Preserving classics

HOLLYWOOD REEL

The battle to save film treasures is an on-going race against time

The film heritage of the world is rich with films that inspire, entertain, educate and illuminate humankind. The movies contain our history and are one of our greatest cultural contributions. The work of the film makers represents the collective memories and dreams of the 20th and now the 21st century.

But the film image is most fragile. It is only with the greatest care and effort that the original integrity of the image can be maintained and preserved for the years to come. Until the early 1950s, motion pictures were produced on nitrate cellulose film stock. This stock is both highly flammable and gradually deteriorates into dust.

During the 1950s the motion picture industry adopted colour processes which were subject to irreversible fading over time. In addition, colour films produced prior to 1950 using stable, technicolor dyes are often only available in ageing prints produced with unstable stock. Even contemporary films, made on acetate safety stock, may begin to fade and deteriorate in less than 10 years if improperly stored.

Motion picture archivists use the term "preservation" to describe the work of transferring fragile materials such as nitrate or fading colour film to a more permanent medium. There is also a more complex preservation process termed "restoration" which involves the archivist's efforts to restore a particular work to its creators' original vision.

The battle to save our film treasures is an on-going race against time.

In the United States the major American archives house more than 100 million feet of film in need of preservation. Every day, new films are finding themselves at risk. Half of all of the motion pictures produced in the United States prior to 1950 have disintegrated and are lost, while only 10 per cent of the movies produced before 1929 exist in any form.

For shorts, documentaries, news reels and other independently produced and "orphan" films, the fate is much worse. There is no real way of knowing how much is missing from our motion picture history.

The Los Angeles and New York-based Film Foundation was created in 1990 by film maker Martin Scorsese and other eminent directors, including Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman and Clint Eastwood to foster a greater awareness of the urgent need to protect and preserve motion picture history.

To date, the foundation has raised and distributed over $5 million dollars to its member archives. These funds have supported the preservation and/or restoration of over 200 films and have helped preserve historical news reels and documentaries.

In India, the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) was established in February 1964, as a media unit of the ministry of information and broadcasting. Its objective is to acquire, preserve and restore the rich heritage of national cinema and the cream of international cinema.

The archive has made significant progress in the preservation of films, audio and video material, documentation, research and dissemination of film culture in India. The NFAI has had the benefit of having internationally renowned film archivist P.K. Nair as its head for three decades.

Nair has published several research papers on Indian cinema, film history, film theory and since his retirement has been working on a feasibility study project for UNESCO for setting up a film restoration facility centre in the Asian region.

The NFAI also functions as the main repository for Indian and foreign research workers for viewing film classics, relating to their research projects. The archive maintains a distribution library of 16 mm films which are loaned to over 300 film societies and others for non-commercial study screenings.

The NFAI in collaboration with the Film and Television Institute of India conducts an annual film appreciation course which enables film buffs, teachers, researchers, students and journalists to learn about cinema and its vital cultural role.

In 1950, French film maker Jean Renoir shot his first color feature "The River," a coming-of-age tale set against the elegant backdrop of India in Calcutta. A young Satyajit Ray had assisted Renoir in location hunting for the film. Sadly, all the prints of the films were lost. Fifty years after its original release and a painstaking restoration "The River" was screened in Hollywood on May 27, 2005.

The restoration was the result of collaboration among the Film Foundation, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association., the British Film Institute, the Academy Film Archive and Janus Films.

Unfortunately, Renoir, who died in 1979 in Beverly Hills, will never see his restored work, but his editor George Gale, the original editor of the film, was there to celebrate his 86th birthday and see the film on a large screen "� the colours and the lights and the frames.

"The River" has been saved and the cause of film restoration and preservation has made great strides in the past few years but there are many film classics in need of preservation at the major archives. There is still a significant amount of work ahead if cinema's treasures have to be preserved.

Lall is the president and CEO of LALL Entertainment, a company based in Los Angeles and New Delhi. He can be contacted at lallentertainment@hotmail.com