American Cinematographer - February 2009 - (Page 68)

Post Focus a year capturing angular shots of New York skyscrapers, clouds of urban steam and smoke, and glistening harbor waters with a Debrie L’Interview Type E motion-picture camera. The editing juxtaposed similar and dissimilar images to create a symphonic effect that Strand described as “expressive of the spirit of New York, of its power and beauty and movement.” Following its completion, Manhatta was screened several times under a variety of titles, among them New York the Magnificent and Fumeé de New York (The Smoke of New York), but in 1927, the original negative was lost. The BFI discovered a print of the film in its collection in 1949, and Manhatta was soon back in circulation, albeit in poorly duped 16mm reduction prints. Eventually, the BFI source print was destroyed because of nitrate deterioration, and only a single 35mm black-and-white dupe negative survived. This element served as the source for Lowry’s digital restoration, which was overseen by archivist, curator and conservator Bruce Posner. Although the 35mm dupe negative was an improvement over the 16mm prints in circulation, it still displayed many defects, notes Posner. “The problems included buildup of dirt, scratches, tears, holes, bad splices, varying grain and contrast and blocked highlights,” he says. “There were also weave and jitter movements in multiple directions, cross-frame luminance shifts, processing and printinglight flares, poor tonal grading and improper stabilization and breathing caused by mis-registration between individual frames along the strip of film.” Compounding matters were image flaws in the original cinematography; for example, most of the rhythmic vibrations appear to have been introduced by handcranking the camera while it was loosely mounted on a tripod and uneven processing and printing via a primitive rack-andtank system. Ultimately, all those flaws Pictured in this shot from the 1920 silent short Manhatta is the J.P. Morgan Building on Wall Street. The restored frame is above; the shot at right shows the original frame, whose flaws included a horizontal light flare and mottled dirt markings. Lowry Digital Restores Manhatta by David Heuring Anthology Film Archives, the British Film Institute, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the 68 February 2009 Nederlands Filmmuseum in Amsterdam recently collaborated on the restoration of the 1920 silent short Manhatta, one of America’s earliest avant-garde films, at Lowry Digital in Burbank. To make the roughly 12-minute film, noted still photographers Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler spent almost Frame grabs ©2008 Museum of Modern Art and Anthology Film Archives, courtesy of Lowry Digital.

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2009

American Cinematographer - February 2009 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: Circus Production Slate: The International Reverte 2 Worlds in 3 Dimensions Dead Reckoning Embracing Anamorphic Citizen of the World Post Focus: Restoring Manhatta New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Peter Suschitzky

American Cinematographer - February 2009

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