Recent Film Restorations

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Stefan Andersson
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#201 Post by Stefan Andersson » Wed Jan 23, 2019 8:13 am

On Sjöström´s Judaspengar (The Price of Betrayal, 1915):

in English, from the Pordenone 2018 catalogue:
http://www.giornatedelcinemamuto.it/en/judaspengar/

in French:
https://www.cnc.fr/cinema/actualites/la ... ace_873644



In France, the CNC discovered a Swiss nitrate distribution print of the film. It is almost complete, and contains two scenes originally cut by the Swedish Board of Film Censors.

"The film stock of the nitrate print shows that the intertitles, which are tinted and in both French and German, are from 1926, whereas the image material is from 1919, indicating that the print had a varied and long life (there is also an intertitle in French and Flemish)."

"Neither original title cards nor a Swedish list of intertitles survive. For this restoration, the film’s intertitles have been recreated using as a guide the studio’s German list of intertitles, preserved in the non-film collections of the Swedish Film Institute. The same design and font of intertitles from other films made by the same studio the same year have been used as a template. The editing of the resurfaced nitrate in the film’s final scenes has been corrected, using the title list and numbered copyright frames preserved at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, as a guide.
The digitization and image restoration was carried out by the CNC (Paris and Bois d’Arcy), and the reconstruction and re-creation of the Swedish intertitles by the Swedish Film Institute (Stockholm)."

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

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#202 Post by Stefan Andersson » Wed Jan 23, 2019 8:35 am

"Trapped" (Fleischer, 1949) has been restored by The Film Noir Foundation, using a 35mm print held at the Harvard Film Archive.

"Repeat Performance" (1947) and the Argentinian "Los tallos amargos" (1956) are other restorations (blu-ray releases planned).

"Trapped" will be shown at the 2019 noir festival:
http://www.noircity.com/

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

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#203 Post by Stefan Andersson » Fri Jan 25, 2019 4:01 pm

Hugh M. Hefner archive has restored "Something Good - Negro Kiss" (1898).

Go here and scroll down to see the short:
https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/rushes- ... e-blu-rays

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#204 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Jan 26, 2019 6:49 am

Stefan Andersson wrote:
Fri Jan 25, 2019 4:01 pm
Hugh M. Hefner archive has restored "Something Good - Negro Kiss" (1898).

Go here and scroll down to see the short:
https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/rushes- ... e-blu-rays
Which amusingly gets picked by Peter Labuza on the Cinephiliacs podcast Best of 2018 wrap-up (number 3, beginning at 50:16), double billed with If Beale Street Could Talk!

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

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#205 Post by Stefan Andersson » Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:24 am

This year´s UCLA Festival of film preservation:
https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2019 ... eservation

Includes The Crooked Way (1946) and other rare films noirs, The Mortal Storm (1940), Fantasma del Convento (1934), Alibi (1929), Enamorada (1946) and more.

Nine films by Marta Mészáros to be restored in Hungary by 2019 (no info on specific titles):
http://filmarchiv.hu/en/news/the-marta- ... e-classics

Stefan Andersson
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#206 Post by Stefan Andersson » Mon Feb 11, 2019 8:47 am

Psyché (1980), a Hungarian film, unfamiliar to me, co-starring Udo Kier, but the trailer make it seem very interesting. Newly restored 261-min. director´s cut (=TV version according to the ImdB, the original theatrical cut was 216 min.)

http://filmarchiv.hu/en/dvd/catalogue/view/psyche-1

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081254/al ... tt_trv_alt

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

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#207 Post by Stefan Andersson » Mon Feb 18, 2019 9:52 am

Program for the 2019 Toute la mémoire du monde festival at the Cinématheque, Paris:
http://www.cinematheque.fr/programmatio ... -2019.html

Featuring restorations of, among others,
Ragtime (French theatrical re-release announced)
O Pao (Manoel de Oliveira)
Latin American silents
Carné´s L´air de Paris (an Yves Montand song has been added to the main titles, over black screen)
House by the River, Lang
3 Musketeers (1921)
Never Fear, Lupino
Don Quichotte, Pabst

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

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#208 Post by Aunt Peg » Fri Feb 22, 2019 11:16 pm

May have already been reported on the thread but in case it hasn't Joan Micklin Silver's 1977 curiosity Between the Lines has been restored by Cohen Film Collection. The Hollywood Reporter have reviewed the film. I assume a Blu Ray release will occur sometime in the future:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/revie ... es-1189118

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

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#209 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sun Feb 24, 2019 1:16 pm

New program of Fox rarities:
https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5049?locale=en
Includes restored Borzage and Ford titles - Street Angel, Kentucky Pride, plus A Zoo in Budapest, Quick Millions and more.

djvaso
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#210 Post by djvaso » Mon Feb 25, 2019 2:20 pm

Jugoslovenska kinoteka with the financial support of Vip Mobile digitized and restored the following movies in "Vip Kinoteka" project:
1. Who's Singin' Over There? (Ko to tamo peva) (1980) Slobodan Šijan
2. When I Am Dead and Gone (Kad budem mrtav i beo) (1967) Živojin Pavlović
3. Special Education (Specijalno vaspitanje) (1977) Goran Marković
4. The Marathon Family (Maratonci trče počasni krug) (1982) Slobodan Šijan
5. The Beauty of Vice (Lepota poroka) (1986) Živko Nikolić
6. The Elusive Summer of '68 (Varljivo leto '68) (1984) Goran Paskaljević
7. National Class Category Up to 785 Ccm (Nacionalna klasa do 785 cm3) (1979) Goran Marković
8. Petria's Wreath (Petrijin venac) (1980) Srđan Karanović
9. Fragrance of Wild Flowers (Miris poljskog cveća) (1977) Srđan Karanović
10.Three Tickets to Hollywood (Tri karte za Hollywood) (1993) Božidar 'Bota' Nikolić

There is also Strangler vs. Strangler (Davitelj protiv davitelja) (1984) Slobodan Šijan in the pipeline but probably not in this project.

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yoloswegmaster
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#211 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Mar 13, 2019 4:42 pm

New restoration of 'This is Spinal Tap' is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival:https://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/t ... l-tap-2019

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Reverend Drewcifer
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#212 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Thu Mar 14, 2019 12:44 pm

Also at Tribeca, “Apocalypse Now” – 40th Anniversary & Restoration

Has anyone heard a peep about this?:

Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” will celebrate its 40th Anniversary at the Festival with a screening of a new, never-before-seen restored version of the film, entitled “Apocalypse Now: Final Cut.” Remastered from the original negative in 4K Ultra HD, the film will be brought to life with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, delivering spectacular colors and highlights that are up to 40 times brighter and blacks that are 10 times darker, and Dolby Atmos, producing moving audio that flows all around you with breathtaking realism. The Beacon Theatre will also be outfitted for this exclusive occasion with Meyer VLFC (Very Low Frequency Control), a ground-breaking loudspeaker system engineered to output audio frequencies below the limits of human hearing, giving the audience a truly visceral experience.

Nominated for eight Academy Awards, Francis Ford Coppola’s stunning vision of the heart of darkness in all of us remains a classic and compelling Vietnam War epic. Martin Sheen stars as Army Captain Willard, a troubled man sent on a dangerous and mesmerizing odyssey into Cambodia to assassinate a renegade American Colonel named Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has succumbed to the horrors of war and barricaded himself in a remote outpost. [Released August 15, 1979]

After the Screening: An evening with Francis Ford Coppola who will reflect on the film and discuss its elaborate restoration.

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aox
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#213 Post by aox » Thu Mar 14, 2019 1:05 pm

Final Cut? Disregarding the "work print", that would be the third cut. What else did Coppola put back into the film from the "work print"?

GoodOldNeon
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#214 Post by GoodOldNeon » Thu Mar 14, 2019 1:55 pm

As long as they also include the Theatrical Cut on the 4k UHD release I'm fine with whatever tinkering Coppola wants to do with this new cut. If, on the other hand, this is a Blade Runner situation where only the Final Cut is in 4k then I will be supremely disappointed.

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Reverend Drewcifer
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#215 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:00 pm

The 289 minute workprint (https://cinephiliabeyond.org/the-holy-g ... lypse-now/) contains so much more material than Coppola exploited in the Redux that it is conceivable that he could synthesize an entirely new cut than the previous two versions. However, having lived with the workprint in my collection for nearly 20 years, I can't conceive of a "final cut" that uses any or all of these extra scenes being better than the theatrical cut. Redux was a unique theatrical experience, especially with the sound system at full power at Columbus' Arena Grand, but I still fought sleep during the French Plantation sequence, and it sits unwatched on my shelf at home. Any variation of this film is an event, though. Between this and the promise of a new cut of Cotton Club, Coppola seems to be putting a period at the end of the more contentious phases of his career, maybe even on his own terms.

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#216 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:45 pm

I saw that "Encore" cut of Cotton Club a couple of years ago (and enjoyed it quite a bit), but my understanding is that the ridiculous rights issues around that film make it unlikely it will be released anytime soon.

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Reverend Drewcifer
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#217 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:13 pm

I have tried and failed to fully enjoy Cotton Club many times. The gangland plotline is performed too broadly for my taste, with Fred Gwynne making the only positive impression. The film has a highly-polished look that flatters chandeliers and burnished wood paneling, with a glow cast around everything and everyone like it was photographed by Allen Daviau. The whole thing looks and sounds well-cared-for, but it seems to wear its tortuous production history on its face. I always wanted more back stage showbiz story at the CC, and I always wanted the surrealistic ending to "work," whatever that means. Who cares what I want, though. What did you enjoy about it?

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aox
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#218 Post by aox » Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:53 pm

Reverend Drewcifer wrote:
Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:00 pm
The 289 minute workprint (https://cinephiliabeyond.org/the-holy-g ... lypse-now/) contains so much more material than Coppola exploited in the Redux that it is conceivable that he could synthesize an entirely new cut than the previous two versions. However, having lived with the workprint in my collection for nearly 20 years, I can't conceive of a "final cut" that uses any or all of these extra scenes being better than the theatrical cut. Redux was a unique theatrical experience, especially with the sound system at full power at Columbus' Arena Grand, but I still fought sleep during the French Plantation sequence, and it sits unwatched on my shelf at home. Any variation of this film is an event, though. Between this and the promise of a new cut of Cotton Club, Coppola seems to be putting a period at the end of the more contentious phases of his career, maybe even on his own terms.
I'm not sure anyone would argue with that. But as you said, there is still a good amount in the Work Print that wasn't poached for Redux. I have also had a copy of the Work Print for nearly 20 years, but the quality is so bad, I think I have only watched it maybe twice. It'd be cool to see some of the leftover sequences cleaned up for a proper release just for the mere curiosity (which was all Redux is to me as well). I was hoping that would happen for the BD release a few years ago at least in the form of deleted scenes (I didn't need a third cut).

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tenia
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#219 Post by tenia » Thu Mar 14, 2019 5:18 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
Thu Mar 14, 2019 3:45 pm
I saw that "Encore" cut of Cotton Club a couple of years ago (and enjoyed it quite a bit), but my understanding is that the ridiculous rights issues around that film make it unlikely it will be released anytime soon.
Cotton Club just received a French BD release, and indeed, it doesn't contain the new Encore cut (which is unfortunate because it also came newly restored, so the French release also doesn't use that but the older MGM master).

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Reverend Drewcifer
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#220 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Thu Mar 14, 2019 5:22 pm

The work print itself is indeed a two-Tylenol VHS-tracking nightmare to watch. As a repository of possible extra scenes and a rough sketch of a possible version, it speaks to the idea that, in spite of absolutely every difficulty, Coppola shaped the Theatrical Cut into the most thematically-resonant version he could. All of which is another way of saying that, yeah, including the extra footage in 4k would be a super-cool supplement, but the Theatrical Cut belongs in 4k as the main event.

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#221 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Mar 14, 2019 7:32 pm

Reverend Drewcifer wrote:
Thu Mar 14, 2019 4:13 pm
I have tried and failed to fully enjoy Cotton Club many times. The gangland plotline is performed too broadly for my taste, with Fred Gwynne making the only positive impression. The film has a highly-polished look that flatters chandeliers and burnished wood paneling, with a glow cast around everything and everyone like it was photographed by Allen Daviau. The whole thing looks and sounds well-cared-for, but it seems to wear its tortuous production history on its face. I always wanted more back stage showbiz story at the CC, and I always wanted the surrealistic ending to "work," whatever that means. Who cares what I want, though. What did you enjoy about it?
To answer that, let me quote from Coppola's written introduction to the Encore cut's debut at Telluride in 2017 (emphasis mine):
Director's Statement

As often happens, I came upon an object that brought back an entire chapter of my life. In this case it was an old Sony Betamax tape that had the recording of the original final version of The Cotton Club, the film I made in 1984 and which I had blocked from my memory due to the odd circumstances that surrounded it. When I say "the original final version," that means it was the form the film was in when I presented it to its financiers, distributors, and producers. The situation at the time was closer to "trench warfare" than any film I had worked on; the version was condemned as too long, having "too many black people," and with "too much tap dancing." The ownership of the film itself was the subject matter of a court case to determine who ultimately had control of it, and in addition to this confusion, there had been a murder related to a producer of the film, and the negative and film prints were constantly being jockeyed from office to secret office to avoid falling into the wrong hands.

Usually when I worked on a movie on which I supposedly had "final cut", the legal right to determine what form the film finally takes, I tried to be conciliatory to the opposition view. We made the film shorter, we took the emphasis off the black family story line, and we eliminated musical numbers, especially tap dance routines. The film that was finally released was about 2 hours and 7 minutes long, compared to my original final version which was 2 hours and 30 minutes.

When I screened this old Betamax tape for myself, I realized immediately that when a film is deemed too long, making it in fact shorter may make it play longer yet. It was meant to be a story of two main characters, one white and one black, and their families involved in and around the life of the Cotton Club, so diminishing the family life of Gregory Hines's character threw the balance of the story off-kilter. And losing many of the musical numbers, including the great "Stormy Weather" as well as the typical off-color specialty songs, eroded the historical portrayal of what the shows were really like.

After seeing this old tape, I became energized to find the missing parts and come up with a new version that would be much closer to what the intention of the film had originally been. I also realized that so many of the great members of the cast were gone, not the least being Gregory Hines, but so many others — Bob Hoskins, Fred Gwynne, Gwen Verdon, and Julian Beck — but beyond that sad fact, the cast was so full of talent: Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Lonette McKee, Nicolas Cage, Laurence Fishburne, James Remar, Maurice Hines, Novella Nelson, Allen Garfield, Jennifer Grey, and many other memorable performers.

Clearly, a film that stumbles into its world premiere in controversy and does less than stellar box office tends to remain stuck in its place, with few of those connected to it willing to spend the time and treasure it takes to make a restoration. I didn't know about the others, but I and my company American Zoetrope set about the daunting task to find the more than thirty minutes of lost negative, in some cases restoring it from old print material, and to restore, remix, and allow this film to re-emerge in a new and worthy edition.

This is The Cotton Club Encore, the film the world should have seen despite the countless court cases, murder trial proceedings, and warring producers.

— Francis Ford Coppola
Basically, I agree with Coppola that the film flows much more smoothly with the more equal weighting of the black and white characters, and the pacing feels more balanced in the longer version. Some of the musical numbers left out of the theatrical cut are among the best in the Encore version, and make the setting a vital part of the film rather than a curiosity. The Encore version is by no means a great film, but it's much closer to Coppola's best works than his worst, and unlike Apocalypse Now Redux — which I find a lot of value in but recognize its divisiveness — I think it's unequivocally better than the theatrical cut.

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Reverend Drewcifer
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Re: Recent Film Restorations

#222 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Thu Mar 14, 2019 9:21 pm

That's a very thoughtful answer to a convoluted question I wrote in between very stressful meetings. Many thanks! I hope to see the Encore version someday and revise my opinion of CC.

JakeStewart
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2019 10:44 pm

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#223 Post by JakeStewart » Fri Mar 29, 2019 9:34 pm

2K restoration of the full version of Christ Stopped at Eboli

http://www.rialtopictures.com/trailers

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

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#224 Post by Stefan Andersson » Wed Apr 03, 2019 1:00 pm

2K restoration of The Fate of Lee Khan:
https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=24893

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

Re: Recent Film Restorations

#225 Post by Stefan Andersson » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:47 am

The Murnau Foundation website is a treasure trove of info about restored German films.

I found this recently:


Munchhausen (1943) will be released on a German Bluray 2-disc set, containing:
-restored release version
-restored export version
-unrestored (?) first release version, taken from a print discovered in the Gosfilmofond archives. This print contains scenes cut from, or shortened in, the release version.

No English subs.

More info in German here:
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/news/muen ... erentdeckt

http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/stiftung/ ... enchhausen

in English:
https://filmcolors.org/2017/05/18/color ... nchhausen/


Käutner´s Grosse Freihet No. 7 restored, Bluray upcoming:
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/node/3782

Die Geiger von Florenz (Czinner, 1926) restored:
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/node/3373
https://www.berliner-kurier.de/berlin/k ... s-31145964


Interview in German with Anke Wilkening re: Lang´s Destiny:
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/der-muede ... -wilkening
And in English:
http://moviessilently.com/2016/08/26/in ... d-destiny/

Program notes:

Metropolis:
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/sites/def ... nkfurt.pdf

Chronik von Grieshuus:
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/stiftung/ ... -grieshuus

Niebelungen:
http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/sites/def ... enfwms.pdf

Also:
http://www.musik-heute.de/339/mittlerin ... wilkening/
https://www.filmhaus-frankfurt.de/Publi ... rpretation
Last edited by Stefan Andersson on Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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