The Material History of a Nitrate Film, Part 1: Exhibition - Text 5
The first frame enlargement (a) of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis reproduced here is taken from a 35mm nitrate positive print of first generation. The second frame enlargement (b) is from a 35mm triacetate print of unknown generation, possibly the third, made in 1987. The last frame enlargement (c) shows the same frame as it appears in a 16mm print made in 1954. The difference between the first and the last in the series is palpable. It is impossible to tell how many generations came before the reduction copy: it can take many of them – or just a single careless printing job, such as the one shown in the next figure – to turn the picture into such a poor surrogate of the prints in the top rank of the genealogy tree, a far cry from what Metropolis was in 1927. On the other hand, there is not much visible difference between (b) and (c), in that the title card is barely readable in both; the 35mm’s coarseness and contrast are surprising for a print that should, in theory, look much better than a 16mm duplicate. There are at least two possible reasons for this. First, the processing of the 35mm copy may have been less than adequate; second, the 16mm print may have been struck from an earlier source than that used for the 1987 35mm positive.
