From: charlotte lipman (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Sep 04 2008 - 23:17:11 PDT
Hello there -
Some more on FUSES.
Los Angeles Film Forum showed the restored FUSES at a James Tenney tribute
last year and it indeed looks extraordinary.
Then, a few months ago Carolee came to UCLA & showed a video version which
she said had additional footage. I couldn't tell, as it looked terrible in
comparison with the print I'd seen several months before. Yet Carolee
claimed the video version was the best available--superior to anything else
in both content and quality--and what she preferred to show.
At drinks after the screening I mentioned the Anthology print, and she
seemed interested but not entirely clear about any distinctions or
relationship between it and the restoration. (Perhaps someone on the list
can shed some light on this?) Regardless, Carolee basically seemed pretty
sold on the video.
More fuel for the fire. Burn, fuses, burn.
RL
\\ Andy
A fast note as I'm on vacation...
I haven't looked at the Coop site so had not noticed this listing. The
"newly restored" version does not have added footage. The film is projected
at 18fps, which may cause some confusion. I will talk to Serra about it when
I'm back.
Otherwise, the difference is that the new negative was made directly from
the collage 16mm original. In the 60s, Carolee had trouble printing the
movie from the spliced, painted reversal original because of it's fragile
shape and the erotic/pornographic content. A1 lab in NYC (r.i.p.) made a
contact reversal from the spliced original. Carolee then duped this and
step-printed certain sections to stretch them out. She made some more
reversal prints from this and eventually an internegative. So, the old
prints were all many generations away from the original. We (Anthology) used
the spliced original to make the new internegative and avoided all those
generational steps. By doing so the image is sharper and less contrasty
while the colors are far more vibrant. The new print, which was made in
close consultation with Carolee, matches the colors and textures of the
spliced original much moreso than the softness and darkness of previous
prints. It really is wonderful.
A.
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