Bad Prints of Old Films

Message

HerrSchreck · #1 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 9:53 am

This topic tickled about on a Rohmer thread, someone suggested making a thread out of it-- I'll light that fire gladly.

Justleblanc mentioned how he loves watching bad prints of old films... not neccessarily that this is his preference mind you, but that there is a very definite pleasure in this. Wow can I ever relate. I had mentioned someplace herein last week or so that there are old vhs's I have from tv broadcasts in the 1980's that floor me more than sparkling new dvd transfers.

Perhaps in this digital age it is difficult to explain to a modern youngster the rare joys of watching television when there were only three networks, a couple cruddy local stations inbetween, and public television. Despite getting terrible reception of an analog broadcast of terrible prints, watching great old monster movies, or vintage classics, or silents (phew!)when they'd come on in those burned out 16's... wow. You felt literally How Far Back In Time you were travelling by watching this stuff. It felt rarified, eerie, and completely compelling. Because you couldn't see all the details in the images which stunned you, you could walk around for years buying books, obsessed, peeking at old photos, reading the scraps of info that was out there (no 'Net), sitting in libraries, candy stores, working on the mysteries lurking behind that not-totally-defined epiphany.

The life process IS this kind of investigation. Becoming so overcome with fascination with something that you walk around for weeks, months, years, trying to figure out what it IS. It's a very wonderful life-shaping preoccupation with sublime mystery when you're young and Becoming Something. What takes you one Google process today took years of Going Out And Finding Out... whereby you travelled, left home due to extreme dedication, met all kinds of other journeyman weirdos with the same obscure self-religion, and in your quest to discover the things which are so easy to come by today, you grew, ate, fucked, expanded. Now you grow sitting behind your PC and never get up off your ass.

But the joy of bad prints is Mystery. How to explain how to explain to make them understand...? Hmmm.. lets say you're sitting in an empty cafe. You're a stereotypical horny hetero male (though the example can easily be modified for all). A gorgeous woman walks in dressed in classy expensive clothes which reveal an amazing shape but in conservative style. She sits down. She drops a pen and she bends over and you see a huge expanse of jiggly milky white cleavage and you're rivited. If she shows a little leg you can't stop looking. Put her on a topless beach in a thong bikini surrounded by other women in same getup and the peeks don't mean the same thing-- the mystery is gone. Doesn't mean you're not interested in a nice piece a trim anymore, just doesn't rivet you in the same "secret investigatory" way where you keep trying to See What You Can't See. Benny Hill once did a brilliant skit about this (Spock: "Sometimes Captain, wanting is better than having") whereby a woman sits down on a lounge chair and crosses her legs, opening the split in her skirt. Benny & his usual knuckleheads swirl about contorting themselves to get a view of some more leg... frustrated the woman stands up in a huff, whips off her outer clothes to lay back down in a bikini, whereby the men walk away, the thrill taken away.

The same principle is at play with prints of films. Your imagination goes to work on a bad print of a beautiful film that obsesses you, trying to fill in the grey areas; a clear print settles all questions (disappointingly in some cases) and nails the film to the floor.. and also removes the sense of the gigantic chunk of time sitting between the making of the old film and one's self today. Demystifying it a bit.

Some of the CC, BFI, Kino, MoC discs of former rarities settled so many questions I had about these films that it pretty much ended the dialog I'd been having about them for many years. These dialogs are sublime, and sad to see go.

That said, restoration is a Very Good Thing (obviously), and recapturing what has been lost about these masterpieces is the excellent payback of living in our time of increased audiences and easier access. If you can't get a good enough dialog going with yourself over a good print, you probably arent crazy enough about the films you're watching. The above is a reflection on the private little hazy netherworld that would rear up in my childhood when watching those old, bad prints, which I still go back to from time to time on certain films. Obsession city.

Antoine Doinel · #2 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:56 am

Great post Herr! And I agree some of that mystery of a old films has been diminished by Google and easily attainable pristine DVD prints (not that I'm complaining, but becoming a cinephile has become ridiculously easy).

The two big events of my young life were my parents getting a colour TV with a remote -- no more black and white TV with a dial to change the channels! And when we got our first VCR and I figured out how to program it. My Saturday mornings as an early teenager were spent pouring over the new TV listings that came with the newspaper and highlighting the movies I would tape (I don't quite remember how I feel into finding about classic movies - I guess that will always be a mystery).

He Walked By Night, To Have Or Have Not, The Stranger - these were all movies I first discovered taped from TV, on a cassette already many times over copied upon and watched while fast forwarding through the commercial breaks.

But this weird fetish isn't completely lost - any good video store will have tons of still only available on VHS domestic and international movies. A couple of years ago I lived very near to one such store and it was a real treat to go and rent Kusturica titles or Kurosawa titles that weren't yet on DVD. I'm pretty sure I also discovered the Marx brothers on VHS. There is a strange joy from the flickering tape, the not quite archival print - it does take you back in time, offering a glimpse into a film's greatness, not quite revealing everything.

I guess it's a cinematic peep show of sorts

Michael Kerpan · #3 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:57 am

I have watched some pretty dire copies of Ozu, Naruse, Shimizu et al. Do I enjoy the opportunity to (sort of) watch something I may never be able to see (or won't otherwise be able to see until much later) --yes. Do I enjoy the actual process of watching very very bad copies -- no really. If it hurts my eyes (head) to watch, it's not really fun -- in any nor,mal sense of the word. ;~}

portnoy · #4 Post by **portnoy** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 1:22 pm

Last night I watched a pretty hairy 16mm print of Lang's SPIES. It's a visually overwhelming film with a great mixture of gallows humor and thrilling spectacle. The fading and verticle scratches actually somewhat added to the experience, in a way - there's an extent to which print damage can produce unintentional avant garde effects (cf. Lyrical Nitrate) and with a filmmaker who works with such bold stylization as Lang, you get some incredible effects. I had the same experience a few years ago with a nearly totally wrecked 35mm print of Andrei Rublev. Obviously the ideal is seeing the films as the filmmaker intended, but to the extent that the audience can produce new meanings from adulterated texts, there's a lot a creative person can see with a 'bad print.'

Kinsayder · #5 Post by **Kinsayder** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 3:04 pm

I had similar thoughts when watching a copy of Gremillon's Petite Lise recently. The print was in a pretty grotty state, but in a curious and unintentional way the decayed quality of the sound and image contributed to the experience, evoking the atmosphere of a Svankmajer animation or David Lynch in Eraserhead mode. In the unlikely event that Criterion or someone else were to take a digital scrubbing brush to the film, I think I would still want to rewatch that old rat-nibbled version.

Of course, the same argument has been going on for ages about the restoration of paintings. Many preferred da Vinci's Last Supper as a magnificent ruin before it got the high-art version of a Criterion makeover.

Kinsayder · #6 Post by **Kinsayder** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 8:19 am

Yes, it was the RenÃ© Chateau VHS with the tinnitus whistle on the soundtrack. While I'm grateful to RC for putting out these old classics, the quality of the prints they've used is sometimes shockingly bad. Their edition of Marc AllÃ©gret's Orage is full of jumpcuts where someone has spliced over missing or damaged segments. Again, the effect seeps into your experience of the film, creating a kind of tension ("Where the heck is this scene going to go next?").

manicsounds · #7 Post by **manicsounds** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 5:12 am

I still buy old records. sometimes beat to shit ones too.
There is a difference to the sound of the original beat up vinyl
compared to the digitally-remastered-from-the-original-masters CDs

Watching a copy of "Back to the Future" on an old taped-from-TV in long play mode fullscreen version, there is a striking difference or quality (duh)

But the feeling of nostalgia is there.
Kids with the ipods dont understand it......

Ste · #8 Post by **Ste** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 9:43 am

manicsounds wrote:I still buy old records. sometimes beat to shit ones too.
There is a difference to the sound of the original beat up vinyl
compared to the digitally-remastered-from-the-original-masters CDs

It's called compression.

tryavna · #9 Post by **tryavna** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 10:53 am

manicsounds wrote:But the feeling of nostalgia is there.
Kids with the ipods dont understand it......

Just think, though. When music is being pumped directly into our brains via microchips some day, they'll be the ones to wax nostalgic over ipods and headphones.

skuhn8 · #10 Post by **skuhn8** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 12:50 pm

yup. reminds me of a pal of mine who has a pile of Tom Waits and Bob Dylan LPs with pops and hiss, even remnants of clay worked into the grooves from his home ceramics days. When I asked him why doesn't he replace them with CDs his reply: "What, took me years to get them just right!"

Antoine Doinel · #11 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:14 am

This twenty second, three strip color test clip of the Marx Brothers on the set of Animal Crackers probably won't be getting better any time soon.

Enjoy!

miless · #12 Post by **miless** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:19 am

a few months ago I went to a screening of Altman's Three Women and the print was terrible...
I know that the film had some pink hues to it... but this print was ALL PINK... and the bits that weren't were urine yellow... great film, but what a scratchy, pop ridden weird (WEIRD!) print... it made the whole film even more surreal (especially with that purple wave machine)

MichaelB · #13 Post by **MichaelB** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 4:02 am

Guy Maddin fetishises bad prints of old films so much that he tries to get his own films to look similar.

I saw Careful four times in British cinemas - the same print, of course: it didn't exactly get a 200-print multiplex release - and every time it looked "better", the intentional fake damage being enhanced by unpredictable real damage.

I mentioned this to Maddin when I interviewed him, and he couldn't have been happier.

LionelHutz · #14 Post by **LionelHutz** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:09 am

I remember I first experienced Citizen Kane through a vhs with a disgraceful,disgraceful print!
Not only it was the italian version (dubbed,twenty minutes cut,herrman soundtrack replaced) but really the condition of the copy was laughable..There wasn't a single frame without hundreds of scratches..and one time there was even a huge X written on the film which stayed there for a good minute or so..

I managed to appreciate the film anyway,but not to the fullest extent really.
And I when I watched the warner dvd it was like a revelation to see all that lost detail and the powerful lights and shadows.
So while I partially agree with the poetry of bad prints I don't think I would trade my warner (or universal region 2) dvd with that old'n cheap vhs!

Sorry for my english

Antoine Doinel · #15 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 9:24 am

Welcome to the forum -- love the avatar!

LionelHutz · #16 Post by **LionelHutz** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 12:11 pm

Thanks!

Don't know if I was supposed to introduce myself,but I can fairly say I'm also a criterion feticist.
Have always been too lazy to post though!

Joe Buck · #17 Post by **Joe Buck** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 4:29 pm

I saw Citizen Kane earlier this year at an original RKO Palace. It was a dirty old print of the film and I LOVED it. Having it in pristine condition on DVD is nice, but getting that feel of the old movie houses is such a treat. When young Charles is outside playing in the snow it looks like he's standing in a black sleet. A fantastic experience.

#18 Post by **zedz** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:47 pm

miless wrote:a few months ago I went to a screening of Altman's Three Women and the print was terrible...
I know that the film had some pink hues to it... but this print was ALL PINK... and the bits that weren't were urine yellow... great film, but what a scratchy, pop ridden weird (WEIRD!) print... it made the whole film even more surreal (especially with that purple wave machine)

Colour stock from that vintage is notoriously prone to this. I had the dubious privilege of a highly ironic screening of Raging Bull with similar issues. The film was made at the time that Scorsese was going public about the shocking condition of colour stock and the risks it posed to film heritage, and he has claimed the film was shot black and white partly because he thought it would have a better chance of surviving. The print I saw had been blithely printed on exactly the problematic colour stock Scorsese was railing against, and it had become magenta-and-white over the years (with the whites blown way out).

However, in general I much prefer seeing any film in a cinema, on film, than on DVD, however damaged the print or pristine the transfer. If the print was a good one in the first place, the patina of age just enhances the experience for me. (Bad prints, needless to say, don't age well!)

miless · #19 Post by **miless** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:55 pm

zedz wrote: Colour stock from that vintage is notoriously prone to this. I had the dubious privilege of a highly ironic screening of Raging Bull with similar issues. The film was made at the time that Scorsese was going public about the shocking condition of colour stock and the risks it posed to film heritage, and he has claimed the film was shot black and white partly because he thought it would have a better chance of surviving. The print I saw had been blithely printed on exactly the problematic colour stock Scorsese was railing against, and it had become magenta-and-white over the years (with the whites blown way out).

that's kind of funny because Raging Bull was shot in color then transferred to black and white (you can find film stills made from the original print with DeNiro boxing in color)
the reason he switched it to black and white was due to Michael Powell pointing out that the color of the boxing gloves was wrong (as old style gloves were much darker than the red/orange modern gloves)
if you compare it to The Elephant Man (actually shot in B&W) from the same year it is like night and day (how grey the over-all tone of Bull is compared with EM)
Taxi Driver, too, is in terrible shape... as the negatives were nearly corroded by the time Scorsese started getting involved in restoring classic films (the mid 80's!)

Via_Chicago · #20 Post by **Via_Chicago** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 5:58 pm

However, in general I much prefer seeing any film in a cinema, on film, than on DVD, however damaged the print or pristine the transfer. If the print was a good one in the first place, the patina of age just enhances the experience for me. (Bad prints, needless to say, don't age well!)

While I disagree with everyone's enjoyment of bad prints (although I'm much, much more tolerable of a bad 35mm print than even a mediocre 16mm print), I agree with the above sentiment wholeheartedly. I LOVE watching films in the cinema, regardless of print quality.

LionelHutz · #21 Post by **LionelHutz** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 8:10 pm

Via_Chicago wrote:
While I disagree with everyone's enjoyment of bad prints (although I'm much, much more tolerable of a bad 35mm print than even a mediocre 16mm print), I agree with the above sentiment wholeheartedly. I LOVE watching films in the cinema, regardless of print quality.

Can't help but agree with that.
35mm print on a big screen can't be compared with the home experience..no matter how clean and shiny the print of the disc is!
But I'm curious if someone is actually nostalgic about watching faded pan&scan prints from old tapes.I remember those days with a smile and I found some charm in the experience..Still,I guess I got to spoiled by the likes of Criterion,Warner MoC etc..
Watching the clean and restored copy of "Once upon a time in West" (just to name a film I never had the chance to see properly) was really a revelation.

#22 Post by **zedz** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:05 am

LionelHutz wrote:But I'm curious if someone is actually nostalgic about watching faded pan&scan prints from old tapes.I remember those days with a smile and I found some charm in the experience..Still,I guess I got to spoiled by the likes of Criterion,Warner MoC etc..
Watching the clean and restored copy of "Once upon a time in West" (just to name a film I never had the chance to see properly) was really a revelation.

No nostalgia for the experience, but I also first saw Once Upon a Time in the West in an extremely frustrating full-screen P&S TV print. I still liked the film (at least I had some idea what I was missing), but it's one of my most radically compromised encounters with a film. Stillness and expansiveness replaced with robotic movements and claustrophobia.

Another perverse compromised screening: Shindo's Children of Hiroshima with the film burning up in the gate five minutes before the end. I raced to alert the projectionist only to find the booth (and entire front-of-house) deserted, so I had to project the end of the film myself!

I also experienced an oddly appropriate burn-up in Warhol's Bike Boy. This was my first and I initially thought it was a really weird but sort of cool intentional effect.

Sloper · #23 Post by **Sloper** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 7:22 am

I don't know if this really counts, but I actually prefer my ghosty old taped-off-BBC4 VHS of Sansho the Bailiff, with the BFI subtitles, to Criterion's new pristine, subs-for-every-line (including all the lyrics to Tamaki's song!) edition, which I'd been craving for five years.

It kills me to say this, but the less perfect edition is the one I fell in love with and have been watching for years. I honestly think the BFI's subtitles capture what I feel to be the spirit of the film better than Criterion's, even though I'm sure Criterion's are more accurate (don't speak Japanese so am not really sure, but it's Criterion, so, y'know...).

But it's more than that. I realised while watching the new edition that I don't care all that much about whether or not the picture is absolutely pristine. Sure, I'd love a restoration of the 47 Ronin because my DVD of that looks atrocious to the point that it mars the viewing experience (and the subtitles are yellow and really desperately inaccurate, and so on) - but my video of Sansho is perfectly watchable. And, more importantly, it's the film as I've always known it. Now I feel like I've paid $30 to have my girlfriend digitally restored and given improved diction and posture...and I want the old one back!

Michael Kerpan · #24 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:19 am

I am sure one can get used to anything. but I can't imagine anyone growing too fond of the Sansho available to those of us in the US during the video era. The video here was dark and murky. The French DVD was a huge improvement for me (despite only French subtitles). ;~}

Unless a restoration has damaged a film by over-cleaning and over-processing,, I cannot feel nostalgia over a previous, grungy and damaged incarnation.

LionelHutz · #25 Post by **LionelHutz** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:37 am

Unless a restoration has damaged a film by over-cleaning and over-processing, I cannot feel nostalgia over a previous, grungy and damaged incarnation.

I think it's all about nostalgia.
I also keep some old worn out VHS of films I used to watch over and over like Nashville (Pan&scan abomination),Taxi Driver (you know the scene which they desaturated to make MPAA happy? the whole print looks far more desaturated than that..almost B/W,which surely adds to the gritty atmosphere but it's annoying nevertheless) and The Conformist (whole film has a reddish tint).
I can't say I really watch them anymore,except to look back and remember the days when being a film buff wasn't easy at all (used to spend crazy money to import widescreen copies from Japan).
There was a lot of charm in hunting for obscure films,it really gave an "aura" to the movie which got lost now that,more or less,everything is available.