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89-418: Janus has a close business relationship with The Criterion Collection regarding the release of its films on DVD and Blu-ray and is still an active theatrical distributor. The company's name and logo come from Janus , the two-faced Roman god of transitions, passages, beginnings, and endings. Janus Films was founded in 1956 by Bryant Haliday and Cyrus Harvey, Jr. , in the historic Brattle Theater ,

178-588: A Harvard Square landmark in Cambridge, Massachusetts . Prior to the conception of Janus, Haliday and Harvey began screening both foreign and American films at the Brattle Theater and proceeded to regularly fill the 300-seat venue. Having purchased the theater, Haliday, together with Harvey, converted the Brattle into a popular movie house for the showing of art films . Perceiving potential success in

267-515: A blog post that it was "trying to find ways we can bring our library and original content back to the digital space as soon as possible". A month later, Criterion announced their own standalone subscription service, The Criterion Channel available to subscribers in the United States and Canada. The service began on April 8, 2019. The Channel's offerings include rotating playlists, temporarily licensed films (and some television offerings) from

356-400: A digital image results in a loss of quality that can make it more difficult to create a high-quality print based upon the digital image, digital imaging technology has become increasingly advanced to the point where 8K scanners can capture the full resolution of images filmed at as high as 65 mm. 70 mm IMAX film has a theoretical resolution of 18K, the highest possible resolution given

445-578: A distribution deal with SDS to handle the physical distribution of titles from Sony Pictures ( Columbia Pictures , TriStar Pictures , Screen Gems , Crunchyroll, LLC , etc.) as well as Criterion, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment ( Walt Disney Pictures , Marvel Studios , Lucasfilm Ltd. , 20th Century Studios , etc.) and Lionsgate Home Entertainment ( Lionsgate Films , Summit Entertainment , eOne Films , Roadside Attractions , etc.) through their existing distribution deals with SPHE. In 1986, Charles Benton founded Home Vision Entertainment (HVE),

534-499: A film streaming service from Turner Classic Movies , succeeded Hulu as the exclusive streaming service for the Criterion Collection. Some Criterion films were streamed by Kanopy . On October 26, 2018, Warner Bros. Digital Networks and Turner announced that FilmStruck would shut down on November 29. Criterion stated in a blog post that it was "trying to find ways we can bring our library and original content back to

623-481: A form of remediation of the cinematic medium, and has positively reflected on digital technologies' ability to broaden restoration possibilities, improve quality, and reduce costs. According to the cinema scholar Leo Enticknap, the views held by Usai and Fossati could be seen as representative of the two poles of the digital debate in film preservation. It should be kept in mind, however, that both Usai and Fossati's arguments are highly complex and nuanced, and likewise,

712-518: A hard disk capable of storing such a movie typically cost a few hundred dollars, with an archival optical disk even less. The problem of having to transfer the data as new generations of equipment come along will continue, however, until true archival standards are put in place. In the context of film preservation, the term " digital preservation " highlights the use of digital technology for the transfer of films from 8 mm to 70 mm in size to digital carriers , as well as all practices for ensuring

801-458: A key scene in which many of film pioneer Georges Méliès ' silent films are melted down and the raw material recycled as shoes; this was seen by many movie critics as "a passionate brief for film preservation wrapped in a fanciful tale of childhood intrigue and adventure". Scorsese's concern about the need to save motion pictures of the past led him to create The Film Foundation , a non-profit organization dedicated to film preservation, in 1990. He

890-833: A mixture of NTSC-standard Region 0 (region-free) and Region 1 DVDs. Blu-ray discs are Region A -locked in North America or Region B -locked in the United Kingdom (though there are exceptions). However, when SPHE stopped distributing Criterion's releases in the UK, the distribution moved to Spirit Entertainment. On August 11, 2021, Criterion announced that it would begin publishing titles in Ultra HD Blu-ray format in November 2021. All Criterion Ultra HD Blu-ray releases will include both an Ultra HD Blu-ray copy and

979-445: A preservationist was to create a durable copy without any significant loss of quality . In more modern terms, film preservation includes the concepts of handling, duplication, storage, and access. The archivist seeks to protect the film and share its content with the public. Film preservation is not to be confused with film revisionism , in which long-completed films are modified with the insertion of outtakes or new musical scores,

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1068-519: A private acquisition. On October 24, 2006, in celebration of 50 years of business, the Criterion Collection released 50 of the films that Janus distributed in a large boxset containing 50 DVDs and a 200-page essay on the history of art house films. The package was called Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films . A.O. Scott chose the set as his DVD pick when he co-hosted At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper . As part of its 44th Festival in 2006,

1157-524: A regular Blu-ray copy of a film (with all the special features on the regular Blu-ray), with select releases including Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos . The first such releases were announced on August 16 for a November 21 release: Citizen Kane (#1104, returning to the collection for the first time since 1992), Mulholland Drive and Menace II Society . The company also released The Red Shoes , A Hard Day's Night and The Piano on Ultra HD Blu-ray disc. The film Uncut Gems (#1101), which

1246-570: A replacement for the more volatile nitrate stock, was beginning to be affected by a unique form of decay known as " vinegar syndrome ", and color film manufactured, in particular, by Eastman Kodak , was found to be at risk of fading. At that time, the best-known solution was to duplicate the original film onto a more secure medium. A common estimate is that 90 percent of all American silent films made before 1920 and 50 percent of American sound films made before 1950 are lost films . Although institutional practices of film preservation date back to

1335-410: A series of ongoing efforts among film historians, archivists, museums, cinematheques , and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images they contain. In the widest sense, preservation assures that a movie will continue to exist in as close to its original form as possible. For many years the term "preservation" was synonymous with "duplication" of film. The goal of

1424-563: A variety of studios and rights holders alongside streaming editions of Criterion Collection releases replete with special features. The Channel also hosts some original content, including academic overviews and curated introductions as well as featuring some Janus-owned titles that have yet to be released on physical media. Criterion maintains a close relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery 's streaming platform Max , which frequently also houses Criterion-released titles. Film restoration Film preservation , or film restoration , describes

1513-578: Is aligned with the Directors Guild of America . By working in partnership with the leading film archives and studios, The Film Foundation has saved nearly 600 films, often restoring them to pristine condition. In many cases, original footage that had been excised—or censored by the Production Code in the U.S.—from the original negative, has been reinstated. In addition to the preservation, restoration, and presentation of classic cinema,

1602-418: Is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A de facto subsidiary of arthouse film distributor Janus Films , Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration ,

1691-469: The Zatoichi boxset (spine #679), all future releases would be in dual format (DVD and Blu-ray packaged together) rather than as individual releases. This decision also applied to most upgrade re-releases introduced after November 2013. After customer feedback revealed some reluctance to this approach, All That Jazz (#724) became the last chronological spine number released as a dual-format edition, and

1780-844: The Charlie Chaplin library under license from the Chaplin estate and worldwide distribution agent MK2 . The Criterion division handles the Chaplin library for re-issue on DVD and Blu-ray, in addition to theatrical release. Janus also currently manages part of the Caidin Film Company library for Westchester Films, and the Faces Distribution/ John Cassavetes library for Jumer Productions, both companies' successors-in-interest to Castle Hill Productions . The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion )

1869-648: The Cinémathèque Française in Paris, which would become the world's largest international film collection. For thousands of early silent films stored in the Library of Congress , mostly between 1894 and 1912, the only existing copies were printed on rolls of paper submitted as copyright registrations. For these, an optical printer was used to copy these images onto safety film stock, a project that began in 1947 and continues today. The Library hosts

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1958-537: The Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to use these clips with attribution—in this case, attribution to the VAFP site and to the author of the clip and his company. Regardless of the age of the print itself, damage may occur if stored improperly. Damage to the film (caused by tears on the print, curling of the film base due to intense light exposure, temperature, humidity, etc.) can significantly raise

2047-521: The HD format wars between Blu-ray and HD DVD . Once Blu-ray had emerged as the industry-standard high-definition home-video format, Criterion began to release Blu-ray editions of select films from its collection, beginning with the Blu-ray release of Wong Kar-wai 's Chungking Express (#453; currently out of print) on December 16, 2008. In late 2013, Criterion announced that with the November release of

2136-488: The Image Permanence Institute finds that storing film media in frozen temperatures, with relative humidity (RH) between 30% and 50%, greatly extends its useful life. These measures inhibit deterioration better than any other methods and are a cheaper solution than replicating deteriorating films. In most cases, when a film is chosen for preservation or restoration work, new prints are created from

2225-854: The Library of Congress . The company later became known for pioneering the "special edition" DVD concept containing bonus materials such as trailers , commentaries, documentaries, alternate endings and deleted scenes . The success of these releases established the special-edition version in the DVD business. In 2006, taking advantage of advanced film-transfer and film-restoration technologies, Criterion published higher-quality versions, with bonus materials, of early catalog titles such as Amarcord (1973), Brazil (1985) and Seven Samurai (1954). Originally, Criterion released art, genre and mainstream movies on LaserDisc such as Halloween (1978), Ghostbusters (1984), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Armageddon (1998) and The Rock (1996). Increasingly,

2314-491: The New York Film Festival presented a series called 50 Years of Janus Films , a tribute to the company. In 2009, Janus Films released Revanche , its first first-run theatrical release in 30 years. Since then, with their distribution partner, Sideshow, Janus Films had released more recent films such as Drive My Car and EO . Then, in 2010, Janus acquired domestic theatrical and home video rights to

2403-525: The UCLA Film and Television Archive , have also preserved and restored films; a major part of UCLA's work includes such projects as Becky Sharp and select Paramount / Famous Studios and Warner Bros. cartoons whose credits were once altered due to rights taken over by different entities. In 1926 Will Hays asked for film studios to preserve their films by storing them at 40 degrees at low humidity in an Eastman Kodak process, so that "schoolboys in

2492-586: The letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and documentary content about the films and filmmakers. Criterion most notably pioneered the use of commentary tracks . Criterion has produced and distributed more than one thousand special editions of its films in VHS , Betamax , LaserDisc , DVD , Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. These films and their special features are also available via The Criterion Channel, an online streaming service that

2581-509: The original camera negative or from a composite restoration negative, which can be made from a combination of elements for general screening. It is therefore particularly important to keep camera negatives or digital masters under safe storage conditions. The original camera negative is the remaining, edited, film negative that passed through the camera on the set. This original camera negative may, or may not, remain in original release form, depending upon number of subsequent re-releases after

2670-501: The permafrost . This fortunate discovery was shared and moved to the United States' Library of Congress and Library and Archives Canada for transfer to safety stock and archiving. However, to move such highly flammable material such a distance ultimately required assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces to make the delivery to Ottawa . The story of this discovery as well as excerpts of these films can be seen in

2759-526: The 1930s, the field received an official status only in 1980, when UNESCO recognized "moving images" as an integral part of the world's cultural heritage. The great majority of films made in the silent era are now considered to be lost forever. Movies of the first half of the 20th century were filmed on an unstable, highly flammable cellulose nitrate film base, which required careful storage to slow its inevitable process of decomposition over time. Most films made on nitrate stock were not preserved; over

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2848-528: The 2016 documentary film , Dawson City: Frozen Time . Another high-profile restoration by staff at the British Film Institute 's National Film and Television Archive is the Mitchell and Kenyon collection, which consists almost entirely of actuality films commissioned by traveling fairground operators for showing at local fairgrounds or other venues across the UK in the early part of

2937-553: The Beast (1946), M (1931), The Wages of Fear (1953) and Seven Samurai (1954). As of October 2023, over 200 of the 384 titles from the List of Criterion Collection Laserdisc releases have been re-released. Another example is the film Charade (1963), which had become a public-domain property for lacking the legally-required copyright notice. Criterion produced a restored edition under license from Universal Pictures for

3026-486: The Body Snatchers (1956), Criterion introduced the letterbox format, which added black bars to the top and bottom of the 4:3 standard television set in order to preserve the original aspect ratio of the film. Thereafter, Criterion made letterboxing the standard presentation for all its releases of films shot in widescreen aspect ratios. The Criterion Collection's second LaserDisc title, King Kong (1933),

3115-460: The Brattle, while Harvey continued to manage the theater into the 1970s. In 1977, Kino International (now Kino Lorber) acquired rights to the company's film collection, which became the foundation for Kino's international library of films. Janus was later acquired by Saul J. Turell and William J. Becker . Janus Films, including The Criterion Collection , were sold to Steven Rales in May 2024 in

3204-459: The Criterion Collection company, which has a business partnership with Janus Films and had one with Home Vision Entertainment (HVE) until 2005, when Image Entertainment bought HVE. On November 4, 2013, it was announced that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment would handle distribution. In May 2024, Janus Films and Criterion were acquired by Steven Rales . On June 24, 2024, it was reported that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment had entered into

3293-503: The Criterion Collection has also focused on releasing world cinema , mainstream cinema classics and critically successful obscure films. Using the best available source materials, the company produced technologically improved and cleaner versions, such as those for The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), M (1931), Children of Paradise (1945), The Third Man (1949), Seven Samurai (1954) and Amarcord (1973). Almost every title contains film-cleaning and film-restoration essays in

3382-707: The Internet in 2005. The VAFP site was funded as part of a 2005 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to the Folkstreams project. The purpose of the site is to supplement already existing film preservation guides provided by the National Film Preservation Foundation with video demonstrations. The preservation guides provided by the origination, while thoroughly depicting accurate methods of preservation, are mostly text-based. The films and clips are copyrighted under

3471-571: The National Film Preservation Board, whose National Film Registry annually selects 25 U.S. films "showcasing the range and diversity of American film heritage". The George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film was chartered in 1947 to collect, preserve and present the history of photography and film, and in 1996 opened the Louis B. Mayer Conservation Center, one of only four film conservation centers in

3560-514: The United Kingdom. The first six titles were released on April 18, 2016. The Criterion Collection video company pioneered the correct aspect-ratio letterboxing presentation of films, as well as commentary soundtracks, multi-disc sets, special editions and definitive versions. These ideas and the special features introduced by the Criterion Collection have been highly influential, and have become industry-wide standards for premium home video releases. With its eighth LaserDisc release, Invasion of

3649-476: The United States. The American Film Institute was founded in 1967 to train the next generation of filmmakers and preserve the American film heritage. Its collection now includes over 27,500 titles. In 1978, Dawson City , Yukon Territory, Canada, a construction excavation inadvertently found a forgotten collection of more than 500 discarded films from the early 20th century that were buried in and preserved in

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3738-417: The addition of sound effects, black-and-white film being colorized , older soundtracks converted to Dolby stereo, or minor edits and other cosmetic changes being made. By the 1980s, it was becoming apparent that the collections of motion picture heritage were at risk of becoming lost. Not only was the preservation of nitrate film an ongoing problem, but it was then discovered that safety film , used as

3827-520: The booklets, while some even have featurettes comparing the restored and unrestored images. Some previously licensed Criterion Collection titles, such as The Harder They Come (1972), are now commercially unavailable as new product, and are only available in resale (used) form. Titles such as RoboCop (1987), Hard Boiled (1992), The Killer (1989) and Ran (1985) became unavailable when their publishing licenses expired or when Criterion published improved versions, such as those for Beauty and

3916-481: The brief foray into dual-format releases). Moreover, the company's standalone line of Eclipse releases are currently only made available in the standard DVD format. Aside from the core catalog, the company has also released films through its Essential Art House, Eclipse, Merchant Ivory and Janus Contemporaries lines, as well as a few releases outside of any product line. Many of these releases have also been collected and sold in various box sets. In early 2016 for

4005-493: The chapter-indexed commentaries are exclusive to the Criterion releases and their initial DVD reissues; they became collectors' items when the original studios reissued titles previously licensed to Criterion, regardless of whether new commentary tracks were produced. The Criterion Collection began in 1984 with the releases of Citizen Kane (1941) and King Kong (1933) on LaserDisc, the latter's source negatives courtesy of

4094-570: The chemical reactions involved will promote further deterioration. "There is no indication that we will ever find a way to arrest decomposition once it has started. All we can do is inhibit it," says the director of the AMIA ( Association of Moving Image Archivists ) board, Leo Enticknap. In 1991, filmmaker and former deputy director of the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, Peter Delpeut , made

4183-430: The company operates. The Criterion Collection is considered the leading boutique Blu-ray label . Their releases are currently distributed by Studio Distribution Services , a joint venture between Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment , via a distribution deal with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment , who released the company's content on home video from 2013 to 2024. The company

4272-415: The company's early titles ( The 39 Steps , The Lady Vanishes and The Third Man ) were also issued on VHS and Betamax. These were Criterion's only releases on those formats—other Janus/Criterion titles were often released to VHS through Home Vision Entertainment. Criterion entered the DVD market in 1998 with a reset numbering system, beginning with Seven Samurai , spine #2 ( Grand Illusion , #1,

4361-477: The debate about the utility of digital technologies in film preservation is complex and continually evolving. In 1935, New York's Museum of Modern Art began one of the earliest institutional attempts to collect and preserve motion pictures, obtaining original negatives of the Biograph and Edison companies and the world's largest collection of D. W. Griffith films. The following year, Henri Langlois founded

4450-457: The decision was reversed to release separate discs for titles beginning in September 2014. Despite the emergence of Blu-ray as the industry-standard high-definition format, Janus/Criterion continues to support the DVD format. Not only are all their new Blu-ray releases accompanied by a standard-definition DVD version, but revised and upgraded releases are also released on both formats (barring

4539-432: The demand for perfection only rising as theaters move from 2K to 4K projection and consumer media continues its shift from SD to HD to UltraHD and beyond. Once a film is inspected and cleaned, it is transferred via telecine or a motion picture film scanner to a digital tape or disk , and the audio is synced to create a new master . Common defects needing restoration include: Modern, digital film restoration takes

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4628-521: The difficulty and the cost of preservation processes. Many films simply do not have enough information left on the film to piece together a new master, although careful digital restoration can produce stunning results by gathering bits and pieces from adjacent frames for restoration on a damaged frame, predicting entire frames based on the characters' movements in prior and subsequent frames, etc. As time goes on, this digital capability will only improve, but it will ultimately require sufficient information from

4717-616: The digital space as soon as possible". On November 16, 2018, Criterion announced the launch of the Criterion Channel as a standalone service, wholly owned and operated by the Criterion Collection, in the United States and Canada. Some of the VOD service's offerings are also available on the Max streaming platform. British film magazine Sight & Sound revealed in its April 2016 issue that Criterion would be expanding its releases to

4806-486: The dominance of home video and ever-present need for television broadcasting content, especially on specialty channels , has meant that films have proven a source of long-term revenue to a degree that the original artists and studio management before the rise of these media never imagined. Thus media companies have a strong financial incentive to carefully archive and preserve their complete library of films. The group Video Aids to Film Preservation (VAFP) became active on

4895-508: The film Lyrical Nitrate , with decaying films from the Desmet Collection. In 2002, filmmaker Bill Morrison produced Decasia , a film solely based on fragments of old unrestored nitrate-based films in various states of decay and disrepair, providing a somewhat eerie aesthetic to the film. The film was created to accompany a symphony of the same name, composed by Michael Gordon and performed by his orchestra. The footage used

4984-570: The film business, Haliday and Harvey moved into the New York City market and began running the 55th Street Playhouse . Janus Films was subsequently launched in March 1956 and the Playhouse was used as the primary location for exhibiting Janus-distributed films. The two owners eventually sold Janus Films in 1965 following a decline in the American art film market, and in 1966 Haliday also sold

5073-400: The film element. Preservation is different from restoration , as restoration is the act of returning the film to a version most faithful to its initial release to the public and often involves combining various fragments of film elements. Film is best preserved by proper protection from external forces while in storage along with being under controlled temperatures. For most film materials,

5162-401: The film images, whether restored through photochemical or digital processes, be eventually transferred to other film stock, because no digital media exists that has proven truly archival because of rapidly evolving and shifting data formats, while a well-developed and stored, modern film print can last upwards of 100 years. While some in the archival community feel that conversion from film to

5251-401: The final, lowest generation restoration master may be either a duplicate negative or a fine grain master positive . Preservation elements, such as fine-grain master positives and duplicate printing negatives, are generated from this restoration master element to make both duplication masters and access projection prints available for future generations. Film preservationists would prefer that

5340-541: The first time in its history, Criterion announced it would begin releasing its catalogue outside of the US and Canada (earlier international Criterion titles such as the Japanese LaserDisc of Blade Runner were licensed to other companies). In partnership with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment , releases began to be distributed with the launch of six titles in the U.K. during the month. Criterion's DVD releases are

5429-478: The following steps: Modern, photochemical restoration follows roughly the same path that digital restoration does: The practice of film preservation is more craft than science. Until the early 1990s there were no dedicated academic programs in film preservation. Practitioners had often entered the field through related education (e.g. library or archival science), related technical experience (e.g. film lab work), or driven by sheer passion for working with film. In

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5518-612: The forefront in the 1980s and early 1990s when such famous and influential film directors as Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese contributed to the cause. Spielberg became interested in film preservation when he went to view the master of his film Jaws , only to find that it had badly decomposed and deteriorated—a mere fifteen years after it had been filmed. Scorsese drew attention to the film industry's use of color-fading film stock through his use of black-and-white film stock in his 1980 film Raging Bull . His film, Hugo included

5607-444: The foundation teaches young people about film language and history through The Story of Movies , an educational program claimed to be "used by over 100,000 educators nationwide". In the age of digital television , high-definition television and DVD , film preservation and restoration has taken on commercial as well as historical importance, since audiences demand the highest possible picture quality from digital formats. Meanwhile,

5696-661: The four founders each retained a 20% owner's share. In 1997, the Voyager Company was dissolved (Aleen Stein founded the Organa LLC CD-ROM publishing company), and Holtzbrinck Publishers sold the Voyager brand name, 42 CD-ROM titles, the Voyager web site and associated assets to Learn Technologies Interactive, LLC (LTI). Stein sold 42 Voyager titles to LTI from his Voyager/Criterion company share. The remaining three partners, Aleen Stein, Becker and Turell owned

5785-534: The home-video division of Public Media Inc. (PMI), which he had previously founded in 1968. The HVE company sold, advertised, marketed and distributed Criterion Collection DVDs, and also sold its own HVE brand of DVDs (co-produced with Criterion), including The Merchant Ivory Collection and the Classic Collection, a joint venture between Home Vision Entertainment and Janus Films. The latter enterprise published HVE imprint films, for which Janus Films owned

5874-637: The incentive to preserve, i.e., as the business perspective states that once a film is no longer "commercially" viable, it stops generating profit and becomes a financial liability. While few films would not benefit from digital restoration, the high cost of digitally restoring films still prevents the method from being as broadly applied as it might be. Demand for new media, digital cinema, and constantly evolving consumer digital formats continues to change. Film restoration facilities must keep pace to maintain audience acceptance. Classic films today must be in near-mint condition if they are to be reshown or resold, with

5963-474: The initial edition and for the later anamorphic widescreen re-release edition of the film. Periodically, Criterion releases material on DVD and Blu-ray disc licensed from the studios with whom the company had previously dealt (such as Universal's and Terry Gilliam 's 1985 film Brazil ); these new releases are generally undertaken on a case-by-case basis. Criterion released its first Walt Disney Pictures title, Andrew Stanton 's WALL-E , in 2022. This

6052-484: The initial release for theatrical exhibition. Restorers sometimes create a composite negative (or composite dupe) by recombining duplicated sections of the best remaining material, sometimes on "a shot-to-shot, frame-by-frame basis" to approximate the original configuration of the original camera negative at some time in the film's release cycle. In traditional photochemical restorations, image polarity considerations must be observed when recombining surviving materials and

6141-450: The last two decades universities globally began offering graduate degrees in film preservation and film archiving, which are often taught conjointly (the latter focusing more on skills related to the description, cataloguing, indexing and broadly speaking management of film and media collections). The recent years rapid incursion of digital technologies in the field has somewhat redefined the vocational scope of film preservation. In response,

6230-436: The longevity and access to digitized or digitally born film materials. On purely technical and practical terms, digital film preservation stands for a domain specific subset of digital curation practices. The aesthetic and ethical implications of the use of digital technology for film preservation are major subjects of debate. For instance, the senior curator of George Eastman House Paolo Cherchi Usai has decried

6319-549: The materials were expensive to house." Silent films had little or no commercial value after the advent of sound films in the 1930s, and as such, they were not kept. As a result, preserving the now-rare silent films has been proposed as a high priority amongst film historians . Because of the fragility of film stock , proper preservation of film usually involves storing the original negatives (if they have survived) and prints in climate-controlled facilities. The vast majority of films were not stored in this manner, which resulted in

6408-556: The onset, it was determined that if some films had to be preserved, then it would have to be all of them. In 1986, when Ted Turner acquired MGM's library (which by then had included Warner Bros. ' pre-1950, MGM's pre-May 1986, and a majority of the RKO Radio Pictures catalogs), he vowed to continue the preservation work MGM had started. Warner Bros. Discovery , the current owner of Turner Entertainment , continues this work today. The cause for film preservation came to

6497-439: The original film to make proper restorations and predictions. Cost is another obstacle. As of 2020, Martin Scorsese's non-profit The Film Foundation , dedicated to film preservation, estimates the average cost of photochemical restoration of a color feature with sound to be $ 80,000 to $ 450,000, with digital 2K or 4K restoration being "several hundred thousand dollars". The degrees of physical and chemical damage of film influence

6586-424: The originals have decomposed beyond use. Cellulose acetate film , which was the initial replacement for nitrate, has been found to suffer from " vinegar syndrome ". Polyester film base , which replaced acetate, also suffers from fading colors. Storage at carefully controlled low temperatures and low humidity can inhibit both color fading and the onset of vinegar syndrome. However, once degradation begins to occur,

6675-509: The restorer, and the economics of film restoration vs. digital restoration. As of 2014 , digital scanners can capture images as large as 65 mm in full resolution. That is the typical image size on a traditional (as opposed to the IMAX process) 70 mm film which used a portion of the film surface for its multitrack magnetic sound stripe. The cost of a 70 mm print of a two and a half hour film as of 2012 ran upwards of $ 170,000; while

6764-404: The sensor. Of course, having an intermediate digital stage, followed by forming a new film master by lasering the digital results onto new film stock does represent an extra generation. So would an intermediate film master that was restored frame-by-frame by hand. The choice of film vs. digital restoration will be driven by the amount, if any, of restoration required, the taste and skill set of

6853-412: The shift from analogue to digital preservation of film as ethically unacceptable, arguing, on philosophical terms, that the medium of film is an essential ontological precondition for the existence of cinema. In 2009, the senior curator of EYE Film Institute Netherlands Giovanna Fossati has discussed the use of digital technologies for the restoration and preservation of film in a more optimistic way as

6942-684: The twentieth century. The collection was stored for many decades in two large barrels following the winding-up of the firm, and was discovered in Blackburn in the early 1990s. The restored films now offer a unique social record of early 20th-century British life. Individual preservationists who have contributed to the cause include Robert A. Harris and James Katz ( Lawrence of Arabia , My Fair Lady , and several Alfred Hitchcock films), Michael Thau ( Superman ), and Kevin Brownlow ( Intolerance and Napoleon ). Other organizations, such as

7031-508: The video rights, but which were unavailable from the Criterion Collection; however, Criterion published the Classic Collection films. In 2005, Image Entertainment bought HVE making it the exclusive distributor of Criterion Collection products until 2013. The Criterion Collection began to provide video-on-demand (VOD) in partnership with Mubi (formerly The Auteurs ) in 2008. In February 2011, Criterion began switching its VOD offerings exclusively to Hulu Plus . In November 2016, FilmStruck ,

7120-409: The widespread decay of film stocks. The problem of film decay is not limited to films made on cellulose nitrate . Film industry researchers and specialists have found that color films (made using processes for Technicolor and its successors) are also decaying at an increasingly rapid rate. A number of well-known films only exist as copies of original film productions or exhibition elements because

7209-430: The year 3,000 and 4,000 A.D. may learn about us". Beginning in the 1970s, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , aware that the original negatives to many of its Golden Age films had been destroyed in a fire, began a preservation program to restore and preserve all of its films by using whatever negatives survived, or, in many cases, the next best available elements (whether it be a fine-grain master positive or mint archival print). From

7298-439: The years, their negatives and prints crumbled into powder or dust. Many of them were recycled for their silver content, or destroyed in studio or vault fires. The largest cause, however, was intentional destruction. As film preservationist Robert A. Harris explains, "Most of the early films did not survive because of wholesale junking by the studios. There was no thought of ever saving these films. They simply needed vault space and

7387-423: Was delayed for a year while restoration was underway on a then-newly-found camera negative). As with its laserdiscs, Criterion's early DVD editions of widescreen films were presented in the letterbox format, but Criterion did not anamorphically enhance its discs for 16:9 monitors until mid-1999 with its release of Insomnia (#47). Criterion was slow to expand into high-definition releases, partly because of

7476-685: Was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein , Aleen Stein and Joe Medjuck , who later were joined by Roger Smith. In 1985, the Steins, William Becker and Jonathan B. Turell founded the Voyager Company to publish educational multimedia CD-ROMs (1989–2000), and the Criterion Collection became a subordinate division of the Voyager Company, with Janus Films holding a minority stake in the company, and decided to expand its product on videocassettes and videodiscs. In March 1994, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH bought 20% of Voyager for US$ 6.7 million;

7565-662: Was from old newsreel and archive film and was obtained by Morrison from several sources, such as the George Eastman House , the archives of the Museum of Modern Art , and the Fox Movietone News film archives at the University of South Carolina . The preservation of film usually refers to physical storage of the film in a climate-controlled vault, and sometimes to the actual repair and copying of

7654-449: Was joined in this effort by fellow film makers who served on the foundation's board of directors— Woody Allen , Robert Altman , Francis Ford Coppola , Clint Eastwood , Stanley Kubrick , George Lucas , Sydney Pollack , Robert Redford , and Steven Spielberg . In 2006, Paul Thomas Anderson , Wes Anderson , Curtis Hanson , Peter Jackson , Ang Lee , and Alexander Payne were added to the board of directors of The Film Foundation, which

7743-817: Was not the result of an ongoing deal between Disney and Criterion, but rather licensed as a one-off, with Stanton approaching Criterion and "wanting to be part of the club". All Criterion titles are numbered, which is shown on the bottom of the spine of the packaging. Though the bulk of Criterion's catalog is of live-action films, they have also released animated films ( Akira , Fantastic Planet , Fantastic Mr. Fox and WALL-E ), television series ( Tanner '88 , Fishing with John and select episodes of I Love Lucy and The Addams Family ) and music videos ( Beastie Boys Video Anthology ). The Criterion Collection began publishing LaserDiscs on December 1, 1984, with its release of Citizen Kane , until March 16, 1999, with Michael Bay 's Armageddon (#384). Three of

7832-656: Was previously planned for Blu-ray and DVD release in October 2021, was delayed until November in order to also give the film an Ultra HD Blu-ray release. After forays in providing titles from the Collection as streaming video-on-demand (VOD) in partnership with other companies – Mubi (formerly The Auteurs , 2008), Hulu Plus (2011–2016) and TCM 's FilmStruck (2016–2018) – Criterion titles found themselves without an online home when FilmStruck announced it would be shutting down on November 29, 2018. The company stated in

7921-544: Was the debut of the scene-specific audio commentary contained in a separate analog channel of the LaserDisc, in which American film historian Ronald Haver spoke about the production, cast, screenplay, production design and special effects. He also provides commentary on the LaserDisc editions of Casablanca (1942), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Singin' in the Rain (1952) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). Typically,

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