Some compelling announcements from both sides of the Atlantic.
From Blighty [via]:
This week the BFI (British Film Institute) launched a new campaign called “Rescue the Hitchcock 9” that asks the public to help them rescue 9 of Alfred Hitchcock’s earliest films. The original movies were shot on nitrate film, which is notorious for its incendiary properties. Nitrate film can also decompose over time and film archivists are forced to take drastic measures in order to preserve and restore these old films. The 9 silent films that Hitchcock made during the 1920s have badly deteriorated through the years due to general use and they’re currently in dire need of restoration. Thankfully there is new digital technology in place that can help repair worn and damaged films but the process is time consuming and costly.
The 9 films that BFI hopes to restore include Alfred Hitchcock’s directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden (1925); his eerie classic thriller, The Lodger (1926); a boxing film called The Ring (1927); the dark dramas, Downhill (1927) and Easy Virtue (1927); his early comedies, The Farmers Wife (1927) and Champagne (1928); as well as Hitchcock’s last silent film, The Manxman (1929) and his first “talkie,” Blackmail (1929).
And from New York [via]:
The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens officially announced today the opening of its long-in-gestation transformation into a redesigned, expanded hot spot for New York cinema-lovers. Isn’t it about time we had something like this? According to the press release, the $67 million state-of-the-art new building, designed by architect Thomas Leeser, will be unveiled on January 15, 2011.... [T]he goodies they’ve got planned[, which] include[s] “Recovered Treasures,” six weeks of newly restored classics and contemporary films from around the world; experimental, interactive digital showcases; large-scale video installations and animations; a late-night party full of interactive art; an Alain Resnais series; a recurring Hitchcock series; an avant-garde retrospective; and... the very cool-looking new 264-seat theater.
As a bonus, an interview with cinematic institution Raoul Coutard. An excerpt:
You worked with Godard up through Week-End and then not again until the '80s, with Passion. Was there a falling out? How did you get back together? What is your relationship now?
I didn't work with Jean-Luc for 10 years because he had the revelation that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that he therefore could not make films with capitalist money. I think it took him less than 10 years to realize that without that money, no films are possible, but he had to make that turn.
