Martin Scorsese displaying a restoration
Film is a visual medium, and if you need further proof, you can look to how the medium began, with silent films. Or, you can look at what is left from the era that moved the focus of film to the United States, and eventually, to Hollywood. The Library of Congress estimates that 70% of feature films produced in America from 1911-1928 have been lost forever. This can be attributed primarily to neglect, as the nitrate base of celluloid which was the first commercially available film starting in the late 1800s, was extremely flammable and could even be used as a substitute for gunpowder. Many projection booth fires have added to the total of lost films, as well as fires at historical sites such as the George Eastman house.
Even as filmmaking has turned to digital recording and projection, there is nothing like having the physical reels available at your disposal, not only for viewing but for their historical significance. For example, it makes it more difficult for conglomerates to delete entire films or television series as a tax write-off. This is just part of the reason why restorations are so important.
Seven Samurai (1954)
At a/perture this year (so far), we’ve shown restorations of Seven Samurai, The Terminator, The Conversation, Nostalghia, Paris, Texas, and as of this upcoming weekend, Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates. Restorations are an involved process that often involves splicing together many different film prints to create the best possible complete version. Whether due to the degeneration of the nitrate or acetate films over time, or censorship by studios or governments, restorations take a lot of work and resources to bring films back to the same audio and visual quality they had when they were originally produced.
Personally, I look to a work like Micheaux’s The Symbol of the Unconquered from 1920. Micheaux’s work is the earliest surviving by a black filmmaker. In the case of Unconquered, however, most of the film still survives with the exception of a sequence where the Ku Klux Klan attacks the main characters. The entire scene has been lost to time. Micheaux’s style and creativity in this field (he is also an author) rivals any silent filmmaker of his time, in addition to his perspective and willingness to take on and depict hate groups in honest portrayals of black life at the time.
The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920)
That kind of story has been repeated all over the world, nearly for as long as cinema has been around. Especially in dictatorships, where censoring of art is much more common than it was in the United States. Whether for the sake of quality, or keeping a perspective on our history in the language of film, you can see why restorations and proper care are so vital for our film, and personal history.
One of the leaders of the restoration and preservation wave that began in the 70’s and 80’s was Martin Scorsese, who went on to found The Film Foundation, who in partnership with other organizations like the Academy Museum and the UCLA Archive, have saved over 900 films by restoring and informing on correct storage guidelines to make sure prints will last the test of time. These restored films are used to create DVDs, Blu-Rays, and streaming versions that make the films more accessible to more audiences.
Cinephiles like Scorsese, and George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Peter Bogdanovich, and many more came of age before so many films were readily available, often only getting to watch them while they were in theaters or revival houses, or by getting lucky in the early days of televisions in homes. We’re beyond lucky now to have it so easy, whether picking something from our very own ta/ke out shelves, or your local libraries, it’s easier than ever to delve into the rich, still young history of film. Or, maybe even coming by a/perture to see something as it was meant to be seen, in a theater.
Even when these are not screened on film, they are the closest possible version to capturing the filmmaker’s original vision, often supervised by the director or cinematographer, as is the case with many of The Criterion Collection’s releases of classic and notable cinema. There are so many ways to continue your education as a filmmaker, or just a film fan, and learn who your favorite modern filmmakers were influenced by and just as easily see for yourself why. Maybe you saw Seven Samurai, which led you to another Kurosawa film, say Hidden Fortress. Suddenly, that rogue, carefree samurai and the two bumbling sidekicks who start the story start to feel familiar, maybe like some droids you are looking for…