The restoration of Fritz Lang’s “Destiny” (1921) #CinemaRitrovato

July 4, 2016

The restoration of Fritz Lang's "Destiny" (1921) #CinemaRitrovato fredfilmradio

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Anke Wilkening, restorer at Murnau-Stiftung on the restoration of Destiny (Der müde Tod) by Fritz Lang, screened at the 2016 Il Cinema Ritrovato.

Destiny (original title Der müde Tod) is arguably Fritz Lang’s greatest early masterpiece as well as one that influenced the life and career of such celebrated names as Luis Bunuel and Alfred Hitchcock. Recently, the film has been recently digitally restored by Murnau-Stiftung, and we caught up with restorer Anke Wilkening to talk about it during Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, where the film was screened. Aside from the insight on the process of restoration and digitisation, a vital part of this restored version of

Aside from the insight on the process of restoration and digitisation, a vital part of this restored version of Destiny was its colorization. This version of the film is, in fact, colorized from a pre-existing black and white version, which was the only existing one for decades. Now, the film is seen in a version that aims to reproduce something close to what was originally intended, and in order to achieve this, old techniques of tinting and colour treatment were employed.

Our interview with Wilkening is one of our first interviews providing insight on film restoration, but also one of the first appearances by a representative of Murnau-Stiftung on our programming. We took the opportunity to talk bout its institution, its future restoration projects (restoration being part of the preservation program) and its criteria in selecting films to be restored.

For more information on Murnau-Stiftung, go to http://www.murnau-stiftung.de/

Written by: fredfilmradio

Anke Wilkening Destiny film restoration Fritz Lang Matt Micucci Murnau-Stiftung