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- #Digital film restoration within archives archive
- #Digital film restoration within archives professional
#Digital film restoration within archives professional
Secondly, the concept itself of film as artwork has been accepted only after a long period, both in professional circles and among the audiences. As a consequence, it has occurred that some techniques and procedures, which had not been previously verified and standardized, have caused further decay to film stock that already found itself in critical conditions. Moreover, the need for the safeguard of moving images arises from a history of destruction of the film stock -due to the chemical and physical decay of the support medium, but also to voluntary eliminations, and to the changing history of taste and ideas.Ī legislative void has surrounded the restoration of moving images.
#Digital film restoration within archives archive
This approach has brought to a methodological awareness concerning the necessity of film analysis: the issue of the multiplicity of interpretations, and the problems arising from the gaps in the filmic text have been taken into account, in the effort of obtaining a copy as close as possible to the original one, and yet open to eventual further interpretations.ĭue to the advances of technology and to aesthetic and ethical transformations over the course of history, the attitude of restoration is one of uncertainty and openness: in order to accommodate for this, almost every school of thought promotes a symbiosis between archive and laboratory. The restoration consists in re-composing the structure of the film against the inexorability of time: in a thorough hermeneutic, the text is considered in its fragments and gaps (Bertetto, 1991, p. The process of transferring an artwork onto a new support medium, which is an indispensable step in film restoration, must follow ethical principles related to the obsolescence of the formats, and the traceability and reversibility of each intervention, according to the criteria of transparency to which the restorer is bound.
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A critical and comparative analysis of heterogeneous sources becomes necessary: the goal is to interpret the oeuvre in the most accurate way, according to the ethical principles of adherence to the original form. Hence, film restoration is the work of exegesis of the filmic text: it is rooted in practice, and it faces problems of technical nature at the same time, it implies a philological research based on the most advanced methodologies, and the restitution of the oeuvre in its original form.Īccording to Brandi's theory, "restoration is the methodological moment in which the work of art is appreciated in its material form and in its historical and aesthetic duality, with a view to transmitting it to the future" (Brandi, 1977, p. The leading disciplines in restoration are art restoration, in Cesare Brandi's innovative perspective, and literary philology, which provides a methodology for determining the authenticity of the texts, and for restoring them (Canosa, 2001, p. The hybrid condition of cinema has required contributions from several fields in order to sanction the legitimacy of the preservation and restoration procedures. As a consequence of this awareness, the issue of preserving cinematic materials becomes a pressing one, especially when the structural frailty and transience of the film stock is taken into account. Films, as an expression of collective memory, become part of the common heritage of humankind, which deserves to be safeguarded and disseminated. New film historians begin to trace a history made of "relics" and fragments in the 1980s, following the UNESCO General Conference in Belgrade, 1 the cultural value of moving images is officially recognized. Since the 1960s, the film stock regains centrality in historical and critical debates on the one hand, and in relation to the formal choices determined by the techniques and the support medium of cinematography. Such problematization -both of the praxis and of the object- has led to the definition of an epistemology of the cinematic matter: scholars in this area have moved from a theoretical level to a material one, with the goal of preserving the features and the cultural value of moving images. Inasmuch as objects, films are considered as part of a cultural heritage to be protected and restored in their formal qualities. The issues of film philology and restoration are among the most relevant aspects in contemporary film studies debates.