NITRATE SEIZURE The ephemeral history of cinema
CO N T E N T S
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The art of cinema
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Flammable heritage
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Nitrate won’t wait
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Film preservation
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References
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THE ART OF CINEMA MARTIN SCORSESE
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I am neither a writer nor a theorist. I’m a filmmaker. I saw something extraordinary and inspiring in the art of cinema when I was very young. The images that I saw thrilled me but they also illuminated something within me. The cinema gave me a means of understanding and eventually expressing what was precious and fragile in the world around me. This recognition, this spark that leads from appreciation to creation: it happens almost without knowing. For some, it leads to poetry, or dance, or music. In my case, it was the cinema. Over the years, I’ve grown used to seeing the cinema dismissed as an art form for a whole range of reasons: it’s tainted by commercial considerations; it can’t possibly be an art because there are too many people involved in its creation; it’s inferior to other art forms because it “leaves nothing to the imagination” and simply casts a temporary spell over the viewer, the same is never said of theatre or dance or opera, each of which require the viewer to experience the work within a given span of time. The question of how an artwork is absorbed in time, whether we’re standing before it in a gallery for a matter of minutes, reading it over a matter of weeks, or sitting in a dark theatre and watching it projected on a screen for two hours, is simply a condition, a circumstance, a fact.
Martin Scorsese is an American filmmaker and historian, whose career spans more than 50 years. Part of the New Hollywood wave of film making, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers in cinematic history. In 1990, he founded The Film Foundation, a non profit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation.
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On the other hand, I’m not letting the film override my existence. I’m watching it, experiencing it, and along the way seeing echoes of my own experience illuminated by the film and illuminating it in turn. I’m interacting with the film in countless ways, great and small. This is where the act of creation meets the act of viewing and engaging, where the common life of the filmmaker and the viewer exists, in those intervals of time between the filmed images that last a fraction of a fraction of a second but that can be vast and endless. This is where a good film comes alive as something more than a succession of beautifully composed renderings of a script. This is film-making. The greatest filmmakers, like the greatest novelists and poets, are trying to create a sense of communion with the viewer. They’re not trying to seduce them or overtake them, but, I think, to engage with them on as intimate a level as possible. The viewer also “collaborates” with the filmmaker, or the painter. No two viewings of Raphael’s “Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints” will be the same: every new viewing will be different. The same is true of readings of The Divine Comedy or Middlemarch, or viewings of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp or 2001: A Space Odyssey. We return at different moments in our lives and we see things differently.
THIS IS WHERE THE ACT OF CREATION MEETS THE ACT OF VIEWING AND ENGAGING, WHERE THE COMMON LIFE OF THE FILMMAKER AND THE VIEWER EXISTS, IN THOSE INTERVALS OF TIME BETWEEN THE FILMED IMAGES THAT LAST A FRACTION OF A FRACTION OF A SECOND BUT THAT CAN BE VAST AND ENDLESS.
Martin Scorsese on the power of film-making as an art form.
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{ MAY, 2017 }
Detailed close-ups of the nitrate film base used before 1950s.
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FLAMMABLE HERITAGE
The invention of motion picture seemed That is why many archives were intentionto capture and preserve the past with a ally burned, simply to destroy the hazardous persuasiveness greater than any written form. material. Also, as film preservationist Robert A. Historic events, personalities of different Harris has said, “Most of the early films did not eras, habits, and lives of people could all be survive because of wholesale junking by the easily recorded. Motion Picture eventually studios. There was no thought of ever saving turned into a form of dramatic art rather than these films”; “I thought about this idea of fading, just simple documentation, with cherished and if that’s what you think about our culture performances and productions. Unfortu- then there’s nothing in the culture. It’s a culture nately, the art that was thought to be there for that you use up and you throw away. You future generations to enjoy is slowly decay- don’t care about it. Well everyone goes walking. The film stock used before the 1950s-ni- ing around thinking that the film that changed trate-proved to be dangerous and unstable. their life or the book that changed their life, Nitrate film base was the first transparent thinking it’s going to be there all the time, flexible plasticized base commercially avail- and keep some continuity with the younger able, thanks to celluloid developments by generations,” Scorsese said. “I showed a clip John Carbutt, Hannibal Goodwin, and East- of a rocket going up to the moon — NASA man Kodak in the 1880s. Eastman was the first footage — and it was in glorious magenta. to manufacture this for public sale, in 1889. We made it to the moon, but the film is gone. Unfortunately, nitrate also had the draw- What kind of thinking is this?,” Scorsese said. back that it was extremely flammable (using “And then [home] video started, and then they essentially the same chemical as gun cotton) started to realize there’s no such thing as an old and decomposed after several decades into film, just a film you’ve never seen. That’s all.” a no less flammable gas (leaving the film Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation claims sticky and goo-like) and ultimately into dust. that 90% of films made before 1929 are lost. The likelihood of auto-ignition was very The Library of Congress found that 75% of silent high. Projection booth fires were not uncom- films made by major studios are lost. These mon in the early decades of cinema if a numbers are devastating to say the least. The film managed to be exposed to too much survival rates of American movies produced in heat while passing through the projector’s all major categories of production, during the film gate, and several incidents of this type nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Not just resulted in audience deaths by flames, smoke, to the feature films, but also to the travelogues, or the resulting stampede. So, the larg- one- and two reel comedies, animated shorts, est cause of film loss is the nitrate film stock. documentaries, newsreels, educational films, avant garde films, and other types of movies that constituted the film-going experience. throughout much of the twentieth century.
David Pierce is a historian and an archivist. His findings tell us that only 14% of the feature films produced in the United States during the period 1912–1929 survive in the format in which they were originally produced and distributed, i.e., as complete works on 35mm film. Another 11% survive in full-length foreign versions or on film formats of lesser image quality such as 16mm and other smaller gauge formats. The Library of Congress can now authoritatively report that the loss of American silent-era feature films constitutes an alarming and irretrievable loss to the nation’s cultural record. Even if we could preserve all the silent era films known to exist today in the U.S. and in foreign film archives—something not yet accomplished—it is certain that we and future generations have already lost 75% of the creative record from the era that brought American movies to the pinnacle of world cinematic achievement in the twentieth century.
Written by David Pierce { SEPTEMBER, 2013 }
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WHAT IS LOST FOREVER?
HOW MANY FILMS SURVIVED? There is no single number for existing silent-era feature films, as the surviving copies vary in format and completeness. There are 1,575 titles (14%) surviving as the complete domestic-release version in 35mm. Another 1,174 (11%) are complete, but not the original—they are either a foreign-release version in 35mm or in a 28 or 16mm smal-gauge print with less than 35mm image quality. Another 562 titles (5%) are incomplete— missing either a portion of the film or an abridged version. The remaining 70% are believed to be completely lost. With respect to preservation, one studio stands out. Starting in the early 1960s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) preserved at the corporation’s expense 113 silent features produced or distributed by MGM or its predecessor companies. Starting in the 1930s, MGM also gave prints or negatives for 120 silent feature films to American archives, primarily George Eastman House. The survival rate of silent films produced by MGM after its founding in 1924 is 68%, the highest of any studio. For other companies, the proportion is much lower.
1,575 titles (14%) surviving as the complete domestic release version in 35mm. 1,174 (11%) are complete, but not the original. 562 titles (5%) are incomplete. The remaining 70% are believed to be completely lost.
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Only 2,749 (25%) of American silent feature films survive in complete form. Another 562 (17% of the surviving titles and 5% of total production) survive in incomplete form. Of these, at least 151 titles survive in versions that have one reel missing. Another 275 titles survive in versions that are not complete, missing two reels or more. This includes the films that survive only in 9.5mm abridgements and many of the Eastman Kodak Kodascope 16mm home library releases where footage was eliminated to reduce the running time. Finally, there are 136 confirmed fragments, where one reel or less survives. There are probably many more odd reels in collections, unidentified and uncatalogued.
The best-known silent film actress today may be a fictional one, Norma Desmond, the halfmad silent film diva portrayed by a genuine silent film diva in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd. (1950). Gloria Swanson gives a riveting portrayal of a long-forgotten movie goddess for whom time stands still, eternally mired in the Hollywood of 1928, subsisting on memories. As the film’s doomed narrator tells us, Norma is “still waving proudly to a parade which had long since passed her by.” She’s a handy, if mostly inaccurate, stand-in not for the dozens of real-life actresses who had short but generally satisfying careers and went on with their lives, but for the few stars, such as Swanson, who held on to leading roles with an iron will and a tireless work ethic.
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THE CINEMATIC LOSS As a consequence of this widespread lack of care, the work of many early filmmakers and performers has made its way to the present in fragmentary form. A high-profile example is the case of Theda Bara. One of the best-known actresses of the early silent era, she made 40 films, but only six are now known to exist. Clara Bow was equally celebrated in her heyday, but 20 of her 57 films are completely lost, and another five are incomplete. Once-popular stage actresses such as Pauline Frederick and Elsie Ferguson, who made the jump to silent films, are now largely forgotten with a minimal archive to represent their careers; fewer than 10 movies exist from Frederick’s 1915–1928 work, and Ferguson has just two surviving films, one from 1919 and her only talkie from 1930. This is preferable to the fate of the stage actress and Bara rival Valeska Suratt, whose entire film career has been lost. Western hero William Farnum, a Fox player like Bara and Suratt, was one of the screen’s big Western actors rivalling the likes of William S. Hart, Tom Mix, and Harry Carey. Farnum has about three of his Fox films extant. Other male performers, such as Francis X. Bushman and William Desmond, had numerous film credits, but films made in their heyday are missing due to junking, neglect, or studios being defunct. Nevertheless, unlike Suratt and Bara, these men continued working into the sound era and even into television, thus their later performances can be observed and appreciated.
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American silent feature film survival, by categories of completeness:
Lost 7,608 titles, 70% Fragments 136 titles, 1% Pola Negri became a star in Germany, and the American period of her silent film career, from 1923 to 1928, continued her worldwide fame. Although Paramount’s best directors guided her, the American films seldom matched the quality of her early films in Germany. Only 6 of her 20 starring American films survive—the Museum of Modern Art bought a print of Mauritz Stiller’s Hotel Imperial (1927) from Paramount, as did George Eastman House with Barbed Wire (1927). A Woman of the World (1925) exists in its complete American release version, and three others in their foreign versions. There is no Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). Scholars cannot adequately document the art and science of film-making without primary sources. .
Essentially complete 2,749 titles, 25% One reel missing 151 titles, 1% Not complete 275 titles, 3%
Two Big Features, an old movie theatre, photographed by Benn Mitchell
Stills from “A Sainted Devil�, a lost 1924 american silent drama film
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NITRATE WON’T WAIT
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Health and Safety Executive { APRIL, 2013 }
Cellulose nitrate was the plastic commonly used for film-base photographic materials (stills, movie and X-ray films) manufactured up to the early 1950s. It contains a high proportion of nitro-cellulose, otherwise known as celluloid. More modern film is acetate or polyester-based, which is less hazardous. Cellulose nitrate film is extremely dangerous. It catches fire very easily and once alight is difficult to put out. Fires involving cellulose nitrate burn extremely quickly with a hot, intense flame and the smoke is particularly toxic, containing large quantities of poisonous gases. Any cellulose nitrate film that you come across now will be extremely old. This is a problem because the high fire risk from cellulose nitrate film increases as it ages. Old cinematographic film and old photographic negatives (including X-ray film) may be made from cellulose nitrate (which means they contain nitrated cellulose or other nitrated product). These films are sometimes referred to as ‘nitrate’, ‘nitrate-based’,‘nitro-cellulose-based’ or ‘celluloid’ film.
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WHY IS IT DANGEROUS?
Unlike many other flammable materials, nitro-cellulose does not need oxygen in the air to keep burning and once it is burning it is extremely difficult to put out. Immersing burning film in water may not extinguish the fire and it could actually increase the amount of smoke produced. It produces very dense, poisonous smoke containing copious amounts of choking nitrogen dioxide fumes. It can start to decompose and become unstable at temperatures as low as 38 °C, giving off large quantities of poisonous gases, which could cause an explosion. Warmth and humidity accelerate this decomposition;It catches fire very easily and burns extremely quickly, with a hot and intense flame. It contains the same substance used for munitions.
The rate of decomposition of cellulose nitrate films roughly doubles with every increase of six degrees Centigrade, so the higher the storage temperature, the faster the film will deteriorate. Storage temperatures therefore need to be as cold as possible. In addition, the humidity must be also be low as practicable to slow down the deterioration of nitrate materials. At higher temperatures and humidities nitrogen dioxide gas is more quickly formed which reacts with water in the atmosphere and in the photographic emulsion to form nitric acid which will attack the film. Nitrate films must always be stored away from other materials because of the formation of harmful nitrogen dioxide during decomposition. Safety motion-picture film on cellulose acetate base has been found chemically damaged on occasion by storage in the same can with unstable nitrate film. As a result, the effects on acetate film of the three nitrogen oxide gases produced by the decomposition of nitrate film have been investigated. Nitrous oxide and nitric oxide were found to be harmless, but nitrogen dioxide, even at low concentrations, is seriously damaging to safety film. This is to be expected, since nitrogen dioxide reacts with moisture to form nitrous and nitric acids. The use of nitrocellulose film for motion pictures led to the requirement for fireproof projection rooms with wall coverings made of asbestos. A training film for projectionists included footage of a controlled ignition of a reel of nitrate film, which continued to burn when fully submerged in water. Unlike many other flammable materials, nitrocellulose does not need air to keep burning, as the material contains sufficient oxygen within its molecular structure. Once burning, it is extremely difficult to extinguish. Immersing burning film in water may not extinguish it, and could actually increase the amount of smoke produced. Owing to public safety precautions, the London Underground forbade transport of movies on its system until well past the introduction of safety film. On May 4, 1897, one of the first major fires involving nitrate film began when a Lumière projector caught fire at the Bazar de la Charité in Paris. The resulting blaze caused 126 deaths. Cinema fires caused by ignition of nitrocellulose film stock were also the cause of the 1926 Dromcolliher cinema tragedy in County Limerick in which 48 people died and the 1929 Glen Cinema disaster in Paisley, Scotland, which killed 69 children.
CELLULOSE NITRATE CONTAINS CHEMICALLY COMBINED OXYGEN, SUFFICIENT IN AMOUNT SO THAT IT CAN PARTIALLY BURN OR DECOMPOSE WITHOUT THE PRESENCE OF AIR. National film and sound archive of Australia
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WHAT IS CELLULOSE NITRATE?
Close-up of the nitrate film base used before 1950s.
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FILM PRESERVATION A DIRE NEED
Penelope Huston on film preservation. { AUGUST, 1994 }
There’s a quote from Orson Welles that’s famous among film archivists. Welles was asked about the fire that burned the negative of Citizen Kane and responded: “Film has a personality, and that personality is self-destructive. The job of the archivist is to anticipate what the film may do—and prevent it.” Film is fragile, expensive to store and can be extremely dangerous. It takes a cynical archivist to argue, as some actually do, that fires and disasters make good publicity for their profession. But they are a reminder that preserving a film heritage is no easy business. It was recently discovered that Cellulose acetate film(post-nitrate), which is used to copy and preserve nitrate film, is just as fragile. Acetate film base is easily affected by the vinegar syndrome- a new hazard. Undoubtedly, the discovery of the vinegar syndrome shifted the ground under archivists feet. It showed, if nothing else, how difficult is to predict anything with a certainty in an area where materials are so fragile. There is much talk about the film heritage, the cultural patrimony and the need to ensure the preservation. For many years the term “preservation” was synonymous with “duplication” of film. The goal of a preservationist was to create a durable copy without any significant loss of quality. In more modern terms, film preservation now includes the concepts of handling, duplication, storage, and access. The archivist seeks to protect the film and share the content with the public. Film preservationists would prefer that the film images, whether restored through photochemical or digital processes, be eventually transferred to other film stock, because no digital media exists that has proven truly archival because of rapidly evolving and shifting data formats, while a well-developed and stored, modern film print can last upwards of 100 years.
Film archives, by their historical nature, come in all shapes, scales and sizes, have varying policies and remits, and are mostly underfunded. Many have large, eclectic, international collections of which the national production represents only a proportion of the whole; some others concentrate more,in varying degrees, on caring for the films of their own country. Once a film is inspected and cleaned it is transferred via a motion picture film scanner to a digital tape or disk, and the audio is synced to create a new master.
RESTORATION STEPS { The. main defects needing restoration } •• Dirt/dust •• Scratches, tears/burned frames •• Color fade, color change •• Excessive film grain (a copy of an existing film has all of the film . grain from the original as well as the film grain in the copy) .•• Missing scenes and sound (censored or edited out for re-release) •• Shrinkage { Modern, digital film restoration takes the following steps } •• Expertly clean the film of dirt and dust. •• Repair all film tears with clear polyester tape or splicing cement. •• Scan each frame into a digital file. •• Restore the film frame by frame by comparing each frame to adjacent frames. •• This can be done somewhat by computer algorithms with human checking of the result. •• Fix frame alignment (“jitter” and “weave”), or the misalignment of adjacent film frames due to movement of film within the sprockets. This corrects the issue where the holes on each side of a frame are distorted over time. This causes frames to slightly be off centre. •• Fix colour and lighting changes. This corrects flickering and slight colour changes from one frame to another due to aging of the film. •• Restore areas blocked by dirt and dust by using parts of images in other frames. •• Restore scratches by using parts of images in other frames. Enhance frames by reducing film grain noise. Film foreground/background detail about the same size as the film grain or smaller is blurred or lost in making the film. Comparing a frame with adjacent frames allows detail information to be reconstructed since a given small detail may be split between more film grains from one frame to another.
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Orson Welles was an American actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, and film. He is remembered for his innovative work in all three: in theatre, most notably Caesar (1937), a Broadway adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; in radio, the long-remembered (1938) broadcast “The War of the Worlds”; and in film, Citizen Kane (1941), ranked as one of the greatest films ever made.
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ONE VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION IS: WHY PRESERVE FILM? WHY PRESERVE FILMS AT ALL WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY MORE IMPORTANT AND URGENT THINGS TO SPEND MONEY ON? THE ANSWER IS VERY SIMPLE. THE CINEMA GIVES US SOMETHING PRECIOUS: A RECORD OF OURSELVES IN TIME, DOCUMENTED AND INTERPRETED. THE NEED TO INCORPORATE TIME AND MOTION INTO OUR REPRESENTATIONS OF OURSELVES GOES BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF HUMANITY—YOU CAN SEE IT IN THE PAINTINGS ON THE WALLS OF THE CAVES AT LASCAUX. AND, ON A FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL, THAT IS TRUE OF EVERY ART FORM. THE CINEMA GIVES US A WAY OF DEALING WITH THE MYSTERY OF WHO AND WHAT WE ARE.
Martin Scorsese on film preservation
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REFERENCES
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The art of cinema
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Scorsese, Martin. “Martin Scorsese on the Power of Film-Making as an Art Form.” The TLS, The Times Literary Supplement, 3 Sept. 2018
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Nitrate won’t wait “A Short Guide to Identify Nitrate Films and Vinegar Syndrome Degradation in Audio-Visual Collections and Archives.” Scart, April 2013 “The dangers of cellulose nitrate film”, Health and Safety Executive, April 2013
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NFSA. “Storage of Cellulose Nitrate.” NFSA, National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, 27 Aug. 2010
Flammable heritage
“1937 Fox Vault Fire.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Mar. 2019
Kehr, Dave. “‘To Save and Project,’ Restored Films at MoMA.” The New York Times, 14 Oct. 2010
Juddery, Mark. “10 Famous Lost Films.” Mental Floss, 10 Oct. 2010
Logan, Liz. “The Unlikely Story of How Nitrate Film Endures.” Hyperallergic, 9 Dec. 2016 “Film Base.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Sept. 2018 “Lost Film.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 1 Mar. 2019 Barlow, Will. “Martin Scorsese on Fighting For Film Preservation and Not Believing in ‘Old Movies’.” IndieWire, 2 Oct. 2015 Pierce, David.”The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912–1929, September 2013
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Film preservation McGreevey, Tom, and Joanne Louise. Yeck. “Our Movie Heritage”. Rutgers University Press, 1997. Houston, Penelope. “Keepers of the Frame: the Film Archives”. British Film Institute, 1994. “Film Preservation.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Mar. 2019 Scorsese, Martin. “Film Preservation: A Dire Need.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 25 May 2018
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