Während der gerade stattfindenden Filmfestspiele in Cannes wird auch eine neue digitale Restaurierung von Luchino Viscontis “Der Leopard / Il gattopardo” [I / F 1963] präsentiert. Im Presseheft ist folgender Text über die Restaurierung zu finden:

ABOUT THE RESTORATION

“In order for everything to stay the same, everything must change.” Although Tancredi (Alain Delon) is speaking about the future of Italian aristocracy, his description is an apt one for film restoration as well. Motion picture technology has changed radically over time, and a primary challenge of restoration is the attempt to recreate the impossible experience of seeing the film as it was originally presented. Today, powerful digital tools allow us almost unlimited freedom in image manipulation and color correction – to almost entirely erase the ravages of time and more closely represent the original artistic and technical achievements of Il Gattopardo than was previously possible using traditional photochemical techniques.

Il Gattopardo was photographed in a process called Technirama, in which images were captured on 35mm film horizontally rather than vertically. The resulting anamorphic image, twice the size of a standard 35mm frame, is remarkably sharp and full of detail. Since 1963, the camera negative has now faded, and exhibits most of the issues common to films of its era – although interestingly, because of the photographic process, scratches and dirt move horizontally across the frame rather than vertically.

For this new restoration, the original Technirama camera negatives were scanned at 8K (8000 lines of horizontal resolution), resulting in twenty-one terabytes of data. A 35mm protection interpositive was also scanned for sections needed to replace material not present in the original camera negatives. After scanning, all files were converted to 4K, and the balance of picture restoration was performed entirely digitally at this resolution. Over 12,000 hours of manual restoration was performed, removing forty-seven years’ worth of dirt, scratches, and other physical anomalies. The original monaural soundtrack has also been carefully restored, using a 35mm magnetic source which was digitally captured and processed to remove distracting pops, clicks, and noise while still faithfully representing the characteristics of the original presentation.

The restoration of Il Gattopardo is presented both in a 4K digital cinema package as well as in traditional 35mm film prints. Archival film elements and data archives have been created of both the restored and unrestored versions of the film in order to preserve Il Gattopardo for generations to come.

Schawn Belston
Film Preservation, Twentieth Century Fox

“Der Leopard / Il gattopardo” wird am 29. Juni 2010 bei Criterion auf Blu-ray erscheinen. Wie schon bei der – mittlerweile fehlerbereinigten – Blu-ray vom British Film Institute (BFI) wird für diese Veröffentlichung das HD-Master von 2003/2004 verwendet. Criterion hat sich dazu wie folgt bei Facebook geäußert:

We provided support to the restorers of the Cannes version, but our master was made directly from the original camera negative and meticulously color-corrected in Rome under the direct supervision of cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno. For our purposes there was no technical or artistic need to work off the new elements, which used our master for color reference. This new work was done to create proper 35 mm preservation elements taking advantage of the newest technology. We’re very happy that the Film Foundation continues to spearhead projects like this one, and we’re looking forward to seeing how it came out. One thing we can say is that our QC staff thinks the Leopard may be the most beautiful Blu-ray we’ve ever made!