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EXE NOUVELLE VAGUE:EXE LES VACANCES 23/04/09 14:47 Page 48The restoration of Mr Hulot’s Holiday…Why restore Mr Hulot’s Holiday?Over the years, exhibition prints have circulated widely, theinternegatives and intermediate elements have been worn byexcessive printings. Apart from the restoration of Mr Hulot’sHoliday, the aim of this project is to produce preservationmaster elements for long-term conservation and to make thefilm available to the widest possible audience in high-qualityrelease prints.The restored version of Mr Hulot’s Holiday reflects the pictureand sound as Jacques Tati conceived them.The different versions ofMr. Hulot’s HolidayIn 1951, Jacques Tati began the shooting of Mr Hulot’s Holiday,his second feature film, two years after Jour de Fête. Refusingto take the easy way out and despite the success ofhis first film, Tati decided not to bring back his comic hero, thepostman, despite the character’s popularity. Thus was bornthe distracted Monsieur Hulot, in 1951, who would quicklyenjoy an international success. Over the years, however, Tatire-edited his film for three major commercial re-releases. Thefilm was first released in 1953. Then, in the early 60s, Tatire-edited the film, cutting out shots and extending others. Hehad Alain Romans’ score re-orchestrated and overhauledthe music and sound mixing. It was at this point that healso added the final color shot of the stamp and postmark,indicating the postman’s invisible hand. Later, in 1977, a delightednew generation discovered the film. Encouraged bythis new success and inspired by Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, Tatishot new footage on the beach at St-Marc-sur-Mer, which hethen cut into the last version in 1978.The restoration ofMr. Hulot’s HolidayLooking for elementsThe first step consisted in tracking down all the necessaryelements for the film’s restoration. These were assembled atthe Cinémathèque française, which allowed us to identifythe different sources available and conduct an initial analysisof their physical condition. This research also provided theoccasion to catalogue the combined nitrate dupe negative(image and sound) – sole printing element of the first version– and to identify an incomplete “lavender” (fine grain interpositive)predating to the first release version, which containeda previously unseen sequence. This scene takes place in thehotel lobby where a fisherman is explaining to some vacatio-48
EXE NOUVELLE VAGUE:EXE LES VACANCES 23/04/09 14:47 Page 49ners how he made his most recent catch. At the end of theshot, the camera moves down for a closeup of two ridiculouslytiny fish, which discredit the fisherman’s account. It’s the onlyverbal gag in the film, which may explain why he removed itfrom the initial cut.The camera negativeFortunately, the restoration of Mr Hulot’s Holiday was madepossible thanks to the availability of the film’s master element:the camera negative. In the wake of the film’s various versionsand the addition of the visual effects, the camera negative –a blend of mostly nitrate film stock and acetate film stock –endured re-cutting and re-splicing in the course of a creativeprocess covering more than 25 years.Feared because of its highly flammable nature, nitrate filmstock (nitrocellulose) was used from the origins of motionpictures in the late 1890s until the mid 1950s when itstopped being manufactured. Mr Hulot’s Holiday was madeduring this historic transitional period. Unfortunately, inFrance, it is against the law to project nitrate film prints butin the United States, a handful of film archives still offer thepossibility of seeing them on the cinema screen.Few people today can claim to have enjoyed the actual sensoryexperience of a nitrate film print – its singular textureand the warmth of its pictures! Yet apart from its excellentphysical properties, one of the major qualities of nitrate filmresides in its photographic capacities, its luminosity and richvisual quality.The restoration: objectives and challenges• The imageIn order to protect the camera negative, it was crucial tohave it restored manually by the Preservation Department ofTechnicolor North Hollywood. Their expertise revealed howthe negative was riddled with splices as well as a multiplegrading notches on the edges of the film, which made itdifficult to put it through the printer. To cope with thesetechnical defects, a contact printer was calibrated andadjusted so as to stabilize the image in the gate during itsprinting.The interpositive made, it was scanned to assemble thecomplete cut of the film with the addition of the openingcredits and the insertion of the final shot, the only colorshot. Documentation and analysis of available sources showedhow there were different versions possible for this final shot(appearance of stamps and postmarks, one after the other orsimultaneously, montage with or without fade to black). Theaccounts of Pierre Etaix in particular contributed to definingthe appropriate sequence. This element was in poor condition,making it impossible to include it in the final cut. Only digitaltools allowed us to recreate this shot punctuated by a fadeand to reproduce the stamp’s original sheen. All the digitalwork was done and supervised by Tom Burton at TechnicolorDigital Services in Burbank, California, one of the labs capableof carrying out this kind of complex restoration, equippedas it is with high-performance digital platforms to deal withspecific film damage.It was indeed this question of balance between photochemicaland digital procedures that had to be dealt with.In the case of Mr Hulot’s Holiday, a major part of the restorationinvolved the improvement or toning down of the transitionsbetween shots. Physically, these transitions are consistent withthe editing splices which, when printed and scanned, sometimescreated distortions in the image or splice bumps. As forthe fades to black, the digital tool certainly helped improvethe smoothness of these effects which facilitated the narrativeflow of the film.Morever, the restoration of Mr Hulot’s Holiday reconstitutedthe panchromatic harmony of the colors of summer.The nitrate base of the picture negative played a dominantrole in preserving the original tones of the black and whitemovie. The grading by Tim Peeler, a master in matters of blackand white movies, allowed us to restore the rich range ofgrays that illuminate Mr Hulot’s summer days at the seaside.• The soundThe restoration of the soundtrack allowed us to bring backthe entire sound range and rhythmic accents of Mr Hulot’sHoliday. Early in 1953, Tati began the sound editing of his filmwhose effects would become inseparable from his picturesque49
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Dossier de Presse - Fondation Groupama Gan pour le CinÃ©ma

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