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The Atlantic recently published "With 35mm Film Dead, Will Classic Movies Ever Look the Same Again," a compelling article by Daniel Eagan about the greater threats the digital film revolution poses to both archives and viewers. The article mentions both UCLA Film and Television Archive's Bob Gitt and the Archive's Laurel & Hardy project, citing Laurel & Hardy as an example of beloved films protected by copyright that are still in danger of disappearing.
The article also discusses that while we tend to think of older or independent film in danger of disappearing on 35mm, even Martin Scorsese's 1993 film The Age of Innocence is not readily available on 35mm and the problem will only get worse as major studios move exclusively to digital prints and the businesses that support celluloid distribution and production shutter. Instead, film programmers and fans will be left with the visually inferior DVD copies and other digitized versions that may not accurately capture the original "look" of a film in the same way a restoration done by someone like UCLA's Bob Gitt would painstakingly work to ensure remained.
To read the full article, please visit The Atlantic.
To learn more about our Laurel & Hardy project and what you can do to help, visit our website.
—Meg Weichman, UCLA Film & Television Archive.
