I’d like a better restoration of Cross of Iron.
“Tom Jones”
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
I recently saw The Trial in theatres and supposedly it was one of the last prints still available. I don’t mean to complain because it was watchable but there were quite a few scratches and randomly purple splotches would appear. It is a great film that deserves restoration.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller. this was on a movie channel recently, and although i did watch it on a hi-def TV, which is probably part of the problem, the movie looked like shit. its such a great film, too i’m suprised no one has come to its rescue, be it Criterion, or IFC, or Turner, or the estate of Robert Altman, or whomever else saves classic cinema from obscurity.
The Marx Brothers films.
TOM JONES has been pretty well restored, hasn’t it? They put back all of the stuff that Tony Richardson so stupidly cut in the late 80s, and the current DVD looks great. Is there something missing?
Napolean (1926) — Dir. Abel Gance
that would be something
All of Satyajit Ray’s work, time hasn’t been to kind to his films.
Bunuel’s films from his Mexican period.
狂った一頁 (Kurutta Ippeji) One Crazy Page by Kinugasa Teinosuke
I find this interesting because the process is apparently quite needed.
I remember when they restored Lawrence of Arabia in the late 1980s because they had found the original negatives decaying in the old Columbia Studio vaults. A short time after that came the restorations of My Fair Lady and Tom Jones.
What scared me then — and now — is that first, none of these films are that old, and, second, all of them are ‘Best Film’ Academy winners! Think about it — if those films are in danger of destruction, what about those equally-wonderful-but-not-necessarily-as-popular titles? I mean, it’s Lawrence of Arabia for crying out loud!
Give real thanks to Lucas and Spielberg and crew for all the technology, effort and capital they infuse for most of these restorations.
Kusturica’s “Dom za vesanje / Time of the Gypsies”, which AFAICT has only had some crappy R5 release without English subtitles
Le Colonel Chabert
Les Miserables Claude Lelouche’s 1995 version
@Mike and Drew: Both The Trial and Time of the Gypsies are available in wonderful picture quality from France.
These films spring to mind:
Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles)
Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa)
Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Out 1 (Jacques Rivette)
A personal favorite of mine: La cicatrice intérieure (Philippe Garrel)
And I second all of Satyajit Ray’s work and Luis Buñuel’s Mexican period.
I’ll second The Magnificent Ambersons. It would be great to see the film how Welles intended, if his footage can be found. That goes for The Lady from Shanghai too. Although I have heard Bogdonovich say that all of Welles footage has been lost, and the film will never be seen as intended.
Rivette’s L’Amour fou
The print of it I saw, though somewhat watchable, was in really horrible shape. I think it would benefit very heavily from a restoration.
There are others that I’d like to see restored, but that was just the first one to come to mind.
Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation is facilitating a lot of restoration work on films from a number of different countries:
http://www.worldcinemafoundation.org/restoration_films-in-progress.html
Scorsese’s been instrumental in a lot restoration work on Hollywood films as well.
Christopher,
Yeah, it’s initially very surprising to find out that films like Lawrence of Arabia have deteriorated to that degree. The Eastman color stock manufactured until 1961 was very vulnerable to that kind of deterioration, though.
I’m still holding out that someone will find a decent print of London after Midnight that they can restore to its full glory. What remains is great, I want the rest.
—PolarisDiB
I second Abel Gance’s Napoleon
With Gance’s Napoleon, do you mean a DVD of the reconstruction/restoration that Kevin Brownlow has done?
@GREY DAISIES
The 2 French DVD editions of Time of the Gypsies are (true to form) with french subtitles only. (I checked on both Amazon.fr and FNAC.fr)
@Mike: Yes I think you’re right. But there’s hope somebody will pick it up for distribution and bring out an English-friendly DVD soon since Kusturica became quite well-known in world cinema.
Dracula and Bride of Frankenstein!
I sit corrected on Tom Jones. I wrongly recalled that there were some color-correction issues. Thanks for setting me straight, folks.
@GREY DAISIES: I’m quite surprised that with many DVD releases of his subsequent films, that this one was not picked up, when even the earlier “When father was away on business” (which surely launched his international fame) is easily available.
FREAKS.
My first choice, and one the No 1 film I would like to eventually see on Criterion, is The Trial. It is easily one of the most original and visually striking films ever made, but I have only ever been able to see it in crappy bootleg video and DVD. Its such a shame. The Magnificent Ambersons and Chimes at Midnight, and pretty much all of Welle’s non-Hollywood films, could use serious restoration. I’m continually surprised that Criterion (or anyone else) hasn’t devoted much energy to Orson Welles’ catalog. Its like there is a conspiracy to keep up the old popular impression that he never made anything great after Citizen Cane (except maybe Touch of Evil). CC did do that massive Mr Aradkin set, but unfortunately, I find that to be the least interesting of his European films. Hopefully they have some Welles’ works in the pipeline.
Someone else said McCabe and Mrs Miller- I totally agree. Awesome Altman film that could at least use a much better DVD release.
This is my first post…..
Field of Dreams. I know it is a somewhat new film, but it seems like the elements are not very good. The DVD versions and HD DVD version looked awful. I’m thinking the upcoming Blu ray will not look that good either.
Bertolucci’s ‘Strategia del rango’ 1970. Really hard to get hold of and no one ever shows prints because ‘il Conformista’ (made in the same year) gets all the attention. I’ve seen a few crackily VHS copies. The tracking shots and his framing are stunning and easily as good as anything in his later work. Blue ray or a cleaned up print would be great but i’d settle for a basic DVD release.
‘McCabe and Mrs Miller’ a good call to.
phil
“One Eyed Jacks