I thought I'd bring this to your attention as some of you might find it interesting.
The Australian Cinémathèque in Brisbane recently had a huge Orson Welles retrospect, which ran throughout April and May this year. The programme screened all of Welles' films, in addition to a number of documentaries about him as well as pictures which he starred in. I thought I'd post my impressions of it as the retrospect contained some of the finest prints and restorations I'd seen of his work, which was very refreshing considering the poor state of a lot of his material. On the website, which I linked to above, there's a bunch of information about each of the films included the format they were screened in (16/35/DCP) and, perhaps more importantly, where the prints were sourced from -- something I found particularly interesting.
I managed to make it to about a dozen of the films. Here's a bit of a report on what the film was screened on and how it looked and sounded.
Hearts of Age + Too Much Johnson (with live musical accompaniment)
Hearts of Age was a 16mm print. The film looked just as expected -- which is to say quite average. Too Much Johnson, which played on 35mm, looked absolutely exceptional. I'd heard the restoration was good but I didn't expect it to look this good. The live Wurlitzer organ accompaniment certainly didn't hurt either.
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons played on 35mm. It looked a hell of a lot better than I've ever seen it. The print was sharp and had a lot of depth to it. It wasn't perfect, as it had certainly seen some use, but like I said, it was the best I'd seen it. Sadly, it was still only 88 minutes long.
Journey into Fear
Despite what it says on the website, Journey ended up being shown on a 16mm print from the Australian National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA), due to some messy rights issues. The film sadly looked awful. The print was so soft it became hard to discern which characters were which. The sound unfortunately wasn't any better.
It's All True: Based on the Unfinished film by Orson Welles
It's All True looked fantastic on 35mm. Again, the print had clearly been preserved very well and was magnificently sharp.
Jane Eyre
There were actually two prints of Jane Eyre (one for each screening). I was lucky enough to attend the session which played a 35mm print from Fox itself. The restored print was glorious and without a doubt the finest print of the entire programme. It looked like everything you could ever want from a restored print: it was sharp, had magnificent contrast and a glorious amount of grain.
Othello
Based on the 1992 "restoration", this 35mm archival print from the NFSA looked terrible. The print was soft and lacked any form of depth. Meanwhile, the sound was even worse. Any DVD version you have would have, sadly, looked better.
Fountain of Youth + 1960 Paris Interview with Welles
I wasn't originally going to see the Fountain of Youth, but I did so at the urge of the curator, who apparently had to bend over backwards to get it. Fountain ended up screening on Beta (if I recall) and, whilst not amazing, did look better than I'd ever seen it (which in the past had only been on YouTube).
Moby Dick
Moby Dick was interesting. They played it simultaneously in two separate theatres. In one cinema, on Beta, the other, 16mm. They gave audience members a choice on which one to see it on, as the 16mm print they received was in poor condition. Regrettably, they were right (it looked dreadful). I ended up watching the digital copy which looked a bit better -- although not great.
Compulsion
Compulsion played with a restored 35mm print. It looked amazing, and right up there with Jane Eyre as one of the best of the programme.
The Trial
The Trial played on 35mm and like Ambersons, looked better than I'd ever seen it (and that includes the new Blu-Ray release from Studio Canal). The film looked amazing and sounded even better. I was very pleasantly surprised.
Chimes at Midnight
This one surprised me the most. The version of Chimes at Midnight they had was the new restoration (I didn't even know the film had a restoration!). Unlike all the other film's here, it was a DCP instead of a film print. Despite this, Chimes looked amazing. Really. It's no surprise that it blew any DVD edition out of the water. The DCP actually looked really good, too, as it maintained a nice amount of grain. I really can't stress enough how surprised I was about this. Whoever did the restoration did a great job, as the film looked incredibly sharp and with a beautiful amount of depth. It also didn't look like any of the edges had been cropped (which again was a nice change from DVDs of the film). Regretably, the same cant be said about the sound. Granted, it sounded better than I'd heard it in the past, but it still had many of the same issues of poorly recorded sound that we've become familiar about with Chimes. At least the sound was in sync, though!
All in all, it was a fantastic programme -- my only regret being that I didn't see more films!
