Recent Film Restorations

[Stefan Andersson]

Restorations of films by Bruno Barreto, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Glauber Rocha and others, Sept. 06-15 at Lincoln Center:
https://www.filmlinc.org/series/isso-e- ... ons/#films

[hearthesilence]

Restoring Burden of Dreams in 4K; scanned in 6K; original Nagra sound tapes also restored:
https://filmint.nu/4k-remaster-of-burde ... iam-blick/

7 Les Blank films have been remastered by Harrod Blank.

Interesting:

Anthony Matt: This kind of restoration takes time and patience. It’s kind of meditative. When you work on it you get maybe 1000 or 500 frames a day. We tried to get the film in three months for screening in Paris. We screened it with only 70% done and the audience loved it. They were blown away. It was almost like a before and after of a restoration.

In my opinion, the really unique thing is what Nick did. To completely remix a documentary.

Q: How many cities have you shown the new restoration of the film?

Harrod Blank: We did four cities and the number is growing. We are showing it in L.A. in September. This will be the first time it will be shown at its best.

So if Criterion releases a Blu-ray (or UHD?), it could theoretically look and sound better than what was screened at Film Forum?

[jmj713]

Can't seem to find a way to create a new post so I hope I can ask this sorta related question here. I find it very odd an annoying that a lot of the Blu/4K restorations remove original logos the films came out with. I can understand adding new logos for the restoration (though I would prefer restoration notes would be added after the feature), but I don't understand removing original logos. Like studios adding their current logos to old movies, it's so jarring and disrespectful to film history. I wonder if anyone's keeping track of these inconsistencies.

[hearthesilence]

I think part of it may be for legal concerns, though even those concerns may be debatable. For example, sometimes in fine-print they name an industrial conglomerate that did but no longer owns the studio. I know with music reissues, there was one specialty label (DCC Compact Classics) that got a lot of grief for replicating the logo to a record label (ATCO) that originally released a licensed album (Cream's Wheels of Fire) but no longer had any stake in it - the reissue still went out as-is, but the legal department for Polydor (the owners at the time) was not happy at all. This may apply to companies that change their name for various reasons - for example Warner Communications went out the door when the Time Warner merger happened.

[tenia]

I also think part of it has to do with it, but considering how things have been changing over the years, and that depending on who supervises what, you can get either the latest logo or the correct-for-that-time one, I always thought it also had to do (in a non-negligible way) with the company's general policy. And some are more sensible to being time-accurate, while others prefer for the presentation to reflect when it's re-released.

[jmj713]

It's very jarring getting a modern MGM logo with "mgm.com" for some 1970s or '80s movie.

[Roger Ryan]

It's very jarring getting a modern MGM logo with "mgm.com" for some 1970s or '80s movie.

The most recent MGM logo that is being used for older films has dropped the website address but features a CGI lion roaring which is just as jarring, if not more so.

[Stefan Andersson]

Mohammad Reza Aslani retrospective upcoming at MoMA; "14 newly preserved dramas and documentaries, some never before screened":
https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5740

[Stefan Andersson]

Restorations showing at Lumière 2024:
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... ssics.html
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... astes.html

Blackmail (sound version)
Kalamita (Chytilová)
Jaguar (Brocka)
Manolescu – Der König der Hochstapler (Tourjansky/Mosjoukine/Brigitte Helm)
Pépé le Moko
Tsuma wa kokuhaku suru (Masumura)
La porta del cielo (de Sica)
and more

[bottlesofsmoke]

Tsuma wa kokuhaku suru (A Wife Confesses) is great (and I believe a Rosenbaum favorite) so hopefully it gets picked up by a US or UK label, it certainly seems like a good fit with Radiance.

[Stefan Andersson]

Mary Pickford Foundation restorations, completed and planned:
https://marypickford.org/preservation-work/

List includes Sleep, My Love (1948), no info about whether this will be a new restoration.

[Stefan Andersson]

Report about the new restoration of The Atonement of Gosta Berling:
https://ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com/20 ... -1924.html
https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/e ... a-parte-i/
https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/e ... -parte-ii/

Relevant quote:
"this latest version from the Swedish Film Institute is not just a restoration of Gösta but a remix and extended cut being not only some 20 minutes longer than the 1975 restoration which most of us have only seen up till now via the Kino release, but also in a different narrative order with the party sequences and their two exiles are re-sequenced and there are variations elsewhere, with a more dynamic mix for the burning of Ekeby and Gösta’s rescue of Marianne, a longer intro and new intertitles that carry more of the original author’s poetic wonder."

[Stefan Andersson]

The Memory of Justice (Ophuls):
http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_s ... wing-58066

La Paloma (Schmid):
http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_s ... wing-58121

[yoloswegmaster]

Excited to see the new restoration for Awaara. Hopefully there are no issues with the restoration, as I remember the version playing on the Criterion Channel being horrendously DNR'd to death and audio sounding filtered to death.

Welp, it looks like it was hit with the DNR button. There are screenshots of the restoration where it's obvious that the grain has been removed

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The Memory of Justice (Ophuls):
http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_s ... wing-58066

I'm skeptical that this is the "new restoration" they claim it is, since the restoration credits are an exact match for the one that premiered in 2015 and subsequently aired on HBO.

[Stefan Andersson]

Restoration-related -- on use of orange & teal in remasters of Badlands, The Big Blue, The Game and others:
https://notonbluray.com/blog/orange-and-teal/

Atom Egoyan films, use of orange & teal in remasters:
https://notonbluray.com/blog/atom-egoya ... -and-teal/
https://filmfreakcentral.net/2012/07/th ... u-ray-dvd/
https://filmfreakcentral.net/2012/06/exotica/

[Stefan Andersson]

Lumiere 2024 festival -- detailed film pages now online, here is the Lumière Classics restorations page:
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... ssics.html

Three restored Masumura films:
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... gonie.html

Also:
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... astes.html
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... verse.html

[beamish14]

Lumiere 2024 festival -- detailed film pages now online, here is the Lumière Classics restorations page:
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... ssics.html

Three restored Masumura films:
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... gonie.html

Also:
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... astes.html
https://www.festival-lumiere.org/progra ... verse.html

Nice to see Tornatore’s Everybody’s Fine among the titles

[JSC]

Hope that Godard's Passion and Masumura's Manji get picked up
by a label somewhere along the way.

Always glad when Argentine cinema gets some attention. Very excited by Rosa at 10 O'Clock. I've
read the Marco Denevi novel and was curious to see the adaptation (he also wrote Secret Ceremony
which became the Joseph Losey film).

[Stefan Andersson]

Gorke trave, FRG, YU 1967, Živorad Mitrović
Hamida, GDR, TN 1966, Jean Michaud-Milanland
Die vier Gesellen, D 1938, Carl Froelich, w/ Ingrid Bergman
Ballade aux sources‹, FR 1965, Med Hondo, Bernard Nantet

https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/de/b ... estored-09

[beamish14]

Fresh Kill (Shu Leah Cheang, 1994)

[Stefan Andersson]

Le droit à la vie (Gance, 1917), 4K:
https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/48674.html

https://therealmofsilence.com/ - Sept. 20 post

[senseabove]

NBCUniversal's restoration slate for the year:


The Wiz
The Sugarland Express
Phantom Lady
Bend of the River
Charade
The Wild Party
Blazing Days
Till We Meet Again
Hell's Angels
Play it as it Lays

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Still surprised Play It as It Lays doesn't have a home video release. In the last few years, it feels like it plays LA every few months to sold out audiences. Is there some sort of right's issue with it?

[beamish14]

Still surprised Play It as It Lays doesn't have a home video release. In the last few years, it feels like it plays LA every few months to sold out audiences. Is there some sort of right's issue with it?

Even the clips in Griffin Dunne’s documentary on Didion look awful. I thought Frank Perry’s biographer said there were material issues? I’ve seen a beautiful 35mm print from Universal, too

There are so many titles from the studio that were produced during the late 60’s/early 70’s that are M.I.A.:

-Taking Off (Criterion went so far as to produce special features)
-Can Hieronymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Love? (Scorpion tried to license)
-Minnie and Moskowitz (Kino tried to license)
-Red Sky at Morning
-The Act of the Heart