Lack of resources hits film restoration: Robin Baker

Head curator for British Film Institute’s (BFI) National Film Archive, Robin Baker, driving force behind the restoration programme, which breathed new life into nine silent Hitchcock classics is at the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF 2014), with some painstakingly restored classics from British India. dna’s Yogesh Pawar caught up with the curator for a discussion. Excerpts:

The rare film, restored by BFI Archives, Before Midnight: A Portrait of India, on Film, 1899-1947, had the honour of opening MIFF 2014.
Yes it was quite an honour. Even when being put together we were excited to see how the British audiences would react to the film. But nothing quite prepares you for the almost organic connect that the Indian audiences reactions to visuals of the Ganges banks at Varanasi filmed in 1897, the Royal Durbar of 1903, a gubernatorial visit to a girls’ school near Ahmedabad, where they perform with pom-poms, the birthday procession of a maharaja from 1908. I’d spent six months in Dehradun volunteering with a charity in 1999. When I later came upon a film at BFI, which had been shot at the Paltan Bazar in 1930, it was amazing how much I could remember about every nook, corner and turn from my own walks there. I can imagine then how this must feel to Indian audiences.

You have also brought along another film, which is truly epic.
Indeed. This restoration marked of one of the most extraordinary films in the BFI National Archive — The Epic of Everest (1924), which documents the legendary expedition that culminated in the deaths of British climbers Mallory and Irvine. Filmed in brutally harsh conditions, captain Noel has captured images of quite breathtaking beauty. I am excited to see how the audiences here receive this tale of human courage.

You were mentioning a film you regret not getting along.
Oh yes, that would have been brilliant since it’s been shot in what was then Bombay in the early 1950s. What looks like a behind-the-scenes film from the sets of Parineeta with Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari is actually an ad for foam mattresses and has the heroine using her hennaed hands to tap the mattress vouching that its moth and vermin free.

While the films from that British era looked at Indian subjects with a colonial gaze, do you feel much has changed in the way the West looks at India?
It is true that there is a tendency to exoticise anything east of France. Right from the choice of subjects, to the angle at which it is shot and the music used everything is made to look exotic and different. While it is often sought to be brushed off with the argument that the normal would be too mundane and boring, I don’t think personally that that can be any excuse. This is why restoring these works and taking them back to viewers is important. Restoration, after all, not only transforms the look of the film but also changes the way the audience sees it.  

How many films does BFI have in its collection and how many of these are restored?
The BFI has over a million films in its collection. Of these, we have been able to restore barely one per cent of them. This is nothing to do with lack of desire but of resources. Each of these films can cost nearly £80,000 to restore.

It costs that much!
Yes it does. I know it’s become common for people to call anything ‘digitally restored’ these days. That is simply putting your footage into a machine and hitting a button. I wouldn’t call that restoration. We go back to the negative of the film. If that is not available, then BFI borrows as many existing prints as possible to put together the restored film after tallying them against each other frame by frame. I have to hence prioritise and decide which ones will have maximum outreach with audiences and restore them.

What was the high-point of your time at the BFI National Archives?
Everyone at the archive is hugely proud of our restoration work on Hitchcock’s silent feature films and their success with new audiences. Hitchcock aside, my career highlight was back in 1999, when I devised and organised the world’s first ever Singalonga Sound of Music with Briony Hanson (now the British Council’s Director of Film). It’s great to think that we gave the world drag queens dressed in old curtains and the sweet sound of communal singing in Latin.

India has censorship and the authorities don’t want audiences to see some work. Have you ever encountered that?
Only once. With an unnamed Ken Loach film, which was funded by Save The Children Fund (STCF), did we face a ban. Shot in Kenya, Loach concentrated on showing the unfairness of Kenyan schoolchildren forced to dress and shod like British children and the problems that created. When it was completed STCF found it embarrassing and wanted it burned. BFI was given a print with an understanding that it would never be shown. Yet when we had a Ken Loach retrospective in 1970, we got STCF to agree for it to be screened. I feel even if a work involves extreme nudity like Ai No Corrida no one has a right to decide whether it should be watched or not.