The Delicate Art Of Film Restoration

“In a time of great divisions, conflicts and transformations, it’s really crucial to preserve and share our cultural patrimonies and ensure that this universal language will speak to future generations around the world.”   

These words of Martin Scorsese, one of the finest film directors of our times, not only emphasise the significance of preserving films for posterity but also address questions related to the essence of cinema. Are films the only means of temporal entertainment or mere documentation? What about their identity as ‘literary heirs’, as Sergei Eisenstein, the father of montage, once referred to them? As Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Amar Akbar Anthony is set to hit the screens at Rotterdam Film Festival in January, 2023, the preservation and restoration of films and their essence again take centrestage in the discourse of cinema.

The journey of Manmohan Desai’s classic from the archives to the silver screen would have been impossible without the tireless efforts and conviction of filmmaker and archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. The Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), founded by him in 2014, has been restoring Indian films that, as Dungarpur says, “are in danger of being forgotten or lost”. He has been collaborating with Scorsese’s Film Foundation to preserve the best of Indian classic cinema.

The success of their recent show ‘Bachchan: Back to the Beginning’, screening Amitabh Bachchan classics across 25 cinemas in 18 cities in the country, once again proved how the audience still connects to the big screen at a time when films are a click away. Was it the popularity of the ‘Angry Young Man’ that drew so many people to the show? Dungarpur says, “It was not only the films but also how we presented them that made the difference. We chose the title of the show and a poster design that immediately caught the attention of the public, both young and older.” Convinced that cinegoers would throng the theatres to watch classics, Dungarpur went ahead with his next retrospective titled ‘Dilip Kumar: Hero of Heroes’ to celebrate the iconic actor’s 100th birthday on December 11, 2022.

Speaking about his experience, Dungarpur tells Outlook,“There is a popular misconception that if a film is on YouTube, a hard disk or a pen drive, it can be projected in a cinema. This is far from true. Big-screen digital projection requires the films to be of a certain standard of quality and resolution and unfortunately many of Dilip Kumar’s films on existing digital formats do not meet these standards. Even though his films are available on 35-mm and 16-mm celluloid, the prints are in very poor condition.” This makes restoration and preservation of films a daunting task.

Since its inception, FHF has restored several films, which include Aravindan Govindan’s prominent works Kummatty and Thampu that have gained good traction among the audience. While talking about how he chooses films, the filmmaker says, “As a foundation, our approach to select films for restoration is to choose hidden gems, films in danger of being forgotten or lost.  Govindan’s films have been on top of the list not just because he is a master but one who I feel has not got the recognition he deserves and whose films are sadly not in circulation.”

Dungarpur’s romance with Indian cinema began at his maternal royal house where their personal projectionist Chandi Mistri “would show them 16-mm and 8-mm films of Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Danny Kaye, in the verandah of Bhojpur kothi”. Even before he came out with his first film, he had some idea of archiving and restoration of films. “In 2010, life took an unexpected turn. I was immersed in the world of filmmaking with a flourishing career when I read an interview with Scorsese where he spoke about the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna dedicated to restored films,” says the film archivist, who studied filmmaking at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, prodded by none other than poet and filmmaker Gulzar.

It was in Bologna that he got connected to Scorsese’s foundation. In fact, they had been trying to get the reels of the film Kalpana (1948) directed by Uday Shankar out of India for restoration for almost three years. Dungarpur promised help and it worked. “The restored film was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012 and I was invited to walk the red carpet with Amala, Shankar’s wife and the star of the film,” says Dungarpur. Some years later, he worked on the restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent film The Lodger, in response to a campaign launched by the British Film Institute called ‘Rescue the Hitchcock 9’ to raise funds to restore Hitchcock’s nine silent films. His passion to archive and restore the lost glory of films was reflected in his first documentary Celluloid Man, which tells the story of film archivist P.K. Nair, founder and director of the National Film Archive of India. His collaboration with different global organisations for the restoration of films went on unabated despite limited funding. His foundation currently has a “collection of rare film-related memorabilia and artefacts including cameras, 15,000 film posters, 30,000 film stills, 10,000 photo negatives, 5,000 lobby cards, 6,000 song booklets, 15,000 newspaper articles and magazines dating back to the early days of cinema covering both Hindi and regional film industries”. Dungarpur adds, “This collection is in the process of being documented and is stored in archival storage conditions under the care of an expert conservator.”

However, can the restoration process keep the ‘aura’ of the film intact? The maker of Immortal explains, “It involves not only the repair of physical damage or deterioration of the film but also takes into account the intent of the original creator, the artistic integrity, accuracy and completeness of the film. It involves complex, exacting processes including research, selection, repairing and cleaning, using various photochemical and digital techniques for repairing the image and creating the new ones.” It is essential to study the contextual history of production and understand the filmmaker’s vision through different available sources like “scripts, director’s notes or diaries, posters, lobby cards, song booklets, shot breakdowns” to plug in the gaps that might affect the essence of the original.

For this monumental task—ranging from finding the original film prints to preservation in appropriate climate—one needs a dedicated and trained force. To train more and more people, FHF has been conducting annual intensive week-long film preservation and restoration workshops in different cities across the country. Notably, the participation is not only limited to India. People from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangla- desh, Bhutan, Burma and Afghanistan also join in large numbers. These workshops are recognised by the International Federation of Film Archives and sponsored by the Tata Trust. Over the past 7 years, the foundation has introduced more than “300 individuals to the best practices of film preservation and restoration”.

His next project is to restore four Bimal Roy classics, Do Bigha Zamin, Devdas, Madhumati and Bandini. Apart from that, they are working on restoration of Aribam Syam Sharma’s moving Manipuri film Ishanou (1990) and the poignant Odia film Maya Miriga (1984) directed by Nirad N. Mohapatra. “Once again these are rare gems that I know if we do not restore are in danger of being lost forever,” he adds. Preservation of a film as a language needs the sustenance of its scripts. Dungarpur is redefining cinema as a medium of temporal entertainment. He is among those few people who are restoring cinematic glory with their labour of love. 

(This appeared in the print edition as "Restoring Cinematic Glory")