The George Eastman Museum will preserve three rare, endangered nitrate feature films using funds from a more than $70,000 grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.
The 35mm prints of The Country Beyond and The Millionaire Vagrant likely are the only versions of the films that exist, museum officials said in a statement this week. The single reel from The Gold Rush, starring Charlie Chaplin, is the only material for the legendary film that survives with the original tinting.
Due to nitrate decomposition in each of the three films, it is the last chance to save the unique prints.
A fourth nitrate film in the Eastman Museum collection, The Oath of the Sword, will be preserved under a separate NFPF grant awarded to the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). The JANM will work in collaboration with the Eastman Museum to preserve this silent film made in the U.S. with an all-Japanese cast. Historians consider it the first Asian American motion picture.
The films are fragile and while decomposition is present in them, they are still viable for photochemical film preservation, and ultimately, digital access. The grant funds will be used for laboratory preservation work at Cinema Arts Laboratory in Newfoundland, Pa., and at Eastman Museum Film Preservation Services in Rochester, including 4K digital scanning and creating a new 35mm negative, a 35mm print and a DCP version of each film.
Upon completion of the project, the films will be available in 35mm prints and digital copies for both research and public screenings through the museum. The project will be overseen by Anthony L’Abbate, preservation manager at the George Eastman Museum.
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