Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon Arts & Entertainment

"The Bitch Is Back"
Exclusive: Secret production notes for "Blair Witch Project" sequel revealed.
By Jeff Stark
[02/09/00]

The other man on the moon
From Letterman sidekick to "Get a Life" to, um, Dogbert, Chris Elliott -- a true alt-comedy innovator who might be funnier than Andy Kaufman -- just can't get no respect.
By Connell Barrett
[02/08/00]

Column
Nights of the living dead
"Homicide: The Movie" brings the canceled, classic cop show back for a final bow; "Mary and Rhoda": Do not resuscitate.
By Joyce Millman
[02/07/00]

Movie Review
"Scream 3"
The final installment of Wes Craven's trilogy may be too wrapped up in its own cleverness, but it's still a fond farewell.
By Andrew O'Hehir
[02/04/00]

Movie Review
"Simpatico"
Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges lead this adaptation of Sam Shepard's play about broken promises, not-quite-abandoned dreams and silky smooth corruption.
By Charles Taylor
[02/04/00]

Complete archives for Arts & Entertainment

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

As with "Vertigo," the major stumbling block for the restoration was Hitchcock's ill-advised junking of most of the materials crucial to striking quality copies when rights reverted back to him in 1967. For Katz, the key to making this restoration work visually was the use of Technicolor's new dye-transfer technology, an update of the venerable (and venerated) process that used metal dyes washed over three matrices to create color of unparalleled vibrancy. As Katz says, "To get the feeling of the Miss Lonelyhearts part of the story you've got to see her posing in her green suit and red lipstick against her purple walls."

To clarify the techniques behind the Harris and Katz revamping of "Rear Window," I contacted Harris at his home in Bedford, N.Y. He told me that past releases had lost "quite a bit" of background to fading, in the rooms and in the bar across the alley, and that "an overall loss of contrast" also blunted the impression of sharpness. The dye-transfer process helped them "create an illusion of more sharpness," even when "there really isn't any more. At the same time it does add a great amount of depth to the picture -- rather like (and this may be a bad analogy) a really great paint job on a car, i.e., 14 coats of hand-rubbed lacquer on a Rolls. The paint takes on a depth that makes it look as if you can stick your hand in it."

Michael Sragow Michael Sragow's column appears every Thursday in Arts & Entertainment + Archives

The dye-transfer process fit this film in particular, Harris said, because "one of the things that sets 'Rear Window' apart from some of Hitch's later films is that in many ways the color schemes hark back to the three-strip Technicolor days (even though it was shot on the earliest incarnation of Eastman stock). This is most readily seen in the sunsets." But it also registers in the look of the players, from the deep-blond beauty of Kelly to the surprisingly dapper appearance of Wendell Corey as Stewart's police-detective friend, who now makes a spectacular entrance with his black tie, white shirt and blue eyes. "I'm glad you noticed," Harris said. "Early on, when we were having problems, his tie would have green fringe on one side and magenta on the other."

Imagining what morning, noon and night would look like in the studio world of "Rear Window" was, to Harris, "Easy. Well, almost." The few original 1954 prints they had were "faded to total magenta," but he and Katz were able to use them "to discern relative contrasts and the comparison of light vs. dark. Based upon a faded scene, we could still calculate comparatively how much lighter or darker one scene is compared to the next."

For color, they also had a number of dye-transfer prints made for a 1962 reissue, "and even through the beige look of the reissue, one could get quite a good idea where the director of photography was going." Using these same 1954 and 1962 materials, they judged just how far to shove Stewart into the darkness in his peeping-tom scenes. Harris said that if they could have employed dye transfer in "Vertigo" (the process was revived two years ago), they could have made the controversial murky climax murkier and still preserved details of the figures left in shadows.

In the new prints, Hitchcock buffs will appreciate how crucial his sophisticated audio effects become to our ecstatic enjoyment of "Rear Window." The direction of each scream, thud, song or bark is clear -- and so, amazingly, is the length it travels. The few frenzied farragoes of growling and whimpering get fuzzier as they echo up and down the courtyards. Closed windows mute or seal off noise. And throughout, there's an artful array of audio graffiti and music emanating from streets and apartments. It's nothing like the wall of sound you get at today's thrillers: it's more like aural pointillism.

How difficult was the sound restoration? Harris said, "Oh boy! As in 'Porgy and Bess,' we had plenty o' nothin'." The elements that had been saved -- including the 35 mm optical track negative, which was used to print the track to 389 release prints in 1954, as well as other prints "into the early '70s" -- turned out to be "junk." All Harris and Katz had to go on "were used 35 mm prints."

What was worse, said Harris, "We found that the track negative made in '54 had been produced defectively. You've seen 35 mm tracks ... two clear impulses against black. On 'Rear Window,' the inboard impulse was out of focus and narrow, which acted to mute and distort the sound. Therefore, all of the sound was taken from the outboard impulse of a number of different prints, all of which had wear. The fact that sound has survived, even after being digitized and cleaned, is a tribute to the superb recording that was done by Paramount in 1954. Remember this was a Paramount -- not a Universal -- production." (Universal is re-releasing the film under the aegis of USA Films.)

Next page | Saving "The Kiss" -- the haunting, erotic shot when Kelly sweeps in and plants one on Stewart