The Red Shoes, the newly restored 1948 masterpiece from directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, made its U.S. premiere at the Directors Guild of America on July 29 of this year after a world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May. The film will premiere tonight, November 6 and the Film Forum in Manhattan at 7:00pm.
To get to this point, the classic film has undergone an extensive 2-year 4K digital restoration by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation, in association with the British Film Institute, ITV Global Entertainment Ltd and Janus Films. The restoration was primarily funded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, aided by The Film Foundation and the Louis B. Mayer Foundation.
The process involved the digital scanning and restoration of 579,000 individual frames from the film's original negatives. Since premiering at the Directors Guild in July, the film has been touring the country with none other than the man fueling the effort, former Broadway director and screen legend Martin Scorsese, who has had a life-long fascination with the piece.
Scorsese spoke with the New York Times about The Red Shoes and his inspired relationship with it, as the film prepares for a premiere at the Film Forum today, November 6.
When asked about his first memories associated with the film Scorsese reveals: "I was about 7 or 8 years old, I think. My father took me to see it, he heard it was a good film, and he liked movies, took me to movies often, because - well, he just took me to movies often. And it's a film that made a very strong impression of me at that age, and over the years. And by the way, this film was shown a great deal. It was shown, ultimately, almost every year - certainly, every Christmas, on television. In black and white. It mattered, but it didn't matter, because we got to see it again and again, and that's when the real power of the picture took over for me."
On the importance of film restoration in an era of Blu-Ray and DVDs, Scorsese notes: "Well, the
technology - if you don't have anything to show, what do you have the technology for? Films that are made today? Films that are made only for today that are - I guess, the word is, consumed? That don't seem to hold up for a second or third viewing? But also, it's about history. Whether it reflects the state of mind, or reflects the nature of the culture that created the films, good, bad or indifferent. What may be termed good now, who knows in the future? But no, it's about history - and yes, the Blu-ray is amazing. But you need the elements. You need the film. Particularly classic films. And by the way, these classic films - young people don't know they're classic films. It's a film. There's a black-and-white element, but that you can get past in the first few minutes, if you work it right."
To read the interview in its entirety in the New York Times, click here.
Of the restoration, UCLA archivist Robert Gitt explains: "In the restoration process, the entire film has been turned into ones and zeros, repaired, and then converted back into a motion picture again. In order to achieve a proper film 'look,' we compared the new digital images with those in an original Technicolor dye transfer print and in a new Eastman color test print struck by Cinetech Laboratories directly from the YCM camera negatives. Careful adjustments were made in the finalized digital version to combine the best qualities of modern color film (greater image sharpness, more sparkle in highlights) with the most pleasing attributes of vintage Technicolor dye transfer prints (bold colors, deep blacks, gentle contrast with a pleasing range of tones in actors' faces). The end result is a restoration that combines the best of the past with our digital present."
The UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation began working on the restoration in the fall of 2006. Earlier, in the 1980s, the film had been optically copied from flammable nitrate and acetate materials, including vintage Technicolor dye transfer prints, nitrate and acetate protection master positive copies, original soundtrack elements, and -- most important of all -- the still extant three-strip Technicolor camera negatives. These original nitrate 3-strip camera negatives have been utilized for this restoration to obtain the highest possible image quality. The negatives, which were damaged by mold and deterioration, were scanned at 4K resolution and digitally restored at Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging. The new digital negative has been used to strike beautiful new 35mm prints at Cinetech Labs. These newly restored elements ensure that the film is now properly preserved for posterity.
