NOTES ON FILM & RESTORATION
12/20/2021In 1998, the Cineteca di Bologna and their laboratory L’Immagine Ritrovata restored Charles Chaplin’s The Kid, and that was the beginning of a great, essential undertaking called The Chaplin Project, undertaken in partnership with the Paris-based Association Chaplin. The goal is to restore and preserve all of Chaplin’s films and outtakes and to catalogue and digitize all of his papers. Thus far, the Cineteca has restored over 60 of Chaplin’s films. The Film Foundation has participated in four of those restorations—one title from Essanay (A Night in the Show) and three from the Mutual period (The Count, The Pawnshop and The Cure—TFF also collaborated on an earlier photochemical restoration of that film and The Floorwalker with MoMA). The Cineteca has also made vast portions of his archives available online (link below) and published Chaplin-related DVDs (including the great Kevin Brownlow’s amazing 1983 documentary Unknown Chaplin) and books, including his 1948 novella Footlights (precursor of Limelight) and Chaplin scholar and biographer David Robinson’s book about Chaplin’s unmade final film, The Freak.
About ten years ago, there was a screening of The Gold Rush at The New York Film Festival with a great live score (following Chaplin’s original) conducted by the estimable Timothy Brock. I decided to go, figuring I’d have a good time revisiting the film. I found myself absolutely entranced. After the film was over, the writer Larry Gross and I were talking and he put it very simply: “Chaplin is just great, isn’t he?” I just nodded in amazement. I realize now that I’ve had the same experience almost every time I’ve gone back to a Chaplin film. You think you know them, that nothing could be more familiar. You think you know the gags, the cuts, even the moves. And then, suddenly, something jolts you, the tiniest detail, and it’s like you’re seeing the film for the first time again. Stanley Kubrick said it perfectly: “If something is really happening on the screen, it isn’t crucial how it’s shot. Chaplin had such a simple cinematic style that it was almost like I Love Lucy, but you were always hypnotized by what was going on, unaware of the essentially non-cinematic style. He frequently used cheap sets, routine lighting and so forth, but he made great films. His films will probably last longer than anyone else’s.”
- Kent Jones
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http://www.charliechaplinarchive.org/en
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI6qtN8Huv0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GS4wFVdPEo
THE COUNT (1916, d. Charlie Chaplin)
Restored by Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata, in collaboration with Lobster Films and Film Preservation Associates. Restoration funding provided by The Film Foundation, the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation and the Material World Charitable Foundation.
THE CURE (1917, d. Charlie Chaplin)
Photochemical restoration: Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with funding provided by The Film Foundation.
Digital restoration: Restored Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata, in collaboration with Lobster Films and Film Preservation Associates. Restoration funding provided by The Film Foundation, the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation and the Material World Foundation.
THE FLOORWALKER (1916, d. Charlie Chaplin)
Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with funding provided by The Film Foundation.
A NIGHT IN THE SHOW (1915, d. Charlie Chaplin)
Restored by Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in collaboration with Lobster Films and Film Preservation Associates. Restoration funded by The Film Foundation, the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation and the Material World Charitable Foundation.
THE PAWNSHOP (1916, d. Charlie Chaplin)
Restored Cineteca di Bologna at L'Immagine Ritrovata, in collaboration with Lobster Films and Film Preservation Associates. Restoration funding provided by The Film Foundation, the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation and the Material World Charitable Foundation.
