Film heritage goes up in smoke and hits locally.
On today’s Around Noon, an arts program on Cleveland’s public radio station, Cleveland Cinematheque Director John Ewing discussed the programming problems that resulted from the catastrophic fire at the Universal backlot in June. While Ewing said that he was able to get prints of 4 of the 5 films that went up in smoke, he mentioned that he had to cancel a screening of Abel Gance’s monumental Napoleon.
In his monthly Cinema Talk column, Ewing had this to say:
Robert Harris, the man who helped restore the movie over 25 years ago, told me that Universal’s Napoleon negative would require $40,000 worth of work before another print could be struck from it. Given the current economic environment, with digital projection of movies looming on the horizon, is that an investment any cost-conscious corporate executive is going to make?
That’s a sad and all too truthful rhetorical question. My heart wants to believe that Uni would pony up the dough to make a print of an essential classic like Napoleon. Considering that another studio, 20th Century Fox, just recently shut down its research lab, my head tells me otherwise.
Still there is a community that will see the importance of preserving film heritage regardless of the cost. It’s made up of the people who went wild when a nearly complete print of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis was discovered in Argentina earlier this year. Even with DVD and Home Theater, there is still nothing like seeing a film print projected on the big screen.
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