TIFF honours doc master Allan King
Open Vault screens restored classic
Last Updated: Friday, September 10, 2010 | 11:59 AM ET
By Jessica Wong, CBC News
Allan King, pictured at his Toronto home, died in June 2009. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)A little more than a year after his death, celebrated documentarian Allan King is being honoured at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, with a re-struck, high-definition version of his landmark documentary A Married Couple featured as this year's Canadian Open Vault title.
Released in 1969, the film charts the tumultuous relationship of a Toronto couple, Billy and Antoinette Edwards, amid the general societal upheaval of the 1960s.
A Married Couple and the Vancouver-born filmmaker's equally acclaimed Warrendale helped shape the documentary genre and cement his reputation on the international stage. King is also being honoured this month with The Actuality Dramas of Allan King — a new, five-disc series from respected video distributor Criterion.
CBC News talked to Steve Gravestock, TIFF's associate director of Canadian programming and a speaker at King's memorial, about what went into restoring the cinéma-vérité classic, which is also being honoured with a new University of Toronto Press monograph written by academic Zoe Druick.
Q: Did you have any challenges in finding a print to work from?
A: It was more finding an adequate copy to work off of. We found an older 35 mm print, but we also went through A and B rolls, 16-mm stuff. We were helped out by the National Archives and, of course, Allan King Films.
The print was a little on the faded side. … Technicolour [a post production film lab] went through the print, cleaned it repeatedly and then went through a number of processes to recapture the colour of the original film … . I think they've done a really good job of. In fact, an incredible job.
Q: Is HD the restoration format of choice now?
A: There's still a difference between high-def and 35 mm. … Film is a slightly warmer medium than videotape, though in the last couple of years it gets harder and harder to tell.
A new 35-mm print is still glorious. We still try to stick with 35 mm if we can. But HD certainly does open windows, especially [in] preservation, because you have a good copy and you don't have to send out your master. You can get it cloned and there's not much deterioration from the master to the clone. A digital format means you can distribute more quickly and efficiently and cheaply. … It solves the issue of accessibility … [and] ultimately, this is a key issue with Canadian film: the issue of accessibility.
A Married Couple screens at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday afternoon. TIFF continues through Sept. 19.
A restored version of cinéma-vérité master Allan King's 1969 documentary A Married Couple, which tracks the collapse of a middle-class couple's relationship, is the featured film of the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival's Open Vault Program. (TIFF)
