Pantelis Voulgaris:
https://www.calameo.com/fiaf/read/000918540e237763aa3f9

Die Verkaufte Braut, Ophuls
Der Träumende Mund, Czinner
https://www.calameo.com/fiaf/read/000918540e237763aa3f9

Gahanu Lamai, Sumitra Peries:
https://www.calameo.com/fiaf/read/000918540e237763aa3f9

suppose (1964), student film with Stacy Keach, based on the poem by e.e. cummings:
https://www.calameo.com/fiaf/read/000918540e237763aa3f9

Sun and Shadow (Bulgaria, 1962):

https://www.calameo.com/fiaf/read/000918540e237763aa3f9

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1420 Post by Stefan Andersson » Fri Jan 24, 2025 2:14 pm

Some upcoming French restorations (financial grants decided Nov. 14, 2024):
À vendre, Laetitia Masson
Cigalon, Pagnol
Danger de mort, Grangier
Elle court, elle court, la banlieue w/ Annie Girardot
En avoir (ou pas), Masson
Je suis venue te dire, Masson
Josette, Christian-Jaque
Jour de Fête
Carnival in Flanders, Feyder
Le quai des brumes, Carné
Les vacances de M. Hulot
Maria Chapdelaine, Duvivier
Merlusse, Pagnol
Mon oncle
Napoleon, Guitry
Several Raymond Depardon titles
Prix de beauté (Miss Europa) w/ Louise Brooks
Reichenbach shorts

Source: https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/aides ... ine_190901

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andyli
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 4:46 pm

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1421 Post by andyli » Sat Jan 25, 2025 5:15 am

Alas… here comes the next round of Tati upgrades.

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1422 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Jan 25, 2025 10:45 pm

Stefan Andersson wrote:
Fri Jan 17, 2025 2:44 pm
Dying (Michael Roemer, 1976), 4K:
https://filmforum.org/film/dying
FWIW, I saw this - great-looking restoration - and it's a very powerful film, pretty much living up to my highest expectations based on what I've read and seen from Roemer. The Q&A was very emotional for him, so some spoilers...
SpoilerShow
One thing he kept mentioning was how he neglected his family as a filmmaker, implying that even though we may think of this film as a tremendous work of compassion and sensitivity, he was neglecting his own family to create this. He doesn't go into detail and apologizes for sharing this, but he says it's what's on his mind.

No one wanted to give him a grant for this film. So ultimately, he used the easiest trick in the book - he lied. I forgot who was giving him the money, but he told them he was making something else, then went ahead and made this.

He was very close to these people, and I imagine it was impossible not to be, given they were allowing him to film their final months, weeks or even days. The first person, Sally (who was 46), loved being on camera. When she lapsed into a coma (and all of the footage seen in the film occurred before this happened), Roemer and his cameraman went to see her, and as Roemer held her hand ("more for my sake than hers") he was startled to hear her say "why" and quickly told her mother as she hadn't spoken up in a while. The cameraman went to see her and she did it again, and they believed she was asking "why didn't you bring the camera?" (They had come only because they wanted to visit her, not to film her.)

The segment on the second person, Bill, focused mostly on his wife, and the Q&A probably focused more on her over anyone else partly because she stands out so much - she's actually the only person still in contact with Roemer, and he said he talks to her about once a year. What the film doesn't reveal is that she was an abandoned child and sent to live elsewhere in her youth, so what we see in the film is her believing she was being abandoned again. Roemer simply said it's hard to explain these things, but regardless she's very open about her negative feelings throughout that part of the film and later Roemer told her if she didn't like what she saw, he wouldn't release the film. When she viewed the final cut, she believed a lot of people were going to hate her but didn't care, or rather completely accepted that, and didn't oppose releasing the film.

Finally, Rev. Bryant actually asked Roemer to help him write his memoir, and Roemer said he couldn't because the film was going to take up all of his time - however, he apparently was discussing Bryant's potential participation and he made it clear that if he was in the film, Roemer would be telling his story, just not on paper. The first scene with Bryant is actually when his doctor gives him the bad news, and Roemer actually knew what the doctor was going to say ahead of time - I can't remember if he explained how that happened, but regardless, after he filmed the scene, Rev. Bryant actually asked Roemer "how did I do?" as if conscious that he was kind of an actor in a movie.
One thing that he mentioned was that two of his colleagues hated the film. (I think he said these were his colleagues at Yale.) One said he violated an unspoken contract or agreement and another used to invite him regularly to functions but completely stopped and presumably shunned him after seeing the film. He didn't go into much detail about these reactions, and as curious as I was about them, I didn't feel like prying, but it brought to mind the hostile reactions some critics gave the direct cinema filmmakers back in the day. (Dave Kehr comes to mind as someone who was very critical.) The grievances they had feel so small compared to what's being done regularly in the worst and most common "documentaries" being made today.

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1423 Post by hearthesilence » Sat Feb 01, 2025 4:01 am

Thought I'd add a few more things from the restoration festival.

Closing night presented Charlie Chaplin’s World War I comedy Shoulder Arms, and per MoMA, "when Chaplin went to [re-]release it for use by the US Army during WWII he found that the original negative had been damaged beyond repair, and he asked his longtime cameraman Rollie Totheroh to reconstruct it using outtakes and alternate footage. (The reconstructed version was released theatrically in 1959 as part of The Chaplin Revue.) This presentation is a work in progress from MoMA’s Department of Film that attempts to recreate the 1918 release using what footage does survive from the original prints, gathered from archives around the world. Though the anarchic spirit remains the same in both versions, there are significant differences between the original and the reissue. Some scenes were removed entirely, and the entire film was subjected to the process of 'stretch-printing,' a not-very-satisfying way of forcing modern sound projectors to imitate the slower frame rate of many silent films."

They actually projected slides packed with notes regarding the film's history (particularly what was done to the negative and what was recovered) before the showed the film. It's a pretty great-looking restoration when they had great materials to work with (which was most of the time), but they clearly needed to patch in material from various sources. There are even a few moments as short as a fraction of a second that needed dupes plugged in, but as noticeable as it was, I didn't find it too jarring, probably less so than having a jump cut.

A new restoration of Victor Nunez's A Circle in the Fire was also shown - I forgot he had been making films for so long as this one was originally released in 1974. They clearly had access to the negative and colors looked pretty good, but they definitely scrubbed it clean due to the lack of grain or, when it's present, the way it looks frozen on screen. About as heavy as grain reduction can get, IIRC the restoration of Ruby in Paradise was also similarly processed. Not my preference, but I get the sense this is how Nunez wants them to look, especially since the film stock used was much grainier than most.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1424 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sat Feb 01, 2025 8:39 am

More discussion of Shoulder Arms restoration here:
https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36884

The Swiss archive Lichtspiel/Kinemathek Bern has a project to locate and catalog all the surviving film prints of Shoulder Arms. Here are extensive facts about 72 prints found:
https://lichtspiel.ch/en/mash/

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#1425 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sun Feb 02, 2025 3:47 pm

For the record -- a restoration of Voice in the Wind (Arthur Ripley, 1944):
https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2019 ... d-krakatoa

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